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 Results by Borough
Wagner—50–60%
Wagner—40–50%
Lefkowitz—40–50% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in New York State |
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The New York City mayoral election of 1961 occurred on Tuesday, November 7, 1961. Incumbent mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. was decisively re-elected to a third term in office, defeating Attorney General of New York Louis J. Lefkowitz and City Comptroller Lawrence E. Gerosa. Wagner received 51.03% of the vote to Lefkowitz's 34.46%.[1] Gerosa, running on the short-lived "pro-taxpayer" Citizens Party ticket, billed himself as the "real Democrat" in the race and took many Democratic votes from Wagner, finishing relatively strongly for a third party candidate.[2]
After being supported by the Tammany Hall machine in his 1953 and 1957 elections, Wagner broke with Tammany Hall in 1961, defeating the Democratic Party power brokers' chosen candidate, Arthur Levitt, in the Democratic primary and then going on to win a third term in the general election. Wagner's victory thus ultimately signified the decline of the power of political machines in New York City.[3]
Wagner was sworn into his third and final term in January 1962.
- ^ "New York City Mayoral Election 1961". Our Campaigns. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
- ^ McNickle, Chris (1993). To be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City. Columbia University Press.
- ^ McNickle 1993, p. 175