Campaigning focused highly on rival accusations of misconduct during and after the initial March 2019 election, during which both sides alleged that they had been a victim of the other's antics.

The results showed a substantial swing in favour of İmamoğlu, who multiplied his initial 13,700-vote margin of victory 57-fold to win 54.2% of the vote against Yıldırım's 45.0%.

Yıldırım, on the other hand, lost 11 districts he had won in March and saw a 4% decrease in his previous vote share, conceding defeat soon after indicative results became public.

[3][4] The result was seen as a huge defeat to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had once said that if his party "lost Istanbul, we would lose Turkey.

"[5] Commentators viewed the result as a backlash against Erdoğan, the initial annulment of the March vote (which was largely seen as an anti-democratic manoeuvre), economic mismanagement and negative campaigning.

[10] The opposition's landslide was characterised at the time as the "beginning of the end" for Erdoğan,[11][12][13] with international commentators calling the re-run a huge government miscalculation that led to a potential İmamoğlu candidacy in the next scheduled presidential election.

[11][13] It was suggested that the scale of the government's defeat could provoke a Cabinet reshuffle and an early general election, though this did not come to pass.

[16] The Istanbul Provincial Organization of the AKP demanded a re-count of invalid votes and the correction of ballot records on 2 April, which was approved by the Supreme Electoral Council.

This decision was based on the objections raised by the AK Party regarding the fact that despite the law, some balloting committee presidents and members were not public officials.

This was due to numerous complaints from all parties in the March local elections that mentally impaired individuals unable to exercise free thought were exploited for their vote.

Aside from these efforts, president and AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would join iftar dinners throughout Ramadan, make house visits to voters, and hold rallies in each of the 39 districts of Istanbul.

[32] An election coordination center was created under the scope of these strategies, and Mehmet Özhaseki, AK Party's candidate for Ankara mayor on 31 March 2019 was chosen to lead this operation.

[65] The goal of the visit has been interpreted by several media outlets, including Voice of America, as to gain Kurdish support for the ruling Justice and Development Party's candidate Binali Yıldırım in the upcoming 23 June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election.

[71] After the absence of vote theft in the reasoning for the annulment of the election by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), the AK Party's allegations were criticized by the CHP.

Following this, referring to the implication made by a television program that he is a traitor, Davutoğlu responded that "the day will come when we will find out who protected the inheritance, and who betrayed it".

[citation needed] In addition to this, the decision to assign duties to those who have not been recently active but who are known in the AK Party, such as Abdülkadir Aksu, Sadık Yakut, Mevlüt Uysal, Faruk Çelik, and Bülent Arınç was seen as measures to stop the intra-party opposition.

After this declaration, İmamoğlu met with voters in a different district of Istanbul every day, joined iftars, and made speeches.