New York City mayoral election, 1917

New York City mayoral election, 1917

← 1913 November 6, 1917 1921 →
Candidate John F. Hylan John P. Mitchel Party Democratic Independent Popular vote 314,010 155,497 Percentage 46.78% 23.16%   Candidate Morris Hillquit William M. Bennett Party Socialist Republican Popular vote 145,332 56,438 Percentage 21.65% 8.4%
Results by Borough   Hylan—50-60%   Hylan—<50%
Mayor before election John P. Mitchel Independent Elected Mayor John F. Hylan Democratic

John P. Mitchel
Independent

John F. Hylan
Democratic

The 1917 Election for Mayor of the City of New York replaced sitting Mayor John P. Mitchel, a reform Democrat running on the Fusion Party ticket, with John F. Hylan, the regular Democrat supported by Tammany Hall and William Randolph Hearst.

The election was notable not only for the first partisan primary elections for City offices, but for the contentious debate over supporting U.S. entry into World War One, vigorously supported by Mitchel and opposed by the Socialist candidate, Morris Hillquit. Mitchel and Hillquit each won about a fifth of the total vote, while Hylan won office with less than half the vote.

The Fall 1917 election, which The New York Times called a "puzzle without parallel", would have been exciting even had it occurred in peacetime. In September, the City held its first-ever primary elections for mayor. Incumbent Fusion Mayor John Purroy Mitchel (an insurgent Democrat) who had enjoyed Republican non-opposition in 1913, apparently won the Republican primary until a series of counting mistakes and frauds (followed by criminal indictments) forced recounts that gave a narrow victory to William M. Bennett. Attempts to find a compromise anti-Tammany candidate failed, Bennett declined to withdraw from the race, and Mitchel went on to wage an independent campaign for re-election.