Ivy Taylor elected as Mayor of San Antonio

Ivy Taylor has been elected mayor of San Antonio, becoming the first African American elected to the post.

San Antonio, the seventh-largest U.S. city and the only one of the 10 largest with a Latino majority.

Taylor, a Yale-educated urban-planning professor, won with an unlikely coalition of the city’s two largest minority voting groups: blacks and generally conservative white voters, the latter making up only 26 percent of the 1.4 million residents.

Taylor, who was appointed interim mayor last summer, defeated former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte in the runoff election Saturday. Taylor captured the election with nearly 52 percent of the vote.

Taylor said in her victory speech, “The work starts on Monday at City Hall. We come together now as a city.”

Taylor last July was on the San Antonio City Council when fellow members voted to appoint her as mayor to replace Julian Castro. He became secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Van de Putte said she’s not sure what her future in politics holds, but for now she plans to spend more time with her family.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press