Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pulled out a narrow re-election victory on Tuesday, as voters angry over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law and his extravagant campaign spending provided an unexpected lift to his vastly underfinanced challenger, William C. Thompson Jr.

Unofficial returns showed Mr. Bloomberg with 51 percent and Mr. Thompson with 46 percent. The result will make Mr. Bloomberg only the fourth three-term mayor in the last century.

...the margin seemed to startle Mr. Bloomberg’s aides and the city’s political establishment, which had predicted a blowout. Published polls in the days leading up to the election suggested that the mayor would win by as many as 18 percentage points; four years ago, he cruised to re-election with a 20 percent margin.

The billionaire mayor had poured $90 million of his own fortune into the race, a sum without equal in the history of municipal politics that gave him a 14-to-1 advantage in campaign spending.

...“Everybody was shocked,” a Bloomberg aide said.

Mr. Bloomberg had based his third-term campaign largely on the argument that the city has been better run since he ushered in an era of corporate efficiency and nonpartisan leadership at City Hall... He also pointed to his accomplishments in education, crime reduction and public health.

...Stav Brinbaum, 37, a Web producer from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, described his own vote for the mayor as “unfortunate.”

...according to exit polls, Mr. Bloomberg tapped into his historic sources of strength: Staten Island and Queens backed him by comfortable margins, as did Jews, white Catholics and those earning more than $200,000.

posted by speakingcorpse : 11/04/2009 01:56:00 AM