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14. Ibid.

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17. Bridges, Morning Glories, 16, 25, 58; Trounstine, Political Monopolies in American Cities, 53–54, 148.

18. Bridges, Amy and Kronick, Richard, “Writing the Rules to Win the Game,” Urban Affairs Review 34, no. 5 (1999): 691–706CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trounstine, Political Monopolies in American Cities.

19. Ethington's study of San Francisco is an exception; he discusses the importance of the city's election schedule for political parties' electoral success. See Ethington, Philip J., The Public City: The Political Construction of Urban Life in San Francisco, 1850–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

20. Anzia, “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups.”

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22. Fairlie, John A., “Municipal Development in the United States,” A Municipal Program: Report of a Committee of the National Municipal League (London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd., 1900)Google Scholar.

23. For the moment, this assumes that the decrease in turnout that comes with off-cycle elections affects the two parties equally.

24. Bensel, Richard F., The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Undoubtedly, these would be approximations, because election timing could change the nature of party competition in the city, as I discuss below. Moreover, even the voters who consistently voted in local elections could change their votes for city candidates depending on when the elections were held.

26. Admittedly, it is difficult to separate organizational capacity from voter loyalty empirically. Increased voter loyalty likely strengthens a party's organization, just as a strong party organization can work to increase the number of voters loyal to the party. In theory, however, these are separable concepts. Voter loyalties in a city could be fixed at a given point in time, but party organizations may or may not have the resources and organization to encourage those individuals to vote in city elections.

27. Argersinger, Peter H., “A Place on the Ballot: Fusion Politics and Antifusion Laws,” American Historical Review 85, no. 2 (1980): 287–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Bridges, Amy, A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 140–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also “The Local Problem,” New York Times, 27 Sept. 1884, p. 4.

29. General law practices came into vogue in the late nineteenth century. See Burns, Nancy and Gamm, Gerald, “Creatures of the State: State Politics and Local Government, 1871–1921,” Urban Affairs Review 33, no. 1 (1997): 59–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gamm, Gerald and Kousser, Thad, “Broad Bills or Particularistic Policy? Historical Patterns in American State Legislatures,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 1 (2010): 151–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teaford, John C., The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America 1870–1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

30. These cities were also home to sizeable proportions of the populations of their home states. See Campbell Gibson, “Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790–1990” (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census Population Division, 1998), Table 11.

31. Erie, Rainbow's End, 2.

32. The exception, as discussed above, is Ethington, The Public City.

33. In particular, I rely heavily on Bridges, A City in the Republic; Erie, Rainbow's End; Ethington, The Public City; and McCaffery, Peter, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

34. See online appendix. I attempted to use “official” election returns wherever possible, but often the official results were not reported in comprehensive fashion, and I had to rely on day-after reports of votes for candidates by ward. Even the so-called official election statistics are not fully reliable, because there were far fewer election regulations in the nineteenth century than there are today.

35. Bridges, A City in the Republic, 19. Where I was unable to acquire the sources Bridges used to create the figure, I found alternate sources. Also, Bridges's Figure 1 tracks elections starting in 1834, whereas this figure begins in 1837, the first year for which I was able to obtain data. See Figure 1 for details.

36. “The Election in New York City,” New York Herald, 13 Apr. 1848, column E.

37. See Bridges, A City in the Republic, 20, 81, 133. Although Bridges does not mention election timing in her discussion of Figure 2 on page 20, that figure shows that turnout in city elections dipped below November turnout for the period in which city elections were held in April.

38. The Democratic contingency in the assembly was also divided. The fragmentation of the Democratic Party in state and national politics likely explains some of the strengthening of the Whig vote in November elections. See Bridges, A City in the Republic, 96–97.

39. “The New York Legislature,” Weekly Herald, 31 Mar. 1849, p. 102, issue 13, column A.

40. “The New City Charter for the City of New York,” New York Herald, 3 Apr. 1849, column E.

41. In the days leading up to the municipal election of April 1849, prominent former Whig alderman Robert Jones organized a gathering of New Yorkers in support of the new city charter. See Bridges, A City in the Republic, 135; “City Intelligence,” New York Herald, 8 Apr. 1849, column F.

42. The new charter also made other changes to city government. The term of the mayor was extended, and some executive department heads were made elective. See Bridges, A City in the Republic, 135–37.

