芝加哥同性恋黑人女市长恐难连任

Chicago voters are heading to the polls tomorrow to decide if the city's current mayor should serve another term.

芝加哥选民明天将前往投票站，决定现任市长是否应该连任。

Yeah, Lori Lightfoot made history four years ago as the first openly gay and first Black woman to lead the country's third-largest city.

对，洛莉·莱特福特四年前创造了历史，她是美国第三大城市首位公开同性恋身份的领导者，也是该市首位黑人女性领导者。

Now she faces a stiff reelection battle and could be the first mayor in decades to not get a second term.

现在，她面临着一场艰难的连任之战，可能成为几十年来第一位没有连任的市长。

WBEZ's government and politics reporter Mariah Woelfel has been covering the race.

WBEZ电视台的政府与政治记者玛丽亚·沃费尔一直在报道这次竞选。

Mariah, she made history four years ago when she was elected.

玛丽亚，她四年前当选时创造了历史。

She beat out - what? - more than a dozen people. But now she is facing a lot of challengers.

她曾打败了十几个竞选者。但现在她面临着很多挑战者。

Considering that, typically, the city's incumbent mayor wins reelection, why is so many people after her job?

考虑到该市现任市长通常会赢得连任，为什么会有这么多人争夺她的职位?

Right. Well, like many other big-city mayors, Lightfoot faced a really uNPRecedented set of challenges in her first four years in office - elected in 2019, soon after hit with a global pandemic.

对。嗯，和许多其他大城市的市长一样，莱特福特在她任职的头四年里面临着一系列前所未有的挑战——她是在2019年当选的，那时全球疫情刚爆发没多久。

She was elected as a political outsider, as a reformer who was going to put an end to long-standing political corruption in Chicago.

她是以一个政治局外人兼改革者的身份当选的，她要结束芝加哥长期存在的政治腐败。

When submitting her paperwork to run this time, she joked that she'd give this note of caution to her 2019 self.

在提交这次竞选的文件时，她开玩笑称，她会给2019年的自己写一封警告信。

Her term has been marked by pandemic-era challenges, you know, public disputes with the teachers' union over when to send kids back to school, with police over vaccine mandates.

她的任期以疫情时代挑战为标志，你知道，在幼儿返校时间问题上与教师工会进行了公开争论，在疫苗授权问题上与警方发生了争执。

But I think most of all, people are lining up to replace her because she's dealt with an increase in crime that, you know, many cities across the country have grappled with that her opponents say they can do a better job of fixing.

但我认为最重要的是，人们排着队想要取代她，因为她应对的是全国许多城市都在努力解决的犯罪率上升问题，而她的对手则表示，他们可以解决得更好。

Now, Chicago is a big city, third-largest city, but largely a segregated one, too.

如今，芝加哥是一个大型城市，全美第三大城市，但却是一个范围很广的种族隔离的城市。

There's a mix, though, of Black, Latino and white candidates. How is race playing a role in this election?

不过，候选人中有黑人、拉丁裔和白人。种族在这次选举中扮演了怎样的角色?

Sure. The main point here is that there are seven Black candidates, one white, one Latino in the race.

当然。这里的重点是，竞选中有7名黑人候选人，1名白人候选人，1名拉丁裔候选人。

So some strategists fear that the Black community's vote, who want to see someone in office who will represent that community's issues - of course, those issues are diverse,

所以一些战略家担心黑人社区的投票过多，黑人社区希望看到一位代表该社区问题的人上台，当然，这些问题是多种多样的，

but that that vote will be split among those seven candidates, leading to, you know, two others who might not have broad support getting into what's to be a likely runoff election.

但这7名黑人候选人将分摊这些选票，导致的结果是，另外两名可能没有广泛支持的候选人进入决选。

There's also one - only one white candidate, like I said, Paul Vallas. And he's just one of two candidates running to the right of Lightfoot politically.

只有一个白人候选人，我提到过，保罗·瓦拉斯。他只是在政治上支持莱特福特的两位候选人之一。

He's a Democrat, but more conservative than her as a Democrat.

他是民主党人，但作为民主党人，他比莱特福特更保守。

Delmarie Cobb is a veteran political strategist and said that's a factor in his frontrunner status this time.

德尔玛利·科布是一位资深的政治战略家，他表示这是他这次处于领先低位的一个因素。

The racial part of this is that whites will galvanize around Paul Vallas.

这其中的种族因素是，白人会激励保罗·瓦拉斯。

And we've already seen that the wealthy Republican establishment is pouring money into his campaign right and left.

我们已经看到，富有的共和党建制派正在向他所有的竞选活动投入大量资金。

Racial politics has a long history here in Chicago. And it's been on full display this election, too.

种族政治在芝加哥有着悠久的历史。这一点在这次选举中也得到了充分体现。