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(AP Photo/Pool, James Estrin)
Candidates for the Office of New York City Mayor, incumbent Michael Bloomberg., left, and challenger, Democratic Mayoral candidate William Thompson, shake hands after their televised debate in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009.
NEW YORK— The Democrat who came within 50,000 votes of unseating billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is open to running again and said he's not bitter that many in his party deserted his campaign when it seemed like a long shot.
William Thompson Jr. said in an interview with The Associated Press that he isn't ruling out any option for his next move, including a congressional run. Except one _ he wouldn't take a job in the next Bloomberg administration.
"That's the one thing I can rule out _ I won't be doing that," he said.
Thompson, who relied on donations and matching funds to finance his campaign, said he will likely have spent $9 million on his first mayoral bid when the bills have all been paid.
Bloomberg, the richest man in New York with an estimated fortune of $17.5 billion, will likely have poured more than 10 times that into his campaign for a third term.
The popular mayor who stomped his Democratic opponent by nearly 20 points in 2005 had been widely predicted to win easily again, by at least 10 points, but he finished with 51 percent to Thompson's 46 percent.
Thompson told the AP he was not surprised by the close finish as he watched the numbers come in on election night. He insists he had been confident all along.
"I had always believed that I had a good chance of winning," he said.
The Democrat tapped into voter resentment over the way Bloomberg masterminded a change to term-limits law last year so he could run again. And Thompson, who is black, was helped by votes he won in many areas of the city that are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.
But he ran a lonely campaign that was plagued by anemic fundraising and halfhearted _ or nonexistent _ support from many Democrats and traditionally left-leaning groups.
