Over the course of this week, I'll be running previews of the five highest-profile elections that will take place next Tuesday, November 3rd. These are the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, the special Congressional election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, and Maine's Question 1, which seeks to ban gay marriage in the state. But we'll start things off this morning right here in New York City, where citizens will be electing their new mayor.
New York City -- Mayor
The Candidates: Mayor Michael Bloomberg (incumbent), independent
City Comptroller Bill Thompson, Democrat
The Polling: Bloomberg leads by 12 and 16 points, respectively, in two recent polls of likely voters from SurveyUSA and Marist, respectively, with little discernible momentum in the numbers.
Analysis: Bloomberg has approval ratings in the low 60s, a position that would not ordinarily render an incumbent vulnerable -- especially one who has an essentially unlimited budget and who has been running ads promoting his leadership for the better part of a year. However, Bloomberg risked stirring some discontent among swing voters by persuading New York's City Council to extend the city's mayoral term limits from two to three terms, allowing him to run again. In addition, he's an independent -- who until recently was a Republican and will in fact be listed as both an independent and a Republican under New York's electoral fusion rules -- in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Thompson has been endorsed by President Obama, albeit tentatively.
All of this, however, is liable to merely bend rather than break Bloomberg, as the two candidates are likely to roughly split the city's Democratic vote (about 70 percent of the electorate) while Bloomberg cleans up with Republicans and independents. The Marist poll shows Thompson polling more competitively if the electorate is expanded to include registered rather than likely voters, but the massive turnout that might be required to make things "interesting" seems unlikely -- there is relatively little buzz about the race here in New York City, as most people simply assume that Bloomberg will win, and while there are pockets of annoyance with his mayorship, they tend not to be especially impassioned. Unusually for New York, there are also a series of highly competitive statewide races on the docket in 2010 -- governor, Kirsten Gillibrand's Senate seat, and the closely-divided and chaotic State Assembly -- which may have distracted attention away from the Mayoral race. As a further distraction, the Yankees are playing in the World Series, which may extend past Election Day and will give Bloomberg some additional face time with his constituents.
The Odds: Although Thompson has run a relatively vigorous campaign, neither the polling nor the intangibles point to much possibility for a major upset; he should win The Bronx while losing the other four boroughs. I'd probably rate him as something like a 35:1 underdog, mostly on the chance of some late-breaking and heretofore unforeseen developments.
10.26.2009
2009 Elections Preview: NYC Mayor
@ 6:00 AM
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I think your 35:1 is overstating Thompson's chances. A more interesting question is whether any more incumbent city council members will fall for their roles in overturning the term limits referenda. Three fell in the primaries. Here in Astoria, Queens, there's a Green party candidate who's running against a third-generation Democratic incumbent. The Green actually has a 3-to-1 money advantage! I still doubt she wins, though.
I'll be voting for a Green and a Republican, like many, many good Democrats in this crazy town!
Flaherty/Yoon 2009!
It's time to take down Mumbles!!!
How has Bloomberg kept all the philandering stories under the radar and unproven? Interesting in a media town...
I think you mean the State Senate, not the State Assembly, that is closely-divided and in chaotic.
Sounds like a fair assessment of the mayoral situation, though.
No Third Terms, Vote for Burns! montyburnsformayor.com
Apart from pure horse race interest, is there any substantive difference between the two candidates?
Mad Joy is right. It's the NY Senate that is closely divided and chaotic. The Assembly is safely Democratic and despotic. (I say that as a Democrat.)
Bloomberg has gone from being a Democrat (before he entered politics) to a Republican to a Banana Republican.
@Bart - yes there is, and it happens to be my particular political crank (education)!
Long story short: Education consultants are utterly corrupt, and have no real services to sell. But, they have lobbyists, so they get billions of dollars to "fix" public schools, which they waste. Then, the schools they were supposed to fix are failing, so they get lucrative contracts to take them over entirely and run them.
The rhetoric around this corrupt cronyism is that it is "education reform" and that the greedy teachers unions only oppose this debacle because it costs them tenure.
Bloomberg is up to his eyeballs in this "public-private partnership" crap. It's more or less the same deal as the West Side stadium - NJ-scale corruption with a clean, glossy, NY makeover.
