Frey ahead as Minneapolis heads to runoff count for mayor

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(The Center Square) – There is still no winner in the Minneapolis mayoral election.

With 100% of precincts reporting, incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey looks set to secure a third term. Frey has 42% of the vote, while state Sen. Omar Fateh follows in second with 32% of the vote.

But a candidate is required to have more than 50% of the votes before being declared a winner.

Because Minneapolis uses ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than choosing just one, that means the city will enter additional rounds of vote tabulations.

The city announced that round-by-round tabulation of the nearly 150,000 ballots cast in the race will begin Wednesday.

For the mayoral race, voters selected their top three candidates from a crowded field of 15.

All four of the frontrunners in the race, who received a combined 98% of the first-choice votes, were members of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. That is a Minnesota-specific political party affiliated with the national Democrat Party.

Neither Frey nor Fateh have released statements regarding the Election Day results, besides both encouraging voters to stay in line Tuesday evening.