![]() | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
![]() Borough results Koch: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% Cuomo: 40–50% 60–70% | ||||||||||||||||
|
Elections in New York State |
---|
![]() |
The New York City mayoral election of 1977 occurred on Tuesday, November 8, 1977. U.S. Representative Ed Koch defeated Secretary of State Mario Cuomo in both the Democratic Party primary and the general election, with Cuomo running on the Liberal Party ticket.
In the Democratic primary on September 8, incumbent mayor Abraham Beame was challenged by five other Democrats, including Representative Ed Koch, New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo, and feminist activist and former Representative Bella Abzug. In the initial primary, Koch won a narrow victory over the field despite carrying none of New York's five boroughs and only 19.8% of the popular vote. Because no candidate received over forty percent of the vote, a runoff vote was held between Koch and Cuomo, who had already won the Liberal Party nomination. Koch defeated Cuomo by winning narrow victories in every borough but Staten Island.
In the general election, which Cuomo decided to contest on the Liberal ticket, Koch was again victorious, coming within a few hundred votes of an outright majority. Republican Roy M. Goodman and Conservative Barry Farber finished a distant third and fourth, respectively.
In October 1975, with the city on the verge of bankruptcy, Mayor Beame asked the federal government for a bailout. President Gerald Ford refused, leading to the memorable New York Daily News headline: "Ford to City: Drop Dead". As a result, Mayor Beame laid off many police officers and other city employees, which was followed by an increase in crime. (The next month, Ford relented in part, signing the New York City Seasonal Financing Act of 1975, which extended $2.3 billion in federal loans to the city for three years. [1] )
A 982-page report from the Securities and Exchange Commission blamed Beame's mismanagement for the city's financial mess, which his opponents seized on as an electoral issue. [2] Beame's struggles with the economy and crime, which had led to a decrease in the population of New York City, encouraged several Democrats to challenge him.
The Liberal Party convention was held on May 19, 1977. Cuomo defeated Abzug for the nomination.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Liberal | Mario Cuomo | 238 | 95.20% | |
Liberal | Abstention | 7 | 2.80% | |
Liberal | Bella Abzug | 5 | 2.00% | |
Majority | 231 | 92.40 | ||
Total votes | 250 | 100.00% |
The Democratic primary was held on September 8, 1977.
Abzug represented parts of Manhattan and the Bronx in the U.S. House. In 1975, she left her seat to run for the U.S. Senate but was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Cuomo, a liberal from Queens, had been appointed Secretary of State by Governor Hugh Carey in 1976, after losing the election for lieutenant governor in 1974.
Ed Koch, a Jewish politician from Greenwich Village, began his career as "just a plain liberal," [4] but shifted rightward, towards being a "liberal with sanity". [5]
Koch ran to the right of the other candidates, on a "law and order" platform. A major blackout affected New York City from July 13, 1977 to July 14, 1977. The blackout was localized to New York City and the immediate surroundings, and resulted in citywide looting. According to historian Jonathan Mahler, the blackout and the subsequent rioting helped catapult Koch and his message of restoring public safety to front-runner status. [6] Mayor Beame accused Con Edison, the power provider for New York City, of "gross negligence". Koch criticized Beame for losing control of the streets and failing to ask Governor Carey to call in the National Guard. [7] [8]
Poll Source | Dates Administered | Beame | Abzug | Cuomo | Koch | Sutton | Badillo |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New York Times/CBS News | August 23, 1977 | 17% | 17% | 14% | 12% | 9% | 7% |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Ed Koch | 180,248 | 19.81% | |
Democratic | Mario Cuomo | 170,488 | 18.74% | |
