Bill de Blasio wins mayor’s race in New York, ushering in new era of liberal governance

NEW YORK — Bill de Blasio overwhelmingly was elected mayor Tuesday, becoming the first Democrat to lead New York in 20 years and ushering in an era of activist liberal governance in the nation’s largest city.

With 84 percent of precincts reporting results, de Blasio was trouncing Republican Joe Lhota, a protégé of former mayor Rudy Giuliani, by 73 percent to 24 percent early Wednesday.

De Blasio campaigned on a mantle of progressive change following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 12 years in office, highlighting what he saw as “a tale of two cities.” The moneyed Manhattan elite have had their mayor, he argued, and now the 46 percent of New Yorkers living at or near the poverty level need one of their own.

De Blasio’s administration will be a laboratory of sorts for modern progressivism — testing whether an anti-establishment activist can effectively manage a sprawling municipal government and lessen growing inequality between the rich and poor.

“Tackling inequality isn’t easy. It never has been, and it never will be,” de Blasio said in a victory speech at the YMCA gymnasium in his Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. “The challenges we face have been decades in the making, and the problems we set out to address will not be solved overnight. But make no mistake: The people of this city have chosen a progressive path. And tonight we set forth on it — together, as one city.”

But de Blasio also faces a series of immediate challenges as he takes charge of a city government with some 300,000 employees, a $70 billion budget and a dizzying web of intersecting interests. He will have to negotiate several city labor contracts that are due for renewal and overhaul the leadership of agencies, including the New York Police Department, which he has sharply criticized for the anti-crime policy known as “stop and frisk.”

De Blasio also confronts serious obstacles to his tax policy agenda beyond the borders of this overwhelmingly Democratic city, including potential opposition from Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers in Albany.

“He walks into a new experiment,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York Democratic strategist. “How does a mayor bridge the income gap? It’s a very difficult set of circumstances. The president hasn’t been able to do it. The governors haven’t been able to do it.”

Despite New York’s overwhelmingly liberal tilt, de Blasio will become New York’s first Democratic mayor in 20 years. He will follow the reigns of Bloomberg, a billionaire Republican-turned-
independent, and Rudy Giuliani, a law-and-order Republican who led the city as it recovered from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Lhota ran as a continuation of the Bloomberg years, while attacking de Blasio as a leftist, anti-police extremist. The New York Post featured de Blasio on its front page Monday above the headline, “Back to the USSR!” — a reference to a student trip by de Blasio to the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

But the attacks gained little traction. De Blasio’s friends say he is at once principled and practical, and that the business community will warm to him as he shifts from campaigning to governing.