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Primary Election Day underway in Cleveland Mayor's race

Posted at 6:28 AM, Sep 12, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-12 06:35:15-04

Voters in Cleveland and several other communities will be heading to the polls today for non-partisan primaries. 

Most notable for Cleveland is the race for mayor that finds incumbent Frank Jackson facing eight challengers in his historic quest for another term.
 

Those challengers in alphabetical order are Eric Brewer, Brandon Chrostowski, Jeff Johnson, Robert Kilo, Tony Madalone, Bill Patmon, Zack Reed and Dyrone Smith.
 

In 2013 Jackson's sole opponent was Businessman Ken Lanci so since only the top two vote getters move forward to the November election a primary wasn't held.
 

In 2009 Jackson pulled 71 percent of the primary votes with Bill Patmon and Robert Kilo (who are both running this year as well) placing second and third with 11 and 10 percent of the vote but with only 412 votes being the difference for Patmon moving forward.
 

In Jackson's first mayoral primary in 2005 he bested incumbent Mayor Jane Campbell by 10,000 votes on his way to his first General Election win.
 

Because the goal of those challenging Jackson is to make the November runoff those vying for the seat will seek to focus their efforts on turning out the vote where they're strongest turning this city wide race into multiple races in individual neighborhoods.
 

"So some neighborhoods where you have a lot of political activism, you have ward clubs, you have very active Democratic leaders, you're going to see a lot of activities in those primaries," said News 5 Political Analyst Dr. Tom Sutton of Baldwin Wallace University.
 

"You've got basically the political dynamics of a lot of newcomers like Brandon Chrostowski, Tony Madalone who are trying to break in but don't really have the political networks and then you have the veterans like Councilman Jeff Johnson and Councilman Zack Reed who are trying to work their networks to try to get into what will likely be that number two spot after Frank Jackson who for all intents and purposes will likely get the number two spot," Sutton said.

Find your polling location here.