The Mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

al election of 2007 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

was a special election held on Tuesday

Election Day (United States)

Election Day in the United States is the day set by law for the general elections of public officials. It occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The earliest possible date is November 2 and the latest possible date is November 8...

, November 6, 2007. The incumbent mayor, Luke Ravenstahl

Luke Ravenstahl

Luke Robert Ravenstahl is the current Mayor of Pittsburgh. In September 2006, he became the youngest mayor in Pittsburgh's history at the age of 26. He is among the youngest mayors of a major city in American history....

 of the Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 faced Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 challenger Mark DeSantis, a telecommunications executive and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

. The race was notable for the strength of its Republican challenger, rare in Pittsburgh, and the election of such a young mayor, Ravenstahl being 27 years old at the time. Ravenstahl was elected with a comfortable margin in an election marked by unusually cold weather and low voter turnout

Voter turnout

Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

.

Overview

The mayor of Pittsburgh is elected to the post in four year terms. The previous mayor, Bob O'Connor, was elected to the position on November 8, 2005 and began to serve January 3, 2006. However, O'Connor was diagnosed with lymphoma

Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer in the lymphatic cells of the immune system. Typically, lymphomas present as a solid tumor of lymphoid cells. Treatment might involve chemotherapy and in some cases radiotherapy and/or bone marrow transplantation, and can be curable depending on the histology, type, and stage...

 of the central nervous system on July 10, 2006. The prognosis was initially good as the mayor began treatment, including chemotherapy

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....

, immediately, but O'Connor experienced many complications and died 8:55 PM local time September 1, 2006 at the age of 61. Ravenstahl, president of the city council, was sworn in as the new mayor at 10:36 PM local time, and would serve until a special election would be held to determine if he should complete O'Connor's term.

Primary elections

Primary election

Primary election

A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

s were held for both parties during county-wide elections on May 15, 2007. No candidates ran in the Republican primary, with DeSantis entering the race afterwards. Although it had appeared earlier that councilman Bill Peduto

Bill Peduto

William Peduto, Democrat, was elected to Pittsburgh City Council, District 8, in November, 2001, and to a second four-year term in 2005.In the spring primary of 2005, Peduto ran for two positions. Besides running for re-election for his council seat, Peduto was a candidate for mayor...

, who ran against O'Connor in the 2005 primary, would challenge Ravenstahl in the Democratic Primary, he dropped out of the race and Ravenstahl won 95.94% of the Democratic primary vote.

Democratic mayoral primary results

	Vote total	Percentage
Luke Ravenstahl	34,456	95.94%
Write-in	1,459	4.06%

General election

The general election was held on November 6, 2007 in unusually cold and windy weather which included the city's first snowfall of the year. Voter turnout was estimated to be 28.98%, and very few problems were reported at the polls. DeSantis polled well in more affluent areas of the city, such as Squirrel Hill

Squirrel Hill

Squirrel Hill is a residential neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The city officially divides it into two neighborhoods, Squirrel Hill North and Squirrel Hill South, but it is almost universally treated as a single neighborhood...

, while Ravenstahl commanded large portions of the vote in the city's black and working class white neighborhoods, such as the Hill District

Hill District (Pittsburgh)

The Hill District is a collection of neighborhoods that is considered by many to be the cultural center of African-American life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an American city. Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay once called the district "the crossroads of the world," referring to the...

. The race was more competitive than usual in the heavily Democratic city, but was sufficiently one-sided that the Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 declared Ravenstahl to be victorious only slightly more than one and a half hours after the polls had closed and only 20% of city precincts had reported voting totals. DeSantis conceded defeat to Ravenstahl shortly after, around 10 PM local time. Despite losing by more than thirty percentage points in general polling, Desantis's performance was considered quite good for a Republican candidate, indeed the best performance in several decades.