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New York City Mayoralty Elections: Characteristics of NYC mayoral elections 1917 · 1997 · 2001 · 2005 · 2009 This box: view • talk •

The Mayor of the City of New York is elected in early November every four years and takes office at the beginning of the following year. The City which elects the Mayor as her chief executive consists of The Five Boroughs (Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island) which consolidated to form "Greater" New York on January 1, 1898.

The consolidated City's first Mayor, Robert A. Van Wyck, was elected with other municipal officers in November 1897. Mayoral Elections had previously been held since 1834 by the City of Brooklyn and the smaller, unconsolidated City of New York (Manhattan, later expanded into the Bronx).

The current mayor of New York, now completing his second term, is Michael R. Bloomberg (elected in 2001 and 2005). The next mayoral election will be held in November 2009 for the term beginning on January 1, 2010.

Overview

Scope of this article

The vast bulk of this page's contents is statistical: the main results, city-wide and by borough, of each of the 31 elections to the Mayoralty of the City of New York since Greater New York was consolidated from The Five Boroughs in 1897-1898.

For many years, but not all, there are also results for minor candidates and for the different parties nominating the same major candidate. (Because minor parties' votes are not uniformly available, totals and thus percentages can be slightly inconsistent, either between different elections or between individual boroughs and the whole City in the same election.)

There are brief comments about some of the elections, and separate articles have been written for those of 1917, 1997, 2001 and 2005. Different elections are compared in many of the individual notes, in two summary tables and in one specialized table.

New York City's Mayoral elections have been marked by an interplay of factors that are magnified by the sheer size of the population. There was a history of a large socialist vote, there is a history of tension between 'regular' and 'reform' politicians, and there is the factor, not seen in most of the United States, of electoral fusion with the resulting plethora of smaller, yet influential, third parties.

Further information: Characteristics of New York City mayoral elections

Terms and Term Limits (since 1834)

Direct elections to the mayoralty of the unconsolidated City of New York began in 1834 for a term of one year, extended to two years after 1849. The 1897 Charter of the consolidated City doubled the term to four years which could not be renewed. In 1901, the term limit was removed, but the term halved to two years. In 1905, the four-year term, without limit, was restored. (Mayors Fiorello La Guardia, Robert F. Wagner, Jr. and Ed Koch were later able to serve for twelve years each.) ^[1] In 1993, the voters approved a two-term (eight-year) limit. †

† The Encyclopedia of New York City (see Sources below), entries for "charter" and "mayoralty".

1. See List of mayors of New York City.
2. Mayor Strong, elected in 1894, served an extra year because no municipal election was held in 1896, in anticipation of the consolidated City's switch to odd-year elections.
3. George B. McClellan, Jr. was elected to one two-year term (1904-1905) and one four-year term (1906-1909)
4. David Dinkins was not affected by the term limit enacted in 1993 because he had served only one term by 1993 and failed to win re-election.
5. The aerial assaults upon Manhattan of September 11th, 2001, coincided with the primary elections for a successor to Mayor Giuliani, who was completing his second and final term of office. Many were so impressed by both the urgency of the situation and Giuliani's response that they wanted keep him in office beyond December 31, 2001, either by removing the term limit or by extending his service for a few months.^[2] However, neither happened, the primary elections (with the same candidates) were re-run on September 25th, the general election was held as scheduled on November 6th, and Michael Bloomberg took office on the regularly-appointed date of January 1, 2002.
6. On October 2, 2008, Michael Bloomberg announced that he would ask the City Council to extend the limit for Mayor, Council and other officers from two terms to three, and that, should such an extended limit prevail, he himself would seek re-election as Mayor.^[3]

Interrupted Terms

Mayors John T. Hoffman (1866-68, elected Governor 1868), William Havemeyer (1845-46, 1848-49 & 1873-74), William Jay Gaynor (1910-13), Jimmy Walker (1926-32) and William O'Dwyer (1946-50) failed to complete the final terms to which they were elected. The uncompleted mayoral terms of Hoffman, Walker and O'Dwyer were added to the other offices elected in (respectively) 1868, 1932 and 1950.

† Became Acting Mayor as the President of the Board of Aldermen or (in 1950) City Council.

(D) = (Democratic)

(R) = (Republican)

• Mayor Havemeyer was a Democrat who ran as a Republican against the Democratic Tweed Ring in 1872.
• Acting Mayors Coman, Vance and Kline did not seek election as Mayor.
• Acting Mayors McKee and Impellitteri were Democrats who lost the Democratic primary to succeed themselves, but still ran in the general election as independents.
• Elected Mayor Oakey Hall won re-election, while Mayor Wickham did not seek it. Mayors Mitchel and O'Brien lost attempts at re-election, while Mayor Impellitteri did not run for a full term in the 1953 regular general election after losing the Democratic primary.

Summary tables

Principal candidates' City-wide vote since 1897

This chart has several purposes. One is to provide ordinary readers with simple, basic information from a very detailed page. Another is to provide a handy index for those looking for a particular candidate or campaign. (Just click on the year, the candidate's name, or the party name or abbreviation for more details.)

