Labour's Bev Craig is elected Greater Manchester mayor to succeed Andy Burnham

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Labour Party candidate Bev Craig was elected mayor of Greater Manchester on Friday, after a vote triggered by the departure of Andy Burnham to become Britain’s prime minister.

Craig won 66.3% of the votes in a runoff with Sian Astley from the anti-immigration party Reform UK.

“To those that voted for me, thank you,” Craig said after the result was declared. “And for those of you that didn’t vote for me, I will still be your mayor. I will defend this city region with every bone in my body and I will fight for a better life for all of us.”

Turnout in voting held Thursday was only 25%, the lowest in any of the four elections since the northwest England city got a directly elected mayor in 2017.

Voters were able to mark a first and second choice on their ballots. Since no candidate reached 50% of the votes in the first round, the top two competed in a runoff in which the second-preference choices of five eliminated candidates were added.

Craig is the outgoing leader of Manchester City Council, one of the 10 boroughs that make up Greater Manchester. She fell just short of getting 50% of the first-round votes, so didn’t match the performance of Burnham, who won three straight elections without ever facing a runoff.

But the decisive result is still a boost for the center-left Labour Party, which was trounced by Reform UK in elections for local council seats across Greater Manchester less than three months ago.

Labour’s rout in those local elections across England helped trigger the resignation of then- Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Burnham’s rapid rise to the prime minister’s office.

“Labour got an absolute pasting, a shellacking in those local elections,” said Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. He said Craig's rebound from that low ebb is “a really powerful moment" for the party.

Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years until he won a special election for a seat in Parliament and was selected as Labour leader after Starmer resigned. Burnham became prime minister on July 20.