returns in 1913, the Bronx has supported only one Republican (Fiorello La Guardia) and Manhattan has opposed only two successful candidates (Giuliani in 1993 and Bloomberg in 2001). On the other hand, in the eleven elections since 1965 that were contested between Democratic and Republican candidates (i.e. excluding 1981, when Ed Koch was endorsed by both parties), Staten Island has voted for only two Democratic candidates, Abe Beame in 1973 and Koch in 1985. Queens has voted for only three, Abe Beame in 1973, Koch in 1985, and Bill de Blasio in 2017. The City as a whole elected four of the Democratic candidates in those same eleven elections from 1965 to 2009. The Bronx supported all eleven, Brooklyn nine, and Manhattan six. Some basic patterns of mayoral elections in New York City Democrats, Republicans, and reformers One pattern, stretching back well before consolidation and lasting into the 1960s, is the conflict between, on one side, Tammany Hall, the Democratic political organization largely built on political patronage with a consequent deep skepticism about Civil Service, the merit system of assigning government jobs, and competitive bidding for city contracts, and on the other hand, its various opponents, including Republicans, businessmen opposed to taxation or extorted bribes, middle-class reformers and labor union activists. Until the election of Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1933, it was almost never possible to unite the disparate anti-Tammany elements in a coalition strong enough to prevail for more than one election. (This was not only for negative reasons: Tammany could listen to and satisfy some of its opponents' needs, and could on occasion run candidates of undoubted quality, such as Abram Hewitt to oppose Henry George's United Labor Party in 1886. ) In the reported words of the Tammany leader George Washington Plunkitt, reformers were only "mornin' glories —- looked lovely in the mornin' and withered up in a short time, while the regular machines went on flourishin' forever, like fine old oaks.". Quite apart from Tammany Hall itself, both Republicans and left-wing reform parties have always had to deal with the overwhelmingly Democratic sympathies of New York City's voters. An examination of the election table below will show that neither the various Socialist and labor parties nor the Republicans were ever strong enough to elect a Mayor alone without the support, or at least the benign non-hostility, of other parties and independents. Fusion, second ballot lines,