The results are in, sort of. Bill de Blasio is unofficially 1,000 votes over the 40% threshold needed to avoid a runoff in NYC's Democratic Mayoral Primary. Second place finisher Bill Thompson finished with only 25% of the vote. The City's Board of Elections will start the recount process but may not finish for a week.
Bill Thompson probably can't win. De Blasio has a 20% lead in runoff polls. To beat de Blasio in a runoff 20 days from now, Thompson must pick up 1% every day.
Another way to think about it is to look at the 35% of the voters who chose someone other than the top two. Thompson who was the first choice of only 25% of the voters in the first round now needs to win more than 70% of the "other" voters.
"Arithmetic" as President Clinton would say. It's a daunting task.
Who would win really a runoff race? Joe Lhota, the Republican nominee would be the clear winner. The Democratic race would build more voter fatigue. It might be divisive and ugly. And since the runoff will be October 1st, the winner would only have a month to gear up for the general election.
What should Thompson do? He should concede.
Conceding has sort of been done before - in 2005 facing a similar outcome (almost 40% for first place winner Fernando Ferrer and Weiner coming in second with about 27%). Anthony Weiner conceded, even suing the Board of Elections to stop the runoff. (wiki article)
Thompson's campaign seemed designed to survive the first round and gain a place in a runoff with one-time frontrunner Christine Quinn. Then Thompson could have campaigned one on one versus Quinn, on the theme of "no fourth term"'(for Bloomberg), a theme that would have easily extended to the general election against whoever the Republicans nominated.
But now Thompson faces de Blasio, who captured the "change" vote. Now if there is a runoff and Thompson chooses to run a serious campaign, it can probably only help the Republicans. He can only run from the right.
In a runoff the Establishment would rally to Thompson. Former Republican Senator Al d'Amato was already campaigning for him. The Chair of the New York State Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch has also endorsed Thompson. Tisch has been extremely supportive of Bloomberg's failed schools policies and dreadful attack on neighborhood schools. Others will follow.
Charges of "class warfare" will be tossed about by the shills of those who have been winning class warfare for the last two decades. Thompson's Wall Street connections might even lead to a wave of Super PAC money blitzing us with two weeks of ads attacking de Blasio on,other things.
For the sake of the party, Thompson should just concede. Maybe some party elders (Governor Cuomo, former Secretary of State Clinton, etc.) can find him a nice post.
I like Bill Thompson. I've voted for him before (though not this year). But he lost and should swiftly concede.