Last night the City of Long Beach elected Robert Garcia as mayor with a trifecta of firsts for the city. Garcia is Long Beach's youngest, first Latino and first openly gay mayor.

This race was no cake walk, Garcia narrowly won with 52.1% of the vote. While the dramatic closeness of the race is always exciting to watch, looming deadline with no clear results in sight proved to be difficult. Garcia finally appeared at his watch party about 20 minutes before my deadline and got completely mobbed with fans upon his entrance. I had just barely enough time to make a few frames and send them off to the desk, but I had to fight through his dedicated fans first.

Garcia supporters watch the projector as results come in. For most of the night Garcia only led opponent by one percent or less.