43. “Election Returns: The General Result in the State,” Albany Evening Journal, 6 Nov. 1850, p. 2; New York Herald, 6 Nov. 1850.

44. Local Democratic leaders tried to change city election timing back to April during the early 1850s, but these efforts were not taken up by the state legislature, which was either dominated by Whigs or split between the parties during this time period.

45. See, for example, Bridges, A City in the Republic, 34, 147.

46. As Bridges explains, during non-presidential years, “wealthy men could gather at a single meeting and support a reform candidate,” whereas those same men were dedicated to their respective parties during presidential and gubernatorial years. See Bridges, A City in the Republic, 34, 140–41. See also “The Local Problem,” New York Times, 27 Sept. 1884, p. 4.

47. Bridges, A City in the Republic, 34–38, 140–43.

48. “Municipal Reform,” New York Daily Times, 7 Mar. 1853, p. 1; “City Reform at Albany,” New York Daily Times, 19 Mar. 1853, p. 1 and 4; “Proposed Amendment of the New-York City Charter,” New York Daily Times, 31 Mar. 1853, p. 3.

49. Their choice to promote December elections rather than the former April city election date was almost certainly calculated. In presidential and gubernatorial years, the springtime city vote had been viewed as an indicator of how the parties would fare in the upcoming autumn state and national races, much like today's primaries. For a description of how this was also true in pre-1870s congressional elections, see James, Scott C., “Timing and Sequence in Congressional Elections: Interstate Contagion and America's Nineteenth Century Scheduling Regime,” Studies in American Political Development 21, no. 2 (2007): 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sarah M. Butler and Scott C. James, “Electoral Order and Political Participation: Election Scheduling, Calendar Position, and Antebellum Congressional Turnout” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 3–6 Apr. 2008).

50. See Werner, M.R., Tammany Hall (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1928), 79–80Google Scholar.

51. The revised charter made other changes to city government. For example, much of the authority over the city police was transferred from the city to the state government. “Important from Albany,” New York Daily Times, 3 Mar. 1857, p. 1; “State Affairs,” New York Daily Times, 27 Mar. 1857, p. 1.

52. “The Party or the City,” New York Times, 1 Dec. 1857, p. 4.

53. “The Election Yesterday,” New York Times, 2 Dec. 1857, p. 4. However, Democratic candidates still won nearly half of the votes in the city even in that December election, as shown in Figure 1. It was thus the ability of the opposition to unite behind a single slate that led to its victory in 1857.

54. The city election in December 1862 did not feature a mayoral race. The highest citywide office on the ballot was city controller, a much sought-after office because it involved control of the city's funds. I examine this set of elections because they occurred a month apart, because each featured only a single Democratic candidate and a single Republican candidate, and because the data were available.

55. In two wards (the first and the twelfth), turnout increased slightly, but the Democratic city controller still received a smaller percentage of the vote than the Democratic candidate for governor had received in those wards. In the single ward where the Democratic controller candidate fared better than the Democratic candidate for governor, turnout increased by over 30 percent.

56. Werner, Tammany Hall, 104.

57. Erie, Rainbow's End, 52.

58. It does not seem to be the case that this was an effect of New York City's off-cycle election isolation from pro-Republican national tides. The New York City vote share for Republican gubernatorial candidates was relatively steady throughout the Civil War and the years following it, except for 1864.

59. On the difficulty of mobilizing voters during off-cycle elections, see “The Election Today,” New York Times, 17 May 1870, p. 8.

60. “Political,” New York Times, 15 May 1870, p. 8.

61. “The State Legislature. Senate. Assembly. The City Charter,” New York Times, 3 Feb. 1870, p. 1; “The Newest Charter,” New York Times, 11 Mar. 1870, p. 2; “Albany,” New York Times, 11 Feb. 1870, p. 1.

62. “Albany,” New York Times, 6 Apr. 1870, p. 1; “Our New City Government,” New York Times, 13 Apr. 1870, p. 4.

63. Werner, Tammany Hall, 171–88.

64. “Albany,” New York Times, 31 Mar. 1870, p. 1.

65. “Political,” New York Times, 15 May 1870, p. 8; “Political,” New York Times, 24 Aug. 1870, p. 5; “How the Democrats love Honest Elections,” New York Times, 9 Jan. 1871, p. 4; “Albany,” New York Times, 25 Mar. 1871, p. 1.

