New Yorkers elected Democrat Bill de Blasio as the city's next mayor on Tuesday.
De Blasio, the city's public advocate, defeated Republican Joe Lhota after maintaining a wide lead over his GOP opponent throughout the race. A NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Monday found de Blasio with a 40 point lead going into Tuesday's election.
De Blasio will succeed outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is completing his third term in office.
The Associated Press reported earlier Tuesday:
To his supporters, de Blasio symbolizes the city's progressive possibilities He hails from Brooklyn, is married to an African-American woman and is father to two interracial teenagers, one of whom sports an Afro that became a sensation on the campaign trail. But he is also a consummate pragmatist, having worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and was known for closed-door wheeling-and-dealing while serving in the City Council.
He was a distant fourth for much of the summer in the crowded Democratic primary, only to surge past former front-runners including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, and is now on the verge of ending an improbable Republican winning streak in the mayor's office.
Though registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts 6 to 1 across the city, the last Democrat to become mayor was David Dinkins in 1989. However, the GOP victories were tied to some extraordinary events that scrambled the political landscape. Giuliani defeated Dinkins in 1993 amid fears about the city's soaring crime rates, and Bloomberg won in 2001 largely thanks to his fortune and the fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks.
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