De Blasio wins NY mayoral race, Christie re-elected in NJ, McAuliffe takes Virginia
Democrat Bill de Blasio will succeed Republican Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York, while Chris Christie is retained as New Jersey governor and Terry McAuliffe wins Virginia
Liberal Democrat Bill de Blasio cruised to victory on Tuesday in the race to succeed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, marking the first time a Democrat has captured City Hall in two decades, local media reported.
De Blasio, the city’s public advocate, beat Republican rival Joe Lhota after a campaign in which he addressed economic inequality in America’s most populous city, CNN, New York 1 and reported.
“Thank you, New York City,” de Blasio’s campaign tweeted just after the close of polls, together with a photo showing the presumed winner together with his wife and two children.
“This election is a very stark contrast between two very different candidates. Mr Lhota clearly wants to maintain the status quo in the city. I’m calling for fundamental change,” de Blasio said after voting in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning.
De Blasio won a hotly contested Democratic primary in September by focusing on the controversial “stop-and-frisk” police tactic endorsed by Bloomberg and by criticising the billionaire mayor for presiding over “two New Yorks” - one rich, one poor.
De Blasio also promoted expanding access to pre-kindergarten, proposing a tax on the city’s highest earners to pay for it, and said he would fight community hospital closures.
Lhota, who was a deputy mayor under Rudolph Giuliani and later headed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, insisted that de Blasio would lead New York back to its dark days of high crime and poor fiscal management.
Democrats have been locked out of City Hall for two decades despite holding a 6-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans.
In neighbouring New Jersey, Republican Governor Chris Christie easily secured a re-election victory seen boosting his widely expected bid for the White House in 2016 as a candidate with appeal across the political spectrum.
The landslide win by the blunt, tough-talking incumbent was expected by political experts to solidify his national standing, proving he can win votes from Republicans, Democrats and independents.
“It is possible to put doing your job first, to put working together first, to fight for what you believe in yet still stand by your principles and get something done for the people who elected you,” Christie told hundreds of cheering supporters at the Asbury Park convention centre.
“I know that if we can do this in Trenton, New Jersey, maybe the folks in Washington DC should tune in their TVs right now and see how it’s done,” he added.
His big win will catch the eye of potential major political donors nationally, political experts said.
“Obviously it lets him make a claim that he’s the kind of Republican who can get Democratic and minority votes,” said David Redlawsk, a polling expert and professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Christie was projected the winner, within minutes of the polls closing, by CNN, CBS and NBC. He was ahead of his Democratic challenger, state Senator Barbara Buono, by 61 per cent to 37, early results showed.
A former prosecutor, Christie has been highly visible working with Democrats, such as newly elected US Senator Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark.
He notably praised President Barack Obama last year for his response to New Jersey’s needs after Superstorm Sandy devastated the state. That gesture, which Christie explained was part of his job, infuriated many national Republicans who thought it hurt their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, days later at the ballot box.
Christie’s popularity has remained high since the storm swept ashore and caused billions of dollars in damage and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
In Virginia, Democratic Party insider Terry McAuliffe narrowly defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli, a Tea Party favourite, to win the nationally-watched governor’s race on Tuesday, US television networks reported.
State election board results showed McAuliffe, a Democratic fundraiser and close friend of former President Bill Clinton, had 47 per cent of the vote to 46 per cent for Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, with 97 per cent of precincts reporting.
McAuliffe squeaked to a win with a strong showing from wealthy, liberal-leaning Washington suburbs. His victory, called by networks CNN, CBS and NBC, cements Virginia as a bellwether swing state ahead of mid-term congressional elections next year and the presidential election in 2016.
Record amounts of outside money flowed into the campaign as McAuliffe heavily outspent Cuccinelli and national Democratic figures attempted to make the vote a referendum on the Republicans’ small-government Tea Party wing.
Trailing in polls, Cuccinelli, 45, fought back in the final weeks in the campaign by attacking President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare program, which is off to a rocky start.
McAuliffe, 56, tied Cuccinelli to last month’s federal government shutdown, blamed by most Americans on Republicans and especially the Tea Party wing. Virginia was hit hard by the shut down since it relies more than most states on federal paychecks and contracts.