66. “Hints about the Charter,” New York Times, 13 Nov. 1871, p. 4; “The Charter,” New York Times, 24 Dec. 1871, p. 1; “The Completed Charter,” New York Times, 20 Jan. 1872, p. 1; “Work of the Legislature,” New York Times, 3 Feb. 1872, p. 3; “The Progress of the Charter,” New York Times, 28 Feb. 1872, p. 4; “The Charter,” New York Times, 19 Apr. 1872, p. 5; “The New Election Law,” New York Times, 21 Apr. 1872, p. 4; “Albany Affairs,” New York Times, 21 Apr. 1872, p. 1; “Albany,” New York Times, 24 Apr. 1872, p. 1.

67. “Albany,” New York Times, 1 May 1872, p. 5.

68. “The Charter,” New York Times, 17 Feb. 1873, p. 9.

69. “The Charter,” New York Times, 8 Jan. 1873, p. 5; “Albany,” New York Times, 7 Feb. 1873, p. 1; “Two Objectionable Bills,” New York Times, 23 Jan. 1874, p. 4.

70. See “The Result of the Election,” New York Times, 18 May 1870, p. 4.

71. “The Legislature and the City,” New York Times, 14 Dec. 1875, p. 4.

72. “The Republican Ticket,” New York Times, 14 May 1870, p. 1; “To-Morrow's Contest,” New York Times, 16 May 1870, p. 8.

73. “The Machine Ticket,” New York Times, 23 Oct. 1884, p. 4; “Defeated in the Senate,” New York Times, 25 Mar. 1885, p. 1; “The Elections Amendment,” New York Times, 18 Apr. 1885, p. 4; “Partisanship and City Government,” New York Times, 28 June 1890, p. 4; “The Republicans and Tammany,” New York Times, 24 Oct. 1891, p. 4.

74. “City Elections in April,” New York Times, 12 Feb. 1885, p. 4; “Separate Municipal Elections,” New York Times, 3 Nov. 1888, p. 4.

75. Note that although Democrats and Republicans occasionally made this kind of deal during the 1880s, they did not fuse their local tickets.

76. “Reasons for Spring Elections,” New York Times, 7 Nov. 1884, p. 4.

77. See “Separate the Elections,” New York Times, 9 Nov. 1893, p. 2.

78. “Partisanship and City Government,” New York Times, 28 June 1890, p. 4.

79. Reformers often spoke openly about how to “beat Tammany.” See “Tickets and Ballots,” New York Times, 21 June 1894, p. 4. See also Bridges, Morning Glories, 60–61.

80. Ethington, The Public City, 66–67.

81. San Francisco Board of Supervisors, San Francisco Municipal Reports for the Fiscal Year 1909–10, Ended June 30, 1910 (San Francisco: Neal Publishing Co., 1911)Google Scholar.

82. Erie, Rainbow's End, 27.

83. Ethington, The Public City, 166–67.

84. “Withdrawal of the Legislative Nominations by the People's Committee,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 20 Oct. 1856, issue 11, column B; “Our Opinion of the Duty of Reformers in the Municipal and Legislative Local Elections,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 29 Oct. 1856, issue 20, column A.

85. “The Republican Bolters,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 11 Oct. 1856, issue 4, column A.

86. “Election Returns—City and County of San Francisco,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 3 Sept. 1858, issue 126, column C.

87. “Lessons of the Campaign,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 10 Sept. 1858, issue 133, column A.

88. “The New Municipal Election Bill for San Francisco,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 18 Feb. 1860, issue 112, column E.

89. See Ethington, The Public City, 221.

90. “Local and Political Elections,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 26 Jan. 1861, issue 93, column A.

91. “The New Fusion Ticket – Who Are the Candidates,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 15 May 1861, issue 33, column C; “The Voter's Manual,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 20 May 1861, issue 37, column D.

92. “The Combination Which made the Mongrel Ticket,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 19 May 1862, issue 36, column A.

93. It is possible that Douglas Democrats and Republicans in the legislature moved San Francisco elections to off-cycle to make it easier for them to fuse a ticket to run against the People's Party.

94. Although, note that the People's Party had also won 57 percent of the vote in 1860 when it ran candidates under the combined label of People's/Republican/Bell.

