Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett won again.

He was elected to his fifth term as Milwaukee's mayor when results of last week's election were announced Monday, defeating state Sen. Lena Taylor 63% to 37% according to unofficial results.

"I know this is a really tough time for the city and I'm going roll up my sleeves and just keep working as hard as I can," Barrett said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.

The coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged communities around the world, brought the economy to a standstill and hit Milwaukee residents hard has upended the city's spring election.

The outbreak meant there were no in-person election-night parties Monday evening. Instead, Barrett, Taylor and other candidates spoke to reporters remotely to avoid gatherings that could spread the virus.

"It's unlike any other election. There are no parties, no celebrations," Barrett said. "There's a lot of work, and I'm ready to do the work."

The results came Monday, nearly a week after the historic and controversial April 7 election that saw more than 18,800 Milwaukee residents, many wearing masks to try to protect their health, head to the polls to vote in-person in the middle of the pandemic. More than 75,000 returned absentee ballots were also counted, according to the City of Milwaukee Election Commission.

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The results were released the same day the city's commission met by videoconference — one day after its Zoom meeting was "Zoombombed" — and voted to count at least 390 absentee ballots that have problems with their postmarks.

A federal ruling — one of a number of court rulings that preceded election day and made the process unlike any other — meant clerks across the state couldn't report election results until Monday.

Throughout the campaign, Barrett presented himself as a unifier under whose tenure the city has seen growth and development and a drop in violent crime. He vowed to focus his fifth term on working to create more jobs, continue the decrease in violent crime, boost housing initiatives and improve early childhood education.

Barrett also argued that now — the middle of a pandemic and with a series of changes at other levels of local government — is not the time for new leadership at the city level.

But Taylor insisted that Barrett has overseen "the tale of two cities" in which there are stark racial inequalities. She also said the needs of downtown have taken precedent over those of Milwaukee's neighborhoods.

Taylor also argued that the Barrett administration has mismanaged city government and not urgently addressed the city's problems.

"I called Tom and I shared with him that it is clear that he has been declared the mayor through this election," Taylor said Monday night. "But let me also be clear that I saw the disenfranchisement that happened to people, and I made it clear that we will be following up with a suit to deal with the disenfranchisement of individuals."

Barrett and Taylor are both Democrats who were elected to their current positions in 2004.

Taylor was elected to the state Assembly in 2003 before going on to the state Senate, and Barrett previously served in Congress and as a state legislator.

Barrett was reelected in 2008, 2012 and 2016 with 70% or more of the vote.

He also far outpaced Taylor in fundraising, campaign finance records show.

But Taylor argued that his administration has lacked urgency in addressing the city's problems and has mismanaged city government, including its response to the coronavirus outbreak and its handling of voting in the April 7 election. Some city residents waited in line over two hours to vote after Milwaukee officials, citing dire poll worker shortages, cut the number of voting sites from 180 to just five locations.

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Taylor also criticized the recent disarray in the Health Department and challenges at the Fire and Police Commission, which has oversight responsibility for the city's Police and Fire Departments.

Barrett graduated from college and law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1984, the state Senate in 1989 and Congress in 1992. He was elected mayor in 2004.

He has run unsuccessfully for governor three times, losing the Democratic primary in 2002 to then-Attorney General Jim Doyle and losing to Republican Scott Walker in 2010 and again in the 2012 recall election. He had weighed another run against Walker in 2018 but decided against it.

The salary for the Milwaukee mayor is about $150,000 a year.

Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

Contact Alison Dirr at 414-224-2383 or adirr@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlisonDirr.