Former MTA head Joe Lhota is the projected winner of the Republican primary in New York City with 79 percent of the precincts reporting.
He was ahead of his main competitor John Catisimatidis, the head of the Gristedes grocery store chain, by about 50 percent of the vote.
Lhota is a New York native who grew up in the Bronx and has spent the last 25 years in Brooklyn. He was deputy mayor under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and has been a staunch defender of NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and the city’s stop-and-frisk program.