Anyone interested in the subject, there's a bunch of stuff here:
http://gothamschools.org/2009/09/25/on-thompsons-board-of-ed-days-both-campaigns-distort-history/
Not that this is quite the same, but the Washington Referendum 71 is up for a vote as well, and if it isn't approved... well, not much really changes. But if it is, Marriage in everything but name will be extended to same sex partners in Washington.
Bloomberg is aiming to buy the '12 GOP presidential nomination & has instructed his money managers at GoldmanSachs to prepare a plan to produce $2B liquid. Quite legal in the US oligarchy. And with that kind of money, and time saved thanks to no fundraising, Bloomberg will buy it, much to the delight of paid-off opponents & media owners who'll rake in the ad revenue. Never happen for a man of the Hebrew persuasion, you say? That's what was said in Feb '07 about a Black Man in the White House. Bloomberg will position the race as The Great Manager vs. the nice but Failed Leader. And he may well succeed in buying the White House as well.
Does electoral fusion have to be on the books or can it just be presumed unless forbidden?
I ask because Chris Daggett in NJ should be cross-listed with the Green Party (in my opinion), but isnt. They arent even running a candidate. I've never seen anything about fusion in NJ, so it may even be forbidden.
Isn't the special election in CA-10 also on the 3rd? Not exactly the highest profile race, but should be interesting in terms of Democrats holding onto their constituencies or not.
@Liz
Do you really think the GOP would nominate someone like Bloomberg for President? I can't imagine a pro-choice, pro-equality, anti-NRA nominee, let alone a Jew, getting the Republican nod. That and he left the party, and he's from New York.
Maybe he runs as an independent between Obama (if he turns out to be hapless) and some batshit crazy Republican like Palin or Romney. He might have a shot then.
Hey Nate,
Can you throw a bone to any of the races that aren't on the Atlantic Seaboard? (Are the only races in VA, NJ, NY, NY, and ME?)
As Matthew said above, when previewing Maine Q1, perhaps you can look at Washington Ref. 71?
The two gubernatorial races, NYC mayor, and Maine prop 1 is four, not five, high profile elections. Nate, I'm wondering whether there is a fifth that you had in mind, or you meant four.
This sounds like a pretty fair assessment of the mayoral race.
Once again, the Democratic candidate is a fairly inoffensive machine product.
If he were running against a standard Republican, that alone would be good enough. But Bloomberg is moderately well-liked.
NYC is a political spectrum. Manhattan is as liberal as any part of the country. There are vastly outnumbered Republicans among the very rich and young professionals, but even most of the trust fund crowd is embarrassed by the gay-bashing, war-mongering national Republican party. The gentrified parts of Brooklyn are similar to Manhattan, except even more liberal.
The poor areas are heavily Democratic.
However, the middle-class through mildly wealthy parts of the outer boroughs, although liberal by national standards, are more conservative than the rest of the city. I believe there was even a Staten Island district that Obama lost, albeit by a hair, in an almost-entirely-white district.
Bloomberg is moderately well-liked because NYC hasn't been pounded as hard as some other parts of the country (relatively speaking).
There's also not much reason to think that a Thompson administration would be much better than a Bloomberg administration in the many areas where Bloomberg is lacking.
It would be very hard for an overt Republican to win the NYC mayoral race post-Bush, but Bloomberg has the middle class and moderately wealthy outer borough areas locked in, and can almost certainly pull enough votes in Manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn, and some of the lower income areas in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, to win by at least 55-45. Which is pretty much what the polls are showing.
sarasotajoe said...
The two gubernatorial races, NYC mayor, and Maine prop 1 is four, not five, high profile elections. Nate, I'm wondering whether there is a fifth that you had in mind, or you meant four.
New York 23rd.
Bloomberg was not really a Republican. He was a Democrat his whole life and wanted to bypass the messy Democratic primary in 2001, so ran as a Republican.
@Jacob
"...Republican like Palin or Romney."
Seriously now. Are these two really so similar in your mind? As a thought experiment, would you rather there be a 50% chance of Romney winning in 2012 or a 25% chance of Palin winning (against Obama having a 50% and 75% chance)?
Personally I'd certainly vote for Obama over Palin, and might vote for either Romney or Obama depending on their actions and words over the next few years.
I think everyone is vastly overestimating Palin's chances in the Republican primary, and would put them near zero. In 2008 Republicans nominated the candidate they thought most likely to win (who passed certain litmus tests), not the most conservative one or the one one anyone liked the most, and I expect them to vote strategically in the future as well.
