Landslide: Liberal De Blasio Wins in NYC

The New York City mayor's race wrapped up with little suspense tonight: As expected, Bill de Blasio will replace Michael Bloomberg and become the city's first Democratic mayor in two decades, reports the New York Times. It called the race based on exit interviews as the polls closed at 9pm. De Blasio, the city's public advocate (an elected position) easily defeated Republican Joe Lhota, a former Giuliani deputy. De Blasio presented himself as an unapologetic liberal and as a clear break from Bloomberg. "I'm calling for fundamental progressive change," he said after voting today. One item on his agenda is universal early education, to be paid for by a tax hike on the rich.

In a pre-results analysis, Philip Rucker of the Washington Post saw it this way: "The de Blasio administration would become a laboratory for modern progressivism—a test of whether an anti-establishment activist can effectively manage a sprawling municipal government and whether his policy prescriptions can actually lessen growing inequality between the rich and the poor." (More New York City stories.)