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 Borough results Bloomberg: 50–60% 60–70% Thompson 50–60% 60–70% | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2009 election for Mayor of New York City took place on Tuesday, November 3. The incumbent Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, an independent who left the Republican Party in 2008, won reelection on the Republican and Independence Party/Jobs & Education lines with 50.7% of the vote over the retiring City Comptroller, Bill Thompson, a Democrat (also endorsed by the Working Families Party), who won 46.3%.[1] Thompson had won the Democratic primary election on September 15 with 71% of the vote over City Councilman Tony Avella and Roland Rogers.[2] This was the fifth straight mayoral victory by Republican candidates in New York, and the most recent to date, despite the city's strong Democratic lean in national and state elections.
Six other parties' candidates also contested the general election in November. Stephen Christopher of the Conservative Party of New York won 1.6% of the votes, more than the combined total of all the other minor candidates.[1] The turnout of voters—fewer than 350,000 in September and fewer than 1.2 million in November—was relatively low for recent mayoral elections, and Bloomberg won with fewer votes than any successful mayoral candidate had received since women joined the city's electorate in 1917. Democrats flipped back the borough of Brooklyn.
Prior to the election, the New York City Council had voted to extend the city's term limits, permitting Bloomberg (previously elected in 2001 and 2005) and other second-term officeholders such as Thompson to run for a third term.[3] Attempts to put this decision to a popular referendum,[3] to reverse it in the federal courts[4] or to override it with state legislation were unsuccessful.
As of 2024, this is the last mayoral election in which a candidate on the Republican ballot line carried Manhattan or Queens.
- ^ a b Board of Elections in the City of New York, Statement and Return Report for Certification General Election 2009 – 11/03/2009 Crossover – All Parties and Independent Bodies Mayor Citywide (PDF) Archived 2009-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, November 24, 2009, retrieved on November 27, 2009.
- ^ Board of Elections in the City of New York Archived 2010-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, Statement and Return Report for Certification Primary Election 2009 – 09/15/2009 Crossover – Democratic Party Democratic Mayor Citywide (PDF) Archived 2010-11-21 at the Wayback Machine, September 25–26, 2009, retrieved on October 21, 2009.
- ^ a b Sewell Chan and Jonathan P. Hicks, Council Votes, 29 to 22, to Extend Term Limits, The New York Times, published on-line and retrieved on October 23, 2008.
- ^ Fernanda Santos: The Future of Term Limits Is in Court, The New York Times, New York edition, October 24, 2008, page A24 (retrieved on October 24, 2008), Judge Rejects Suit Over Term Limits, The New York Times, New York edition, January 14, 2009, page A26, and Appeals Court Upholds Term Limits Revision, The New York Times City Room Blog, April 28, 2009 (both retrieved on July 6, 2009). The original January decision by Judge Charles Sifton of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island) was upheld by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Vermont, Connecticut and New York state).