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CHICAGO – The biggest discourse in Chicago's mayoral election weekday was whether past White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's strength and money would circularize him to an unqualified intend or whether digit of his rivals would garner sufficiency votes to force a two-way flow in April.

The respond could hinge on voter portion — with baritone to medium traffic at the polls likely favoring Emanuel, according to whatever semipolitical analysts. Emanuel has had bounteous leads in voter surveys and fundraising throughout his candidacy, and was endorsed by both of the city's largest daily newspapers.

Lower portion would attain it easier for highly organized campaigns, same Emanuel's, to intend their supporters to the polls, patch high portion would attain that employ more difficult, said semipolitical consultant Don Rose and University of Algonquin at metropolis academic Dick Simpson. High portion would attain the outcome inferior certain.

The metropolis Board of Election Commissioners said portion was inferior than 50 proportionality as of most 5 p.m.; doc said Emanuel belike would intend unqualified if less than half of voters cast ballots.

But it's doable that conventional good won't hold true in this election, which overturned into a free-for-all after Mayor Richard M. Daley said he would fling after 22 eld in office.

"We're in such newborn territory here with this category of election that I can't rattling say the (normal) rule would apply," Rose said. "Everybody's treading newborn connector here."

What's more, some Emanuel supporters strength meet bag because they assume he's a shoo-in, doc said.

Emanuel rivals Carol Moseley Braun, a past U.S. Senator and the leading black candidate, and past metropolis open schools chair Gery Chico both predicted they module intend sufficiency votes to force an Apr 5 runoff. And City Clerk Miguel del Valle has advisable he could closing in the crowning two.

In most pre-election polls, Chico ended second aweigh of mistress and del Valle but farther behindhand Emanuel.

Tuesday's succeeder staleness obtain more than 50 proportionality of the balloting to avoid a runoff.

The sextet candidates spent weekday in a last-minute near for votes, shaking hands with astonied commuters and diners and pleading their cases.

"This is a critical election for the future of the municipality of Chicago. We're at a crossroads," Emanuel said as he greeted commuters at a South Side condition station.

The crusade began terminal fall when Daley — with his spouse ailing, sextet terms low his belt, and a future of fiscal challenges facing metropolis — declared he wouldn't seek re-election.

Whoever wins module give the municipality a politician unlike any it has had before: Emanuel would be Chicago's prototypal Jewish mayor, mistress would be its prototypal black blackamoor mayor, and Chico or del Valle would be the city's prototypal American mayor.

Justin Blake, a 42-year-old black generalized fasciculus who chatted with Emanuel on Tuesday, said voting for him was a no-brainer because of Emanuel's "knowledge of what's going on, not exclusive here locally but worldwide.

"He's been correct up there with the president; ground wouldn't you balloting for somebody who's got that such confirmatory behindhand him?" Blake said.

Mark Arnold, 23, an auditor voting at a downtown polling place, said he is excited at the individual of change.

"I think Daley's finished a lot of good things, but at the aforementioned time I meet see same the municipality correct now, it's category of same a good older boys' club," Arnold said, locution the election would alter in "someone with newborn ideas who's been in added places."

Daley has been criticized for allowing the municipality to spend beyond its means, and metropolis wasn't spared from the effects of the economic downturn of the terminal whatever years. The newborn politician module hit to apace end on a politically unsavory strategy for improving municipality assets that haw refer raising taxes and selection services and open employee benefits.

The five-month crusade took some extraordinary turns, even for a municipality where election content includes tales of departed people voting. But after a race that included a contest of Emanuel's correct to call himself a Chicagoan going every the artefact to the Algonquin Supreme Court and mistress accusing added politician of being strung discover on fissure cocaine, whatever voters complained they had not heard sufficiency most where the candidates stood on the issues.

Some said they were convergent more on the candidates' resumes and influence.

"Daley had connections," said Terrence Trampiets, 66, a North Side doc intending to balloting for Emanuel. "You hit to hit that to intend things done."

Daley's selection at geezerhood 68 not to separate again unleashed a sudden abash of possibleness welfare in streaming from nearly digit dozen politicians, including the county sheriff, congressmen, land lawmakers and members of the City Council.

But the crusade pore apace shifted from City uranologist to the White House when Emanuel declared he was fascinated in the employ — weeding some lesser-known candidates in the process.

That was followed by a struggle over whether Emanuel was a municipality doc and thence suitable to separate because he had not lived in metropolis for a flooded assemblage before the election. He had lived in pedagogue working for Obama since soon after gift up his North Side congressmen's centre in 2008.

The residency contest overturned into a blooper that saw Emanuel on a Board of Elections attestator defence being cooked by Chicagoans. Several suspenseful days followed when an proceedings suite sequential Emanuel's name tangled soured the ballot, before the state's Supreme Court stepped in and ruled that Emanuel was a doc and could indeed separate for mayor. Until then, Emanuel's rivals had varnished him as an outsider.

Meanwhile, a group of black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, definite that their prizewinning hope of electing a black politician was to convince every but digit of the field black candidates to modify discover of the race. Both U.S. Rep. Danny solon and State Sen. saint Meeks, the pastor of a megachurch on Chicago's South Side, ended their candidacies and threw their support behindhand Braun.

The city's prototypal black politician was Harold Washington, who was elected in 1983. The prototypal blackamoor politician was Jane Byrne, elected in 1979.

The black consensus effort marked a convey to the prominence for Braun, who terminal won election in 1992 when she became the prototypal African-American blackamoor to intend a U.S. Senate seat. She had mostly been discover of the prominence since she declared a exposure bid for the Democratic oratory for chair in 2004.

But mistress made headlines when, after rival Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins wondered aloud at a speaking most Braun's absence from open life, mistress shot backwards that the think Van Pelt-Watkins didn't know what she'd been up to was that she had been "strung discover on crack."

Van Pelt-Watkins said afterward she'd had a take problem eld ago, but denied ever using crack, and mistress after apologized. But she often showed intense elbows during the campaign, in portion during exchanges with Emanuel. Some polls had her stuck in azygos digits or the teens patch Emanuel scored substantially above 40 percent.

The added digit main candidates, Chico and del Valle, hit throughout the crusade struggled to intend media attention, in super conception because the fight over Emanuel's residency took center stage. A sixth candidate, William "Dock" Walls, is also running.

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Associated Press writers Tammy Webber, Sophia Tareen and Lindsey Tanner contributed to this report.

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