Very few people voted at all because NYC is a total one-party system and the GOP “opposition” is only token and unknown, since none of them have ever been in city government or any other public position. This is normally where NYC gets its candidates, but virtually none of these positions has been held by a Republican for ages.
Bloomberg was an exception, but he was a well known wealthy guy and simply said he’d keep on with Giuliani’s policies. Giuliani was brilliant on many practical things, but he was a social liberal so it was easy for Bloomberg to do this, and then of course Bloomy extended it into total nanny-statism.
But in any case, most New Yorkers show you what they think by not even bothering to vote.
Untrue. NYC is heavily RAT but Republicans can and DO occasionally win office there, especially in places like Staten Island. Rudy Giuliani certainly was not a "token and unknown candidate" when he was elected Mayor of NYC mulitple times, nor was lifelong RAT Michael Bloomberg when he conned the NYC Republican Party into nominating him and was then elected as a "Republican".
Nicole Malliotakis, Mayor Warren Wilhelm's opponent in the last election, was not a "token or unknown" candidate either. She is a pretty prominent elected Republican in the NY State Assembly and got the job by defeating an RAT incumbent.
You want to see a REAL one party system, check out Chicago, where there hasn't been a GOP mayor since the 1920s, and the GOP hasn't even BOTHERED to field a candidate for Mayor since 1995.