Mark the date: On September 29th you're gonna be back in the voting both at your local school to make a a choice between Bill DeBlasio and Mark Green for public advocate and David Yassky and John Liu for city comptroller.
Because none of those candidates for those citywide offices received more than
40% of the votes cast, a
special run-off election between the top two contenders is required.
DeBlasio bested Green with his 113, 291 votes to Green's 107,232. That means that DeBlasio got 32.63% of the vote to Green's 30.89%.
Not enough for victory.
John Liu bested Yassky with 133,945 votes compared to Yassky's 107,421. That's 38% for Liu compared with 34% for Yassky.
Again, not enough for victory.
All of these candidates have two weeks to get the votes they need to push them over the edge. It should be an interesting—and aggressive couple of weeks.
Interestingly, it's Park Slope's City Council members David Yassky and Bill DeBlasio who are running hard in their respective races.
Familiar names around here, both must make their names even better known city-wide in this important run-off to decide who gets to be the city's comptroller and public advocate.
The runoff requirement in citywide races came about as a result of the 1969 Democratic mayoral primary, a five candidate contest which was won by Mario Procaccino with 33% of the vote. Procaccino went on to lose to Lindsay in the general election in a year most thought a Democrat could have won. As a result, the runoff under 40% requirement was imposed. I can’t recall the exact reason given for it being limited only to the citywide office, but that’s the history of it.
@Steve,
Yes, run-offs are limited to citywide contests. Anyone know what the thinking is behind that?
Are run-offs limited to city-wide contests? Is that why there is none for the council, although Levin didn’t get 40%?