Democratic | Abraham Beame (incumbent) | 163,610 | 17.98% | |
Democratic | Bella Abzug | 150,719 | 16.56% | |
Democratic | Percy Sutton | 131,197 | 14.42% | |
Democratic | Herman Badillo | 99,808 | 10.97% | |
Democratic | Joel Harnett | 13,927 | 1.53% | |
Majority | 9,760 | 1.0% | ||
Total votes | 909,997 | 100.00% |
1977 Democratic Primary | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Manhattan | The Bronx | Brooklyn | Queens | Staten Island | Total | ||
Edward I. Koch | 50,806 | 23,453 | 49,470 | 52,002 | 5,812 | 181,544 | |
Mario M. Cuomo | 25,331 | 23,028 | 54,845 | 56,698 | 10,430 | 170,332 | |
Abraham D. Beame | 23,758 | 25,747 | 63,304 | 44,607 | 7,337 | 164,753 | |
Bella Abzug | 56,045 | 20,435 | 37,236 | 33,883 | 4,314 | 151,913 | |
Percy Sutton | 35,012 | 24,801 | 42,903 | 28,525 | 1,399 | 132,640 | |
Herman Badillo | 27,193 | 35,007 | 28,909 | 9,051 | 876 | 101,036 | |
As no candidate obtained the needed 40%, a runoff election was scheduled. The runoff election was held on September 19, 1977 between the top two vote getters, Koch and Cuomo.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Ed Koch | 431,849 | 54.94% | |
Democratic | Mario Cuomo | 354,222 | 45.06% | |
Majority | 77,627 | 9.88 |
1977 Democratic Primary Runoff | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Manhattan | The Bronx | Brooklyn | Queens | Staten Island | Total | ||
Edward I. Koch | 115,251 | 69,612 | 131,271 | 107,033 | 9,835 | 433,002 | |
Mario M. Cuomo | 61,570 | 55,355 | 112,587 | 105,522 | 19,799 | 354,833 | |
The Republican primary was held on September 8, 1977.
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Roy M. Goodman | 44,667 | 56.22% | ||
Republican | Barry Farber | 34,782 | 43.78% | ||
Majority | 9,885 | 12.44 |
Though Koch won the runoff convincingly, Cuomo remained in the race as the Liberal Party nominee.
Though Governor Carey had persuaded Cuomo to run for mayor in the first place, he threw his support to Koch and urged Cuomo to stand down for the sake of party unity. Cuomo refused.
While Koch had a reputation as a crusading reformer, that summer he quietly promised plum city jobs to the political powerbrokers in the boroughs in exchange for their support. [2] Cuomo ran on banning the death penalty, which backfired with New Yorkers during a time of high crime rates. Cuomo then went negative with ads that likened Koch to unpopular former mayor John Lindsay. His supporters used the inflammatory slogan "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo". [2] Meanwhile, Koch backers accused Cuomo of anti-Semitism and pelted Cuomo campaign cars with eggs. [2]
Poll Source | Dates Administered | Koch (D) | Cuomo (L) | Farber (C) | Goodman (R) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
New York Post | November 1–3, 1977 | 49.5% | 35.4% | 3.6% | 3.4% |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Democratic | Ed Koch | 717,376 | 49.99 | ||
Liberal | Mario Cuomo | 587,913 | 40.97 | ||
Republican | Roy M. Goodman | 58,606 | 4.08 | ||
Conservative | Barry Farber | 57,437 | 4.00 | ||
Communist | Kenneth F. Newcombe | 5,300 | 0.37 | ||
Socialist Workers | Catarino Garza | 3,294 | 0.23 | ||
United Taxpayers Party | Vito P. Battista | 2,119 | 0.15 | ||
Independence | Louis P. Wein | 1,127 | 0.08 | ||
Libertarian | William Lawry | 1,068 | 0.07 | ||
U.S. Labor | Elijah C. Boyd | 873 | 0.06 | ||
Majority | 129,463 | 9.02 | |||
Turnout | 1,435,113 |
General Election | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Manhattan | The Bronx | Brooklyn | Queens | Staten Island | Total | ||
Democratic | Edward I. Koch | 184,842 | 116,436 | 204,934 | 191,894 | 19,270 | 717,376 |
Liberal – Neighborhood Government | Mario M. Cuomo | 77,531 | 87,421 | 173,321 | 208,748 | 40,932 | 587,913 |
Republican | Roy M. Goodman | 19,321 | 6,102 | 11,491 | 18,460 | 3,229 | 58,606 |
Conservative | Barry M. Farber | 9,070 | 7,624 | 16,576 | 20,453 | 3,714 | 57,437 |
others | 4,281 | 1,731 | 3,752 | 3,256 | 761 | 13,781 | |
1,435,113 |
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. Cuomo's total vote included 522,942 Liberal and 64,971 Neighborhood Government.
