Melvin Carter will be the next mayor of St. Paul, scoring a definitive and unexpectedly early win in what many had predicted would be a close race Tuesday night.
Carter, who is black, will be the city's first mayor of color. He secured the more than 50 percent of votes needed to win the ranked-choice race in the first round of voting, and emerged from a fiercely competitive field of 10 candidates in the city's first open mayor's race in 12 years.
"I'm thrilled. I'm elated. I'm humbled," Carter, 38, told a crowd of more than 200 supporters Tuesday night.
Carter, a former City Council member and executive director of Gov. Mark Dayton's Children's Cabinet, campaigned on promises of reducing educational and employment disparities and improving police-community relations. He has been a strong proponent of denser development and transit.
He celebrated the win at Union Depot in Lowertown, in a room dedicated to the Red Caps, a group of black baggage handlers. Carter's grandfather was a Red Cap.
Toni Carter, Melvin Carter's mother and a Ramsey County commissioner, was in the crowd. She said her son was driven by an intense desire to get to know St. Paul and has an ability to help connect people.
Carter started campaigning nearly a year before the other candidates, and said Tuesday night he spent that year hearing voters' visions for St. Paul.
"We've built what I'm excited to say is a big, bold, bad vision for the future of St. Paul," he told supporters.