Giuliani Beats Dinkins in a Bitter Rematch

On November 2, 1993, Rudy Giuliani narrowly defeated incumbent Mayor David Dinkins, avenging his loss to Dinkins four years earlier and becoming the first Republican elected mayor of New York City since John Lindsay in 1965. The race was close from the start and stayed close: Giuliani took 903,114 votes to Dinkins's 858,868, a margin of just 53,367 out of about 1.9 million cast. Crime and race hung over the whole campaign, and so did the memory of a 1992 police rally outside City Hall, where thousands of off-duty officers, egged on in part by Giuliani, turned into a near-riot against Dinkins. Dinkins had actually presided over falling crime rates, but perception, especially after the 1991 Crown Heights riot, worked against him. Giuliani's win reordered City Hall for a generation and ended a 28-year Republican drought at the top of city government.