Di Ianni promoting his municipal experience and support from the business community while Christopherson highlighted his time in cabinet and support from organized labour and progressive political organizations. On election night, Di Ianni defeated Christopherson by a margin of 52% to 39%. Speaking to reporters, Di Ianni noted he was immensely happy that the voters of Hamilton elected their first Italian-Canadian mayor by such a large margin. Di Ianni's term as mayor saw him attempt to enact his mayoral platform by addressing such issues as the completion of the Red Hill Expressway, business tax reduction, airport development, improving relations among the amalgamated municipalities, and obtaining additional social service funding from the more senior levels of government. On July 10, 2006 Di Ianni, along with two other unsuccessful candidates, were charged under the Provincial Offences Act of Ontario for violating the Municipal Elections Act of Ontario. On August 24, 2006, he accepted responsibility by pleading guilty for violating the Provincial Offences Act related to accepting inappropriate campaign donations. The Superior Court Justice exercised leniency as he deemed the violations to be unintentional and considered Di Ianni's good community service record. The Justice also likened the violation to a speeding ticket and withdrew the remaining charges. He lost the mayoralty to Fred Eisenberger in the 2006 municipal election. In the 2008 federal election, Di Ianni was the Liberal candidate in the federal riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, losing the race to incumbent MP Wayne Marston of the NDP by a margin of 6,464 votes. Di Ianni ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Hamilton in October 2010. Electoral record |- style="background-color:#fcfcfc;" !rowspan="2" colspan="2" style="text-align:center;" |Candidate !colspan="3" style="text-align:center;" |Popular vote |- style="background-color:#fcfcfc;" | style="text-align:center;" | Votes | style="text-align:center;" |% | style="text-align:center;" |±% |- | style="background-color:#3FFF00;" | | style="text-align:left;" | Bob Bratina | style="text-align:right;" |52,684 | style="text-align:right;" |37.32% | style="text-align:right;" |n/a |- | style="background-color:#FF0000;" | | style="text-align:left;" | Larry Di Ianni | style="text-align:right;" |40,091 | style="text-align:right;" |28.40% | style="text-align:right;" |-14.44% |- | style="background-color:#66023C;" | | style="text-align:left;" | Fred Eisenberger (incumbent) | style="text-align:right;" |38,719 | style="text-align:right;" |27.43% | style="text-align:right;" |-15.78% |- | style="background-color:#69359C;" | | style="text-align:left;" | Michael Baldasaro | style="text-align:right;" |2,892 | style="text-align:right;" |2.05% | style="text-align:right;" |-1.56% |- | style="background-color:#9BDDFF"| | style="text-align:left;" | Tone Marrone | style="text-align:right;" |1,052 | style="text-align:right;" |0.75% | style="text-align:right;" |n/a |- | style="background-color:#00563F;" | | style="text-align:left;" | Mahesh Butani | style="text-align:right;" |950 | style="text-align:right;" |0.67% | style="text-align:right;" |n/a |- | style="background-color:#00BFFF;" |