UPDATE 3-Chicago mayoral vote with record candidates leads to tight race

A record number of candidates in Chicago's mayoral election made it too close to determine late on Tuesday who would advance to an April runoff in a city struggling with crime and racial divisions, with nearly four-fifths of precincts counted. Lori Lightfoot, 56, a former federal prosecutor and Chicago Police Board president, had 17 percent of the vote with 78 percent of precincts counted, results showed.

Toni Preckwinkle, 71, Cook County board president, followed with 16 percent of the vote. William Daley, 70, son of one previous Chicago mayor and brother of another, had 15 percent. The racially diverse field of 14 was the largest of any mayoral election in the United States' third largest city, said Jim Allen, Chicago Election Board spokesman. The top two vote-getters will go on to a runoff on April 2.

State law requires mail-in votes postmarked by Tuesday to be counted within 14 days, meaning it might not be clear for some time who would advance. Rahm Emanuel, mayor since 2011 and White House chief of staff in the administration of President Barack Obama, threw the race wide open in September with a surprise announcement that he would not seek a third term.

Political newcomers entered the race along with well-known names like Daley, who is also a former commerce secretary and succeeded Emanuel as Obama's chief of staff. Efforts to reform the police loom large over the vote, with national implications. Emanuel faced calls to resign after a video of the 2014 fatal police shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald was released more than a year after the incident.

President Donald Trump has criticized reforms like mandatory federal oversight of the Chicago Police Department, warning of a "crime spree" in what had been one of the most violent cities in the United States. Chicago's murder rate fell in 2017 and 2018. White former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced in January to nearly seven years in prison for murdering McDonald.

One mayoral candidate was Garry McCarthy, 59, a former Chicago police superintendent fired by Emanuel after the video was released. Lightfoot has also been prominent in the debate, advocating for reforms. The next Chicago mayor will inherit a $28 billion unfunded pension liability and escalating contributions to the city's four retirement systems that will top $2 billion starting in 2023. The mayor is also responsible for the heavily indebted Chicago Public Schools.

Sean Girardin, 47, who lives on Chicago's North Side, voted for Lightfoot, saying she had "the greatest amount of willingness to take on the amount of change that needs to happen in Chicago politics." (Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub, Karl Plume, Tom Polansek, Stephanie Kelly and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, David Gregorio and Sonya Hepinstall)