Steve Benjamin Elected as Columbia, SC Mayor
Voters in the South Carolina capital, Columbia, elected the city’s first black mayor. Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin won Tuesday’s runoff election by 56 percent of the vote. Earlier this month Benjamin won by a little over 1,000 votes, which was not the majority needed to avoid a runoff.
Known as one of the rising stars of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Benjamin ran in a heated race that brought out an unexpected 2,000 voters on election day. He ran against Councilman Kirkman Finlay who comes from a long line of Columbia politicians and who earned 44 percent of the vote.
Benjamin, 40, hails from Orangeburg, S.C. but spent his childhood in New York City. He obtained his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Carolina. He spent three years running the South Carolina Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole, leaving the agency for an unsuccessful run for attorney general in 2002.
At his victory party, Diddy’s “All About the Benjamins” blared over a sound system as Benjamin and his family greeted well-wishers. In giving his acceptance speech, Benjamin noted an envelope in his pocket containing a $100 donation from his grandmother who died last month. He said, “She wanted to be here with us, and I know that she is.”
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