Mayor Bill de Blasio.

If a politician like the mayor can convince the City Council and other government actors that mandates, in fact, exist — and that he has one — it can help move his agenda along. | Getty Images

De Blasio claimed a mandate. Political scientists suggest there's no such thing.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said several times Wednesday that his reelection victory was a clear indication that voters had given him a second-term mandate to enact a laundry list of policies.

“I don’t know what your definition of an election is, but my definition is that people decide to participate and whoever gets the most votes wins, and if you have a two-thirds margin, that is a clear, strong mandate, and that came from everyone that participated. I think it’s unquestionably a clear mandate," he said in a City Hall press conference.


But political science research indicates the very notion of mandates is suspect.

Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels show in their book "Democracy for Realists" that voters mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues.

“Voters, even the most informed voters, typically make choices not on the basis of policy preferences or ideology, but on the basis of who they are — their social identities,” they write.

That hasn't stopped politicians, from mayors to presidents, from pointing to their victory margins as a sign that the people back their policy positions.

Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University, found in her book "Delivering the People's Message" that presidents talk more about mandates either when their presidency is lacking legitimacy or when they are pushing at the boundaries of their authority.

“It’s a defensive strategy for politicians who feel like they are not legitimate, or under threat or flailing in some form or fashion,” Azari said in an interview.

She said that claims of a mandate are really about what the politician needs, as opposed to what the election was really about.


His track record has shown that he has had only modest success convincing other government actors to move on anything he doesn't already control and where there is not broad agreement.

De Blasio created a universal prekindergarten program in the city, which he had large power to do while also utilizing state money when Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided to expand prekindergarten statewide.

He expanded affordable housing production, which is also under his control. And he signed legislation to expand paid sick leave and to create a municipal ID program that benefits non-citizens, both of which were popular with the City Council and passed with large majorities.

But he didn’t get a relatively small increase in the income tax for high earners to pay for prekindergarten from Albany. He also wasn’t able to ban carriage horses in the city because there wasn’t enough support in the Council. And his plans to rezone parts of the city, increasing zoning while requiring affordable housing in those places, has had mixed success.

That was all after 2013, when he won 73 percent of the vote. De Blasio won reelection this time with 66 percent of the vote, according to the most recent returns.

Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University, questioned the mandate claim just based on turnout.

“When you get elected with such low voter turnout, is it a mandate?” she said in an interview, pointing out that only about 23 percent of registered voters bothered to show up.

So it will be an uphill battle to create an effective mandate situation this term. “On issues where there is a lot of support, he’ll be fine,” Greer said, pointing to issues like immigration. But she said he’ll get pushback on issues like locating homeless shelters and jails.

Moreover, the mayor, who is term-limited, faces an abbreviated period of time before others start running to replace him in 2021 and he becomes a target.

“A large number of members of the City Council are running for higher office in four years,” said Ken Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College, in an interview. “They need to establish individual personas that are known wider than the district they represent. As a result, the pressure is to distinguish themselves from the mayor.”

“People feel free to ignore lame ducks,” he added.

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