95. Just as in New York, the spring election in San Francisco in 1864 took on a national tone in anticipation of the upcoming presidential election. The People's Party ran under the label of the People's Union Party and announced that it was “the choice of the true Union voters of the city.” See “The Voter's Manual,” Daily Evening Bulletin, 16 May 1864, p. 5, issue 33, column D.

96. Ethington, The Public City, 196–98.

97. Ethington, The Public City, 222–27.

98. Previously, there had been years in which no state officers' terms expired, but city elections were held.

99. Ethington, The Public City, 250–51.

100. Ethington argues that this change worked to the advantage of the major parties. Ethington, The Public City, 289–92.

101. Ethington, The Public City, 342.

102. McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 9.

103. “City Items,” North American and United States Gazette, 23 Nov. 1853, p. 1.

104. See, for example, “The Union of the City and the Districts in One Municipal City Corporation,” North American and United States Gazette, 31 Oct. 1849, issue 16,766, column G; “The Election and What it Settles,” North American and United States Gazette, 15 Oct. 1853, issue 18,917, column B.

105. “From Harrisburg,” North American and United States Gazette, 8 Mar. 1851, issue 18,084, column F; “From Harrisburg,” North American and United States Gazette, 28 Mar. 1851, issue 18,100, column F.

106. “From Harrisburg,” North American and United States Gazette, 19 Apr. 1852, issue 18,435, column E.

107. Ibid.

108. “Pennsylvania Legislature, Harrisburg,” Public Ledger, 3 Feb. 1854, p. 3. The measure not only extended the boundaries of the municipal government, tripling the size of the electorate, but also divided the city into 23 wards and altered the terms of the municipal officers. See “Synopsis of the Bill for Consolidating the City and County into One City,” Public Ledger, 10 Nov. 1853, p. 1.

109. There was debate within the Committee on Consolidation about the change in election timing, but the specifics of that debate were not discussed in the local newspapers. “City Items,” North American and United States Gazette, 23 Nov. 1853, p. 1.

110. “Election Results,” North American and United States Gazette, 7 June 1854; “The Election,” North American and United States Gazette, 2 May 1855.

111. “The Change in the Municipal Election,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 Mar. 1861; “House of Representatives,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 Mar. 1861.

112. “House of Representatives,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 Mar. 1861.

113. Ibid.

114. “Legislative Acts or Legal Proceedings,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 Mar. 1861.

115. “The Change in the Municipal Election,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 Mar. 1861.

116. “Local Intelligence: The Constitutional Union Party and the Postponed Spring Election,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 Apr. 1861.

117. “The October Election,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 31 July 1861; “No Half Way Reforms,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Aug. 1861.

118. McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 8–9. See also “Election Returns,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 Oct. 1863, p. 14.

119. See McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 53, 70, 141.

120. The original proposal was for city elections in March, but it was amended early in the debate so that elections would be held in February instead. Reformers complained that the state legislature passed many special bills that affected individual governments instead of legislation that applied uniformly to all local governments in the state. See Hellerich, Mahlon H., “The Origin of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1873,” Pennsylvania History 34, no. 2 (1967): 158–86Google Scholar.

121. “Philadelphia and Suburbs, Constitutional Convention,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 Jan. 1873.

122. Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 Jan. 1873, p. 2. There were many Republican delegates from other parts of the state who supported the change to off-cycle city elections, but that is not, by itself, surprising. There were likely areas of Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia in which Republicans benefited from off-cycle local elections, and the provision voted on by the delegates to the constitutional convention was to affect the election timing of all cities in the state.

123. McCaffery, When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, 31.

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136. “Non-Partisan Organization,” New York Times, 8 Dec. 1893, p. 4.

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142. “New Charter is Finished,” San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Mar. 1898, p. 7.

143. Ethington, The Public City, 342.

144. See Griffith, A History of American City Government, 246–47.

145. Anzia, “Election Timing and the Electoral Influence of Interest Groups.”

146. Initially, many state legislatures circumvented such bans on special legislation by devising complicated city classification systems based on population and then creating laws for specific classes of cities, which sometimes contained only a single city. However, by the 1890s and early 1900s, even those classification systems were eliminated, and state legislators were forced to govern cities within their boundaries in a uniform fashion.

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