MYFOXNY.COM/AP – JONATHAN LEMIRE | AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Bill de Blasio was elected New York City’s first Democratic mayor in two decades Tuesday, running on an unabashedly liberal, tax-the-rich platform that contrasted sharply with billionaire Michael Bloomberg‘s record during 12 years in office.
De Blasio, the city’s public advocate, defeated Republican Joe Lhota, former chief of the metropolitan area’s transit agency.
De Blasio, 52, will take office on Jan. 1 as the 109th mayor of the nation’s largest city. He had been heavily favored, holding an overwhelming lead in the polls for weeks.
Bloomberg, who first ran as a Republican and later became an independent, guided the city through the financial meltdown and the aftermath of 9/11. He is leaving office after three terms.
De Blasio ran as the anti-Bloomberg, railing against economic inequality and portraying New York as a “tale of two cities” — one rich, the other working class — under the pro-business, pro-development mayor, who made his fortune from the financial information company that bears his name.
De Blasio, who hails from Brooklyn, reached out to New Yorkers he contended were left behind by the often Manhattan-centric Bloomberg administration, and he called for a tax increase on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-kindergarten. He also pledged to improve economic opportunities in minority and working-class neighborhoods.
He decried alleged abuses under the police department’s stop-and-frisk policy and enjoyed a surge when a federal judge ruled that police had unfairly singled out blacks and Hispanics. The candidate, a white man married to a black woman, also received a boost from a campaign ad featuring their son, a 15-year-old with a big Afro.
Despite his reputation for idealism, he has also shown a pragmatic side, having worked for both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and was known for closed-door wheeling-and-dealing while serving on the City Council.
Lhota, 59, slammed de Blasio’s “tale of two cities” appeal as class warfare and argued that de Blasio’s time in the 1980s with the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua as an aid worker and activist made him a Marxist.
Lhota also credited stop-and-frisk with contributing to the city’s drop in crime. He charged that a Blasio victory would return the city to its crime-filled past, a point he made with a TV ad that depicted graphic images of violence from decades ago.
Though polling shows New Yorkers largely approve of Bloomberg’s policies, those same surveys revealed the city was hungry for a change.
ich bin a yid feen villiamsberg un di nayye mayor eez zeeyer gut!!!!
Go Deblassio!!!!
if he doesnt believe in the second amendment, and has gun control, it increases crime. Either way criminals will get their gun (legally or not)
NY is doomed…
Just what New York needs. Just declare independence and float off to the ocean… But leave 770 i n the US please. We need that.
we milk the government as well…..
is that what worries you about him? the 2nd amendment…??
in the poor, and not too bright South of the country there are many cowboys with blazing guns, u are welcome to relocate to there, we don’t need more guns here….pathetic…
I’m of the impression that you think it’s only Jews who live in N.Y.
He has promised the Muslims that he will end surveilance in their community. So, basically, he will leave us all exposed to terrorism
if you keep taxing the rich, you’re gonna scare them away. then who’s gonna pay all the taxes?
I hope he believes in our country and the 2nd amendment!
People are more worried about maybe having to go to jury duty once in five years , then voting for someone that won’t destroy the city.
when will we wake up?
what will it take? for our children to see alternative couples in our streets? for abortion to become a topic at the shabbos table? for our economy to sink?
oh well, for now my foodstamps kicked in, so I am happy.
let my children worry about the future…
WAKE UP YIDDEN!!!
We need to think about the Torah and support its values!!!
BS”D to # 6
what was wrong with the Bloomberg years he saved the City
and by the way what is your Hebrew name
woe to this City
not good
We only have 1 choice and that is to live with the reality that he is our Mayor and it wasn’t even close. NYC was yearning for something new after the Bloomberg years…
shame
woe to nyc
Well Sad. though i hope not
This dude is a national disgrace, watch out ny for the 2 biggest things that effect our lives. 1. crime. 2. the economy-with the taxes etc..