ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Rochester City Councilmember Malik Evans has defeated Incumbent Mayor Lovely Warren in the Democratic primary election.
News 8 WROC called the race for Evans who had 66% of the vote as of 10:23 p.m. Tuesday.
As of June 1, Rochester had 71,442 registered Democratic voters, compared to 10,376 registered Republican voters — so as the winner of Tuesday’s mayoral primary, Evans is the prohibitive favorite to become Rochester’s next mayor heading into November’s general election.
Warren was unable to weather multiple ongoing controversies in her re-election campaign, including City Hall’s handling of Daniel Prude’s death, her indictment on campaign finance violations, and her husband’s recent arrest on drugs and weapon charges.
“Today we may have not won the race, but this is not over yet,” Warren said in a speech to her supporters late Tuesday. “My journey isn’t over yet. The best is yet to come. So I thank you all for your support. I want to thank the Lovely team because you all stood there 100%. We may think today was about an ending, but today was about a new beginning for me, for my daughter, for our family — and I truly want to thank each and every one of you.”
Evans campaigned on reducing city crime with youth-work initiatives, cracking down on guns coming into Rochester, a proposedSenior Stability Fund to aid Rochester’s elderly, and more.
“We must ensure that economic empowerment must be at the center of everything that we do, where we raise the home ownership rates in Rochester, where we bring up the median income in Rochester and we ensure that entrepreneurship is the center of what we do in the City of Rochester,” Evans said in a speech to supporters Tuesday.
Evans was elected to City Council in 2017, and was previously elected to the Rochester Board of Education in 2003 where he would serve as Board President from 2008-2013. Prior to the Board of education, Evans served as a Legislative Aide to City Council from 2000-2002. As a teen, Evans attended Wilson Magnet High School in Rochester.
“I submit to you that we need to keep our city safe, where we have a system where our police officers are guardians and not warriors, I submit to you that in that minute, in that 60 seconds we ensure that our streets our safe and that we stop the bloodshed that we have seen over the last six months,” Evans said.
Warren was sworn in to the office in January 2014, and was re-elected in 2017. Prior to being mayor, Warren served on Rochester City Council from 2007 through 2013, and was elected as Council President in 2010, becoming the youngest person to hold that position in the Council’s history. Warren was the first female, and youngest Rochester mayor in modern times. She was born and raised in the city’s 19th Ward Neighborhood.