Ray Flynn and Mel King are the top two finishers in the preliminary election for mayor.

Flynn, with 48,118 votes, and King, with 47,848, finish ahead of David Finnegan, with 41,657, Lawrence DiCara, with 15,148, Dennis Kearney, with 10,992, Frederick Langone, with 2,262, Robert Kiley, with 316, Michael Gelber, with 207, and Eloise Linger, with 168. and others. Turnout is 166, 416, or 64% of registered voters. According to Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan, “The winners of the first post-White mayoralty preliminary are two candidates who weren’t supposed to be there.” King becomes the first African-American to run in a general election for mayor, which prompts some 23,000 new voters to register in minority neighborhoods in the three weeks after the preliminary election.