The Washington referendum is, or should be, higher profile than the mayoral race in NYC which is, as you concluded, a foregone conclusion.
In the last 9 years, Bloomberg has registered Dem, GOP, Indie, GOP (early this year). Not a man to be deterred by labels. If in '11 his staff tell him Obama is sufficiently vulnerable from within the Dems, he could re-register as Dem & spend a billion in the Dem primaries. If his experts say Obama can't be bumped, then Bloomberg can spend a billion for the GOP nomination. A billion will buy an immense amount of media & fog that no GOP opponent could match with cries of babykiller & gun-banner. Not to mention buying endorsements from pols who hold cred with gun totin' yahoos. $2B resets many old rules.
@Brian
I don't think Palin has much chance either, and I realize she and Romney are not so similar, but both come from rightwing extremes, albeit vastly different types of rightwing. What I'm saying is that it might take such a polarizing candidate (and an enormous overall failure by Obama) for Bloomberg to be competitive as an independent, while he has 0 chance at either party's nomination.
@Liz,
$ only goes so far. For example I don't think $2B could have gotten the nomination for Steve Forbes.
And guns and abortion are HUGE issues for GOP primary voters. He can outspend all of his opponents combined, but he cannot silence them by doing so, nor prevent the media from picking up on the disconnect.
No matter how much $ Bloomberg has, I don't think a pro-choice pro-equality anti-NRA Jewish New Yorker who fled the party can win the Presidential nomination from the GOP. Almost any one of those things (except perhaps pro-choice) could be dealt with, but all of them together? No amount of $ could make the Repubs nominate a candidate like Bloomberg.
CA-10 is also having its congressional runoff, but that one is not likely as close. I live the next district over and haven't heard much. John Garamendi (D) will likely win.
This is significant because, as previously noted, it used to be pretty red. It was actually news when Ellen Tauscher (conservative D) won that seat.
I'd say Washington's Prop 71 is more contentious.
It would be nice if Nate noted what "Independent" means on the New York ballot. This is actually the Independent Party, which is run by the Fred Newman-Lenora Fulani crowd. As mayor and as private citizen, Bloomberg has given their organizations (purportedly Marxist-Leninist but promoting bizarre theories on sexuality and psychotherapy) millions of dollars in funding in a corrupt bargain to secure their spot on the ballot, with their innocuous party name, for himself. Remember that Fred Newman was an associate of Lyndon LaRouche in the 1970s, and although LaRouche and Newman politically parted ways decades ago both men established political cult structures centered around themselves as worshiped all-wise leaders. If anything, the Newman outfit is more troubling and dangerous than LaRouche's cult; I've never heard of LaRouche advocating that therapists have sex with their patients, and clearly LaRouche is more of an outsider anyway and doesn't enjoy the political patronage of a heavyweight like Bloomberg.
Bloomberg entering the race could be interesting, indeed. It'd be some kind of miracle to pull it off, though. You can see in NY-23 there are enough inside the nationally GOP that would much rather fail than have someone remotely moderate.
Although it depends on timing, Bloomberg having serious success would likely be biting into Romney. At that point, if Huckabee decided he likes his life right where it is and didn't enter, that could be Sarah Palin's openning. She needs "demons" to run against, and for her Bloomburg would be very easy to paint horn on. With Romney hurt she might actually convince the GOP to take a chance on her.
Or, and timing on this is iffy, she could lead a full defection ala 3rd party. It would be doomed to at best a handful of EC votes, but what a glorious sideshow estraveganzy it would be. Even compared to Sarah Palin running at all. Especially given the tight timing to organize.
Nate, is your cash bet that Palin will be a nominee for President in '12, or is it specifically for the position of GOP nominee? :)
P.S. Bloomberg is definitely pushing the age envelope. He'll be 70 during the primaries and election. Although I suppose that means if he's going to take a run at it it'll be in '12. Would wrangling a VP nomination suit his temperment?
You know, we're voting back West, too, thanks. Washington has an anti-gay referendum up, and California-10 has a special election. Wouldn't mind knowing if I have to vote for that carpetbagger Garamendi or if I can afford to make a protest vote for the Green Party guy. Harmer, of course, is an unmitigated turd.
@jpm- Higher profile isn't the right term... nothing is "higher profile" than New York. But the WA and ME votes should be really interesting to consider as a pair.