A slightly more sophisticated purpose is to sketch out on one screen the flow of votes across parties and candidates, as affected by fusion, splitting, cross-endorsement and the emergence of new movements or personalities.

Votes in thousands for principal candidates only, generally those winning more than 4.0% (1/25) of the total vote. (Therefore, low votes may not be shown in a particular year for an otherwise significant party, such as Socialist or Conservative. For some of the lesser left-wing candidates before 1945, see #Collapse of the Socialist Party vote below.) Winner in bold-face in a colored box.

To determine the meaning of abbreviations, click the link or check the list below this table. (Different first names, initials and nicknames may be used for the same person purely to fit the available space.)

Abbreviations used in this table: F or Fu. = Fusion, I or Ind. = Independent, Indep. Citizens = Independent Citizens (1965), Ind Fu = Independent Fusion (1993), Ind'ce = Independence Party of New York, L or Lib. = Liberal Party of New York, C or Cons. = Conservative Party of New York, ALP = American Labor Party, S or Soc. = Socialist Party of America, NP = Non-Partisan, Wkg Fam = Working Families Party, Prog = Progressive, Jeff D = The Democracy of Thomas Jefferson (Henry George, 1897), Muni. Ownership League = Municipal Ownership League, Civic All. = Civic Alliance (Hearst 1909), Anticomm. = Anticommunist (Mahoney 1937), Exp = Experience party (Impellitteri's label for his independent campaign in 1950)

How the Boroughs voted

See the table above for more information about the candidates and parties involved. Blue indicates a candidate endorsed by the Democratic Party; pink one endorsed by the Republicans; and buff (or beige) one endorsed by neither party. (Darker shades indicate where a borough voted for a candidate who lost the city-wide vote.) In 1981, Edward Koch ran on the tickets of both the Democrats and the Republicans.

Click a year to see the table or tables for that particular election (# indicates a link devoted to one specific election rather than to a set of two to six.)

Although separate boroughs since 1898, The Bronx and Manhattan shared New York County and reported elections together until the separate Bronx County was formed in April 1912 and started her separate existence on January 1, 1914. The Borough of Richmond changed her name to the Borough of Staten Island in 1975, although the co-extensive Richmond County still retains that name.

Although it was not uncommon for a candidate to carry all five boroughs in the same election, one can see some interesting variations. Since they started reporting separate returns in 1913, The Bronx has supported only one Republican (Fiorello La Guardia) and Manhattan has opposed only two successful candidates (Giuliani in 1993 and Bloomberg in 2001). On the other hand, in the last ten elections contested between Democratic and Republican candidates (i.e. excluding 1981, when Ed Koch was endorsed by both parties), Queens and Staten Island have voted for only two Democratic candidates, Abe Beame in 1973 and Koch in 1985. The City as a whole elected four of the Democratic candidates in those same ten elections, from 1965 to 2005. The Bronx supported all ten, Brooklyn eight, and Manhattan six.

Upcoming elections

2009

Main article: New York City mayoral election, 2009

Recent elections

2005

Main article: New York City mayoral election, 2005

In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg won every borough but The Bronx (of which his Democratic opponent was the former Borough President) against a Democratic Party split by a divisive primary, in contrast to his first victory in 2001, when Bloomberg carried only Queens and Staten Island.

Source: Board of Elections in the City of New York http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/results

2001

Main article: New York City mayoral election, 2001

The 2001 mayoral election was held on Tuesday, November 6.

Republican incumbent Rudy Giuliani could not run again due to term limits. As Democrats outnumber Republicans by 5 to 1 in the city, it was widely believed that a Democrat would succeed him in City Hall. However, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat, changed his party affiliation a few months before the election in order to avoid a crowded primary, and ran as a Republican. The Democratic primary was meant to be held on September 11 but was postponed due to the September 11 attacks; it was instead held on September 25. The primary opened the way to a bitter run-off between the Bronx-born Puerto Rican Fernando Ferrer, and Mark J. Green, a non-Hispanic who attacked Ferrer's close ties to Rev. Al Sharpton, leaving the party divided along racial lines.

Bloomberg spent $74 million on his election campaign, which was a record amount at the time for a non-presidential election (Bloomberg would break his own record in 2005). [1] Thanks also in part to active support from Giuliani, whose approval ratings shot up after the September 11 attacks, Bloomberg won a very close general election.

1997

Main article: New York City mayoral election, 1997

Notes:

• In the Democratic Primary, Messinger defeated Rev. Al Sharpton, avoiding a runoff election.
• Figures are for 99% of precincts reporting

Past elections

1993

1989

1985

1981

1977

In his 2005 book Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning, historian Jonathan Mahler argues that the New York City blackout of 1977, with its accompanying rioting, enabled the law-and-order advocate Ed Koch to beat out his more left-wing opponents, including incumbent mayor Abe Beame, in the 1977 election.

Note that the eventual winner, Rep. Ed Koch, could not win a plurality in any of the Five Boroughs