Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, center, waits on election results with his wife Lynette Brown, left, and daughter Camille Brown on Tuesday at the Jewish Community Center. Brown narrowly defeated Samantha Turner for the Democratic nomination for mayor in the general election.

YOUNGSTOWN — In an extremely tight race, incumbent Jamael Tito Brown is the apparent winner of the Youngstown mayoral race — leading 3rd Ward Councilwoman Samantha Turner by only 61 votes.

Brown was ahead 1,989 to 1,928, or 50.78% to 49.22%, according to unofficial results from the Mahoning County Board of Elections on Tuesday.

Brown said: “The unofficial results are we won. I’ve been on the side where it’s been close, and I didn’t win. We take it for what it’s worth. We will continue to do what we’re going to do until we’re told differently.”

The Mahoning County Board of Elections still has to count outstanding provisional ballots and any late-arriving mail-in votes that had to be postmarked by Monday, the day before the primary, and arrive by Saturday.

Tom McCabe, elections director, said there are about 53 provisional votes to count in Youngstown. He didn’t know how many outstanding absentee ballots there are.

The board plans to certify the primary election results May 19.

Overall turnout in Mahoning County was 9.38%.

Brown is ahead of Turner by 1.56%. Automatic recounts are held when the margin of victory is 0.5% or less.

Brown said he wasn’t surprised by the results.

He said: “On any given Tuesday, when you get low voter turnout, anything can happen. There’s multiple reasons why people don’t want to go out to vote. They think their vote won’t count or isn’t needed so I don’t know. I try not to predict elections. We work as hard as we can work and at the end of the day, we look for a victory.”

Numerous messages left Tuesday night for Turner were not returned.

Three independent candidates filed by Monday’s deadline for Youngstown mayor: John White, Derrick McDowell and Aleesha Foster. The eligibility of at least White and Foster could be in question. The board has to certify independent candidates by July 15 though it expects to do it sooner.

The last independent to be elected mayor was Jay Williams in 2005.

No Republicans filed to run for mayor in this Democratic-controlled city.

If Brown wins a third term and serves out all four years, he will have spent the second most years of any mayor in the city’s history. Patrick Ungaro is the city’s longest-serving mayor at 14 years. Ungaro had to leave in 1997 because the city had a term-limit law for mayors at the time. Youngstown mayors no longer have term limits.

Before being elected mayor in 2017 — after narrowly losing the 2013 Democratic primary for the seat — Brown served as council president, 3rd Ward councilman and a member of the city school board.

Turner is serving her second term as 3rd Ward councilwoman.

During the primary campaign, Brown said his priorities include seeing the city create a “real time data center,” make sure the projects from Youngstown’s $82.8 million American Rescue Plan allocation are implemented, and “continue seeing that we get greater improvement in our economics, definitely with our tax base, our income tax revenue and make sure that we can continue attracting businesses that we’ve been able to get them to expand and grow.”

Brown said he is proud of how his administration prioritized ARP funding with about $27.5 million of it going to neighborhood and economic development, including housing programs.

During the campaign, Turner said: “As it stands, I feel like the city can use a different direction. Not that our mayor is a bad guy. I just do not feel like he is taking the initiative to move the community in the direction that it should go.”

She added: “I’ve been working hard to bring the community along and help them to understand that this city belongs to them and they have voices and that has been silent for a number of years. I’d like to lead this community in a different direction and to help people know that they can stay here and grow and thrive in this area.”