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1929 New York City mayoral election
The 1929 New York City mayoral election was held on November 5 in concert with other municipal elections. Democratic incumbent Jimmy Walker defeated Republican challenger Fiorello H. La Guardia in what was considered "a Crushing Defeat to [the] City G.O.P. [delivered]" by Tammany Hall. Socialist candidate Norman Thomas also ran, as did Socialist Labor candidate Olive M. Johnson and former Police Commissioner Richard Edward Enright for the Square Deal Party.
- Fiorello LaGuardia, U.S. Representative from East Harlem
- William M. Bennett, former State Senator from Manhattan and perennial candidate
La Guardia gave his acceptance speech at the Mecca Temple.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | 62,894 | 78.62% | |
| Republican | 17,100 | 21.38% | |
| 79,994 | 100.00% |
Walker won with a plurality of 497,165 votes, which had been the largest ever recorded for a mayoral candidate up to that time. This record would stand for more than five years, being surpassed when the 1935 Chicago mayoral election was won by a plurality of 631,579.
Walker won the absolute majority of votes in all five boroughs. The results were part of a larger Democratic landslide in which Democrats won the position of President of the Board of Aldermen, Comptroller, all positions in Brooklyn, and all Borough Presidencies except Queens, and gained 2 seats in the Assembly and 3 in the Board of Aldermen from Republicans. Thomas's results were the highest recorded by the Socialist party to that date.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | 867,522 | 60.70% | ||
| Republican | 367,675 | 25.73% | ||
| Socialist | 175,697 | 12.29% | ||
| Socialist Labor | 6,401 | 0.45% | ||
| Communist | 5,805 | 0.41% | ||
| Square Deal | Richard Enright | 5,695 | 0.40% | |
| Commonwealth Land | Lawrence W. Tracy | 320 | 0.02% | |
| 1,429,115 | 100.00% |
Despite his success, Walker would be embroiled in scandal in 1932 and forced to resign.
- Mann, Arthur (1965). La Guardia Comes To Power 1933. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
- Soyer, Daniel (2021). Left in the Center: The Liberal Party of New York and the Rise and Fall of American Social Democracy. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501759888. JSTOR 10.7591/j.ctv1hw3x50.2.
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