Abraham David Beame was an American accountant, investor, and Democratic Party politician who was the 104th mayor of New York City, in office from 1974 to 1977. As mayor, he presided over the city during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy.
Edward Irving Koch was an American politician. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989.
Mario Matthew Cuomo was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as the lieutenant governor of New York from 1979 to 1982 and the secretary of State of New York from 1975 to 1978. He was the father of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and NewsNation anchor Christopher Cuomo.
The Liberal Party of New York is a political party in New York. Its platform supports a standard set of socially liberal policies, including abortion rights, increased spending on education, and universal health care.
Mark Joseph Green is an American author, former public official, public interest lawyer, and Democratic politician from New York City. Green was New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner from 1990 to 1993 and New York City Public Advocate from 1994 to 2002.
Herman Badillo was an American lawyer and politician who served as borough president of The Bronx and United States Representative, and ran for Mayor of New York City. He was the first Puerto Rican elected to these posts, and the first Puerto Rican mayoral candidate in a major city in the continental United States.
The mayor of New York City is elected in early November every four years, in the year immediately following a United States presidential election year, and takes office at the beginning of the following year. The city, which elects the mayor as its chief executive, consists of the five boroughs, which consolidated to form "Greater" New York on January 1, 1898.
William Fitts Ryan was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a representative from New York in the United States House of Representatives from 1961 until his death from throat cancer in New York City in 1972. He was a member of the Democratic Party.
Percy Ellis Sutton was an American political and business leader. An activist in the Civil Rights Movement and lawyer, he was also a Freedom Rider and the legal representative for Malcolm X. He was the highest-ranking African-American elected official in New York City when he was Manhattan borough president from 1966 to 1977, the longest tenure at that position. He later became an entrepreneur whose investments included the New York Amsterdam News and the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Mario Angelo Procaccino was an Italian-American lawyer, comptroller, and candidate for Mayor of New York City.
Roy Matz Goodman was an American politician and businessman who served as a member of the New York State Senate from 1969 to 2002. He was the Republican nominee in the 1977 New York City mayoral election, receiving 4.08% of the vote.
The 1982 New York gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1982, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New York. Incumbent Democratic Governor Hugh Carey chose not to run for a third term, which resulted in an open race. Democratic nominee Mario Cuomo, the Lieutenant Governor of New York, narrowly defeated Republican Lewis Lehrman, a banker who ran as a conservative.
The 1974 New York state election was held on November 5, 1974, to elect the governor, the lieutenant governor, the state comptroller, the attorney general, two judges of the New York Court of Appeals and a U.S. Senator, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate.
The 1980 United States Senate election in New York was held on November 4, 1980. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Jacob Javits was defeated in the primary by Al D'Amato. D'Amato went on to win a plurality in the general election over Elizabeth Holtzman and Javits, who remained in the race as the candidate of the Liberal Party of New York.
The 1989 New York City mayoral election was held on Tuesday, November 7.
The 1969 New York City mayoral election occurred on Tuesday, November 4, 1969, with incumbent Liberal Party Mayor John Lindsay elected to a second term. Lindsay defeated the Democratic candidate, New York City Comptroller Mario Procaccino, and the Republican candidate, state senator John Marchi.
The New York City mayoral election of 1985 occurred on Tuesday, November 5, 1985, with Democratic incumbent Mayor Ed Koch being re-elected to a third term by a landslide margin.
The New York City mayoral election of 1973 occurred on Tuesday, November 6, 1973, with the Democratic candidate, New York City Comptroller Abraham Beame winning the mayoralty with a decisive majority amongst a highly divided field.
The 1965 New York City mayoral election occurred on Tuesday, November 2, 1965, with Republican Congressman John Lindsay winning a close plurality victory over the Democratic candidate, New York City Comptroller Abraham Beame.
Dimitrius Solon "James" Vlasto was an American editor, political public relations consultant and public servant who served in federal, New York state and city senior government positions.