Driscoll Survives It's the closest Syracuse mayor's race in 80 years

The Post-Standard ^ | Wednesday, November 09, 2005 | By Frederic Pierce and John Mariani

[NYCVOICE]

Driscoll Survives It's the closest Syracuse mayor's race in 80 years Wednesday, November 09, 2005 By Frederic Pierce and John Mariani Staff writers

Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll won a second term Tuesday in the city's tightest mayoral race in 80 years, beating Republican Joanie Mahoney by 3.6 percent of the vote.

Driscoll took 49.4 percent of the vote, while Mahoney took 45.8 percent, according to unofficial results from the Onondaga County Board of Elections. Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins earned 4.6 percent.

"We held together, we closed ranks," Driscoll told a cheering crowd of about 500 supporters in Eastwood's Palace Theater. "We put our heads down and fought against the fortress of opposition, and we won."

The final results, announced before the mayor arrived, were greeted by several minutes of cheers, applause and dancing in the aisles at the Democratic victory party, as Donna Summer's "I Will Survive" boomed from the sound system.

It followed an hour of emotional ups and downs, as election returns projected on the theater movie screen showed Driscoll and Mahoney switching in and out of the lead every few minutes.

Several hundred supporters at the Regency Ballroom of the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center, subdued most of the evening as the returns went against Mahoney, cheered for their candidate when she conceded defeat.

"I entered this race because I know that Syracuse can do better," Mahoney said. "We should expect more from our City Hall. While we came up short at the voting booth today, we did send Matt Driscoll a message. We told City Hall that our opinions really do matter, that we want to be part of the process, and that we expect a city government of the highest of integrity and the purest of intentions."

Mahoney, a former prosecutor and city councilor, was hoping to become the first elected woman mayor of not only Syracuse, but of any of the five major upstate New York cities.

Polls conducted for The Post-Standard and other news media showed the candidates were running in a virtual dead heat coming into Election Day. In the end, the margin of victory was the smallest since the city's mayoral race of 1925, when Republican George Hanna slipped past Democrat John Walrath with a 1.4 percent margin.

Driscoll Tuesday spent several minutes thanking supporters, which included big-name Democratic politicians like Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer; labor unions and minority groups, including the Alliance Network and Women of Color, for helping him make a last-minute push to get out the vote.

[NYCVOICE]

Republican push in Syracuse. Second place doesn't count. If the base of conservatives got the vote out in Syracuse they could of won it. They didn't get the large voter turn out like 2001.

Look at the totals:

http://www.wtvh.com/election/st110905.htm

Matthew J Driscoll [D] [I] 15,766 49% (X) Joanie Mahoney [R] 14,608 46% Howie Hawkins [G] 1,476 5%

Syracuse even had their own third party candidate.

2001 the election was lopsided. The republican's father ran that year.

MAYOR TOTAL VOTES - 32,128

VOTES % TOTAL BERNARD J MAHONEY________ REP 7,672 ( 27.6) 8,885 MATT DRISCOLL____________ DEM 19,483 ( 60.6) 19,483 AHEAD BY 10,598

Some think the big push was based on the Mall. Destiny USA mall planned to be built in Syacuse.

http://www.syracuse.com/destinyusa/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/business-0/113092458528091.xml&coll=1

Mahoney supported it and Driscoll slowed it down.

Interesting take from a blue State.

[truthluva]

...as Donna Summer's "I Will Survive" boomed from the sound system.

Hey...I thought Gloria Gaynor sang that song!!!

[Steely Tom]

I checked the suburb results last night. Near as I could tell, they went for the GOP 100%.

I live in Manlius.

(steely)

[massgopguy]

Couldn't we link Driscoll to Paul Pasquiloni?

[YankeeinOkieville]

Mahoney, a former prosecutor and city councilor, was hoping to become the first elected woman mayor of not only Syracuse, but of any of the five major upstate New York cities.

• Albany
• Buffalo
• Rochester
• Syracuse
• ???

I'd have guessed Bingo but there was a lady mayor there when I was growing up. DO they mean Watertown, perhaps? Am I forgetting somewhere?

[Verginius Rufus]

I think Cheektowaga has the largest population, but if they mean a freestanding city rather than a suburb, it would probably be either Utica or Schenectady (both larger than Binghamton).