1989 New York City mayoral election

The 1989 New York City mayoral election was held on Tuesday, November 7. Incumbent Mayor Ed Koch, who had served since 1978, ran for an unprecedented fourth term in office but was defeated in the Democratic Party primary by Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins. Dinkins went on to narrowly defeat U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Rudy Giuliani, the candidate of both the Republican Party and Liberal Party of New York. Dinkins won with 50.42% of the vote to Giuliani's 47.84%. Whereas the two preceding mayoral elections of the 1980s had been landslide victories for Koch, who had not lost a single borough and had received the co-endorsement of the Republican Party in 1981, this election was a closely contested race. Dinkins won majorities in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, while Giuliani carried Queens and won a landslide on Staten Island. At the time, this was the strongest showing for a candidate on the Republican line since 1965 (not counting Koch's 1981 cross-endorsement), and the first since then that a candidate on the Republican line managed 30 percent of the vote. Four years later, in the 1993 election, Dinkins and Giuliani would face each other again in a re-match and Dinkins would lose to Giuliani in his bid for re-election. Democrats would not win a mayoral election in New York City again until 2013. This was the first of two elections in a row where the incumbent lost re-election.