He ran another 20 unsuccessful campaigns for local, city, state and federal offices over the following years, including nine tries at mayor, the last in 1931.

[1][2][3] In the early 1930s, Bridgeport, an industrial city in southern Connecticut, was plagued by corruption and hard hit by the Great Depression.

In 1931, voters had ousted the incumbent Republican mayor for Democrat Edward Buckingham and McLevy only lost by a couple thousand votes.

By 1933, dissatisfaction had spread to both parties and McLevy trounced the competition, bringing along a Socialist majority on the Board of Aldermen, Bridgeport's city council.

While people familiar with local politics had seen the writing on the wall in the 1931 results, the national media was astonished to find the Socialists in control in a New England city.

In the vernacular of the time, McLevy was referred to as a "sewer socialist", a pragmatist who focused on the details of running a city.

In a 1938 gubernatorial campaign, he was called a spoiler when his votes made the difference in Republican Raymond E. Baldwin's ouster of incumbent Democrat Wilbur L.

[2] As early as 1936, left-wing socialists, such as party leader Norman Thomas, accused McLevy, a member of the Old Guard, of paying only "lip service" to socialism.

When that faction lost in its bid to defeat the radical Declaration of Principles adopted in Detroit in referendum balloting of the SP's rank and file, the more conservative Party members broke away to form the Social Democratic Federation.