The Slatest

Thompson Concedes to De Blasio in NYC Mayor’s Race

New York City Comptroller William Thompson speaks during a hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee April 30, 2007 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a press conference Monday morning, New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson ended his bid to succeed Michael Bloomberg and endorsed Democratic rival, Bill de Blasio.

The top two Democratic vote getters in last week’s primary appeared in a joint press conference. “I am proud to stand here today and support Bill de Blasio to be the next mayor of the City of New York,’’ Thompson said.

Thompson’s concession makes de Blasio the undisputed Democratic nominee for mayor. Thompson, the former city comptroller who came within 5 percentage points of Bloomberg in the race for mayor four years ago, finished second in the Democratic primary last week with 26 percent of the vote.

De Blasio, unofficially, garnered 40 percent of the vote, giving him the lead on the Democratic side, but a potential runoff between the two candidates was still a possibility as the official vote tally was still being counted. The city requires a candidate to get 40 percent of the vote to win outright and, according to the New York Times, Thompson “had professed some hope that as the lever voting machine results are double-checked, and tens of thousands of uncounted paper ballots are tallied, Mr. de Blasio’s total might dip below that threshold.”

The concession clears the way for de Blasio to face Republican Joseph Lhota in the general election.