While Mainers are being asked to ban same-sex marriage, Washingtonians are being asked to REMOVE certain domestic partnership rights from a set of citizens. (The WA legislature passed an "everything but the marriage certificate" bill earlier this year, aimed at providing gay couples with equality minus the semantics.) So the margin of victory or defeat for each side should serve as extremely useful parameters for future gay-rights ballot measures.
What's more, both of these coastal states are deep blue, for now, with pathetic GOP organization but a rich history of supporting independent-leaning conservatives.
A NYC mayor will never become a viable Presidential candidate. The city and the city politics are so vastly different from the rest of the country - NYC Republicans look like Democats and the Democrats look like insane liberals - the former won't ever get a nomination as long as the Religious Right rules the GOP and the latter will always have trouble in a national election.
"Bradford said...
How has Bloomberg kept all the philandering stories under the radar and unproven? Interesting in a media town..."
Amazing what obscene amounts of money can do to buy folks off...
@Jacob...maybe I could see Bloomberg running if one of the whitewingers gets the GOP nod and Obama is truly tanking, but he is really very closely aligned with Obama on virtually every policy issue, so not remotely likely
@Brian
Obama cannot lose to Palin under any circumstances, but 50/50 with Romney? I only see that happening if he tanks, and I think it is as likely that the GOP splits in two, with the batshit crazy lizard people following Glenn Beck and Smirky Sara off a cliff as Romney getting the presidency, actually more likely.
Nate, thank you for these updates. One request, if I may: do you have any information about the California 10th District special election? It seems that Garamendi is not enjoying the walkover that was expected in a heavily Democratic district.
@Daniel
I think you meant burnsformayor.com. You only get to call him Monty when you give him a foot rub.
Mitt Romney has no chance of getting anywhere near the White House except as a tourist. He’s a Mormon, and while most Americans aren’t prejudiced based on faith unfortunately for him the people in the GOP base are. Liberals don’t generally give a shit about religion when a candidate is right on the issues, while conservatives,, especially the batshitters in charge of the GOP, are morbidly fearful of any faith that doesn’t fit nicely beside Southern Baptist theology. If by some miracle Romney won the GOP nomination he wouldn’t scare up even 30% of the vote in the general.
My view is that Newt Gingrich is the likeliest candidate right now for the GOP nomination in 2012. Palin will implode (should be a riveting spectacle), Romney will be locked out by secret agreement, and Mike Huckabee will have too much of the also-ran about him. (He did so poorly in the delegate count in 2008 that he dropped out of the race midway through.)
Says quite a bit about the GOP, doesn’t it?
Why doesn't Haley Barbour ever enter the conversation about a potential GOP nominee? All he does is govern his state effectively and keep his mouth shut unless he has something important to say. In terms of true ability, as opposed to grandstanding and inflaming the resentments and ignorances of the average yahoo, he's about the best the Republicans have, IMHO.
@juvanya
New Jersey has only two recognized parties and requires candidates to be a member of the party they seek the nomination of. Most states are basically like that. New York, OTOH, has a low threshold for becoming a recognized party (5% in the last gubernatorial election) and candidates can go the nomination of any party that will endorse them.
It's actually a wonderful system. It allows people to vote their allegiance, such as the Working Families Party or the Conservative Party while still voting for a viable candidate. When the major party candidate is acceptable to the more ideological parties, they cross-endorse. When not, the minor parties run their own candidates. That has the effect of putting more pressure on the major parties to put forward coherent candidates than exists elsewhere in the country. It also allows new movements to build up within the electoral system, without disenfranchising the movements' supporters.
NJ actually has I think 8 recognized parties; two defunct.* However none receive ballot lines and all you can do is affiliate with them.
I was just wondering if the law in NJ forbids fusion or it just is not used.
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Here's some information about the two gubernatorial elections:
VoteForAmerica.net
Graphs and Analysis of Polling Data
Washington State has a virtual gay marriage ban on the ballot -- it ought to be on your screen as well. The legislature granted gay couples "everything but the word marriage" last term, but certain groups used the referendum process to put the law to a vote of the people. Referendum 71 requires people to "approve" it to grant equal rights to gay and lesbian couples (as well as cohabiting seniors). (It's been a little confusing, because people were told to oppose letting this measure get on the ballot, but now that it's on the ballot they are being told to support it.)
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