Republican incumbent Ted Gatsas has won his third term as Mayor of Manchester. But the race against Democratic Alderman Patrick Arnold was a close one.
With his two grand-neices perched on the podium in front of him, Mayor Ted Gatsas thanked his supporters and family.
“The one thing that I’m most proud of is that we did it with a positive message. There was never a piece of mail that was negative. And that’s important to me.”
Gatsas was first elected the city’s 47th mayor in 2009. This year, he won the election by only about 940 votes. At just over 50%, that’s the tightest margin in which he’s won the mayor’s office so far. Two years ago, he won in a landslide, with almost 70% of the vote and a 6118 vote margin.
Gatsas says he thinks a highly organized opposition created a tighter race this time.
“I think the unions were very heavily invested in this election. Very heavily invested. Probably, I would bet because they probably don’t want to negotiate with me.”
Gatsas’ challenger, Patrick Arnold, ran largely on a platform of being tough on crime, and criticized Gatsas for vetoing funds to hire more police officers.
