The city, which elects the mayor as its 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.
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.
One pattern, stretching back well before consolidation and lasting into the 1960s, is the conflict between, on one side, Tammany Hall, the Democratic political organization largely built on political patronage with a consequent deep skepticism about Civil Service, the merit system of assigning government jobs, and competitive bidding for city contracts, and on the other hand, its various opponents, including Republicans, businessmen opposed to taxation or extorted bribes, middle-class reformers and labor union activists.
(This was not only for negative reasons: Tammany could listen to and satisfy some of its opponents' needs, and could on occasion run candidates of undoubted quality, such as Abram Hewitt to oppose Henry George's United Labor Party in 1886.
[8] Quite apart from Tammany Hall itself, both Republicans and left-wing reform parties have always had to deal with the overwhelmingly Democratic sympathies of New York City's voters.
The local term for uniting several constituencies or movements against Tammany was Fusion, which usually required the Republicans to abstain from competing with a non-Republican reform candidate (as in the elections of Seth Low in 1901 and John P. Mitchel in 1913).
In fact, no Republican has ever been elected Mayor of consolidated New York without the support of at least one other significant party, from LaGuardia to the ex-Democrat Michael Bloomberg.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams of the Democratic Party defeated Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who ran on the Republican and Independent lines by a margin of 441,416 votes or 66.99% against 27.76%.
From the Board of Elections in the City of New York, September 27, 2013 [11] Republican primary election, Tuesday, September 10, 2013, In the Republican primary, Joe Lhota, a former deputy mayor and former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority carried every borough but Staten Island, which was won by John Catsimatidis, a businessman, publisher and property developer.
Bloomberg had enjoyed pluralities of about 9% to 16% in most independent published pre-election polls and on Tuesday, November 3, he won his third term with 50.7% of votes over Thompson's 46%.
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.
[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.
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.
Other vote was: Kenneth F. Newcombe – Communist – 5,300; Catarino Garza – Socialist Workers – 3,294; Vito Battista – United Taxpayers Party – 2,119; Louis Wein – Independent – 1,127; William Lawry – Free Libertarian – 1,068; Elijah Boyd – Labor – 873.
Runoff-Koch-433,002 55.0%; Cuomo-354,833 45.0% Total vote 787,835 Manhattan-Koch-115,251 65.2%; Cuomo—61,570 34.8% Bronx-----Koch-69,612 55.7%; Cuomo—55,355 44.3% Brooklyn—Koch-131,271 53.8%; Cuomo—112,587 46.2% Queens----Koch-107,033 50.4%; Cuomo—105,522 49.6% Staten----Koch-9,835 33.1%; Cuomo—19,799 66.9% Note that the eventual winner, Rep. Ed Koch, could not win a plurality in any of the Five Boroughs for the initial Democratic primary.
In the general election, Cuomo kept Staten Island and won back Queens, but lost the other three boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx) to Koch.
In the Republican primary, Roy M. Goodman, a member of the New York State Senate, defeated Barry Farber, a radio commentator, by a vote of 41,131 to 31,078(57.0% to 43.0%).
Candidates votes on their second ballot lines included above were: Beame-Civil Service & Fusion −67,277; Marchi-Integrity – 14,271; Blumenthal – Good Government – 29, 335; Biaggi – Safe City – 8,010.
Other vote includes 8,818 Fran Youngstein – Free Libertarian Party; 3,601 Rasheed Storey – Communist; 2,282 Norman Oliver – Socialist Workers; 2,000 Anton Chaiken -Labor; 1,762 John Emanuel – Socialist Labor Note: In one of the most unusual primary seasons since the conglomeration of greater New York, the incumbent Mayor (Lindsay) and a former incumbent (Robert F. Wagner Jr.) both lost their parties' primaries.
Vincent Impellitteri, the mayor who succeeded mid-term after William O'Dwyer resigned on August 31, 1950, swept Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island in this special election, while Ferdinand Pecora (aided by the Liberal Party) took very narrow leads in The Bronx and Brooklyn.
In both Queens and Richmond (Staten Island), the swing was even greater: La Guardia lost over 15% of the total vote (and the Democrats gained over 15%) from 1937, as his lead there flipped from roughly 56%–44% to 39%–60%.
While opposed by Tammany Hall, McKee enjoyed the support of Democratic President (and former Governor) Franklin D. Roosevelt, who declared neutrality when his ally Mayor La Guardia was running for reelection in § 1937.
There were also 1,778 votes for Henry Klein-Five Cent Fare & Taxpayers; 472 for Aaron Orange – Socialist Labor; and 118 for Adolph Silver – Independent Union.
[24] By the time of the next mayoral election in 1937, which the Socialist Party decided by internal referendum not to contest, many reformers and trade-unionists who wanted to support major-party progressives like La Guardia (R-ALP-Fusion), Gov.
[25] After a disastrous gubernatorial campaign in 1938 (where Thomas and George Hartmann won only 25,000 votes out of over 4.7 million), the Socialist Party lost its separate line on the New York ballot, allowed its members to join the ALP, and indeed encouraged them to do so.
When negotiations between the parties failed, Mitchel ran alone as a Fusion candidate against Bennett, the Socialist Morris Hillquit and John F. Hylan, the regular Democrat supported by Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst.
Hillquit's anti-war position helped the Socialists win their highest-ever vote for mayor, but also led to vitriolic denunciations by many, including The New York Times and former President Theodore Roosevelt.
[ The World Almanac does not list separate returns for the two boroughs until 1917, but The Encyclopedia of New York City (see Sources) gives these major candidates' results for 1913: Mayor William Jay Gaynor, who had survived being shot in the throat by a disappointed office-seeker in 1910, died at sea from the indirect effects of his injury on September 10, 1913.
For preliminary results for all the municipal offices, broken down into smaller districts, see "Democrats Take All – The Tammany Ticket Makes Almost a Clean Sweep of the Greater City – Only Two Republicans in the Council..." in [[The New York Times|, November 4, 1897 (seen April 11, 2008).
It appears from the percentages to be an open question whether the Republican Party's decision in 1897 not to support Seth Low's Fusion campaign caused his defeat by splitting the vote against Tammany Hall.