Lori Lightfoot will be the highest-ranking LGBTI mayor in American history after she won elections by a landslide

Lori Lightfoot made history in Chicago on Tuesday (2 April) when she won mayoral elections by a landslide. She became the city’s first black female mayor and the US’s highest-ranking LGBTI mayor.

Lightfoot, a lawyer and rights activist, overwhelmingly beat her adversary longtime politician Toni Preckwinkle.

She won all of Chicago’s 50 wards. The self-declared ‘out and proud black lesbian’ will be sworn in on 20 May.

Lightfoot said it was the beginning of a ‘city reborn’.

She said little boys and girls were seeing the beginning of something a ‘little bit different’, ‘where it doesn’t matter who you love’.

‘Every child out there should know this: Each of you, one day, can be the Mayor of Chicago’ she said.

Lori Lightfoot, her wife Amy and their daughter Vivian