Election Day came to a close with a result that many New Yorkers likely saw coming.
Bill de Blasio ended a 32-year drought Tuesday night when he was re-elected to a second term as mayor of New York City. The last Democrat to do so was Ed Koch in 1985.
Amid chants of “four more years,” de Blasio took the stage at his post-election celebration and said, “Well, you wanted four more years, you got four more years!”
We proved that we could make our city safer, we proved we could make our schools better, we proved we could make our economy stronger, we did this together, and we took on some very powerful forces together to do it,” he continued, “but we can’t stop now. You saw some important changes in the past four years, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Landing 65 percent of votes at press time, with 90 percent of polling stations reporting, de Blasio defeated his Republican challenger, Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who landed 29 percent, and former NYPD detective Bo Dietl, who received 1 percent.
“It means a lot to me,” de Blasio told the New York Post on Tuesday, speaking about being the first Democrat since Koch to win a second term. “My hope is — starting today, if the people are with me — that we restore the idea that this is a consistent, Democratic, progressive town.”
Malliotakis conceded the election just before 10 p.m. “Today, New Yorkers sent a loud and clear message to City Hall, and though we did not win this election, we showed the status quo must end,” she said. “This race was never about me, it was about all of you — the people I met across this city, the people that make New York great.”
Malliotakis had voted alongside her immigrant parents in Staten Island Tuesday morning. “Today, they cast a vote for their daughter of their generation to be mayor of the city of New York,” she told the New York Post. “I want everyone to have the same opportunity that I did, and that’s why I’m running for mayor of New York.”
Former NYPD detective Bo Dietl, who ran as an independent, ended his political career Tuesday night.
“I’ll never run for political office again – this is it,” he told the New York Daily News after casting his vote in the morning.
