Dinkins had narrowly defeated Giuliani in the previous election. As in his unsuccessful 1989 campaign, Giuliani also ran on the Liberal Party ballot, while the Conservative Party line was held by activist George Marlin. The city was suffering from a spike in unemployment associated with a nationwide recession, and with a rise in local unemployment rates from 6.7% in 1989 to 11.1% in 1992. Giuliani promised to focus the police department on shutting down petty crimes and nuisances as a way of restoring the quality of life: Although crime had begun to fall during the Dinkins administration, the city's crime rate was a key issue in the 1993 election, with Dinkins suffering badly from a perception that crime was uncontrolled in the city, possibly because of events such as the Crown Heights riot, as well as the Family Red Apple boycott. Dinkins and Giuliani never debated during the campaign, unable to agree on how to approach a debate. Jimmy McMillan, the founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, made his first run for political office in this election. In the course of his campaign, McMillan was at one point tied to a tree and doused with gasoline; he would later climb the Brooklyn Bridge and refuse to come down from it unless television stations broadcast his message. He was ultimately disqualified from the ballot for coming 300 petition signatures short of the 7,500 needed to qualify for the general election ballot. Dinkins was endorsed by The New York Times and Newsday, while Giuliani was endorsed by the New York Post and, in a key switch from 1989, the New York Daily News. Dinkins earned 48.3 percent of the vote, down from 51 percent in 1989. Although he was a moderate with a substantial history of building coalitions and supporting Jewish causes, one factor in Dinkins' loss was his perceived indifference to the plight of the Jewish community during the Crown Heights riot. Another was a strong turnout for Giuliani in Staten Island; a referendum on Staten Island's secession from New York City was placed on the ballot that year by Governor Mario Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Dinkins defeated Giuliani handily in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, but Giuliani's margin in the other two boroughs was large enough to win the election. Giuliani won by a margin of 53,367 votes. He became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since John Lindsay in 1965.
