The victory heralded the beginning of a new liberal era of higher taxes for those earning more than $500,000 and plans to concentrate his efforts on the poorer boroughs that critics say outgoing Mayor Bloomberg has neglected in favor of Manhattan.
De Blasio, a 52-year-old Italian-American from Brooklyn and the city's former public advocate, had led strongly throughout election day against his Republican rival Joe Lhota, former chief of the metropolitan area's transit agency.
'Today you spoke loudly and clearly for a new direction for our city,' de Blasio told a rollicking crowd of supporters at the YMCA in his home neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, a far cry from the glitzy Manhattan hotel ballrooms that usually host election night parties.
Democratic mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, left, his
son Dante, daughter Chiara, and wife Chirlane do the family's 'smack
down' dance on stage after de Blasio was elected the first Democratic
mayor of New York City in 20 years
Democratic Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio embraces
his son Dante, left, and daughter Chiara, center, after he was elected
the first Democratic mayor of New York City in 20 years in the Brooklyn
borough of New York
Bill de Blasio, 52, made his victory speech in
Brooklyn on Tuesday night after winning the race for New York City
mayor. He is pictured with his wife Chirlane (right) and his children
Chiara and Dante (left)
Democratic mayor-elect of New York, Bill de
Blasio hugs his wife Chirlane during his election victory party at the
Park Slope Armory in New York
'We are united in the belief that our city should leave no New Yorker behind,' he said.
'The people of this city have chosen a progressive path, and tonight we set forth on it together as one city.'
The De Blasio family walked out on stage to the blaring pop anthem 'Royals' by New Zealand pop artist Lorde. The chorus of the song goes, 'And we’ll never be royals/ It don’t run in our blood/ That kind of lux just ain’t for us/ We crave a different kind of buzz.'
In celebrating their victory, De Blasio, his wife and his two teenage children performed the 'smackdown dance' on stage - a move the family debuted at the West Indian Day Parade.
The mayor-elect appeared on stage at the Park Slope armory where he hugged his wife Chirlane and elated children Chiara and Dante, who have been a continuous presence on the campaign trail.
His celebrity supporters were also on hand with Susan Sarandon seen cheering from the sidelines on Tuesday night alongside Sex And The City actress Cynthia Nixon and her partner Christine Marinoni.
The first round of exit polls on Tuesday night shortly after the polling stations closed at 9pm showed that de Blasio has succeeded in becoming the city's 109th mayor, achieving 73 per cent to Lhota's 24 per cent.
Shortly after the results were announced, de Blasio's official Twitter account posted: 'Thank you, New York City.'
Susan Sarandon (right) was seen at de Blasio's
victory party alongside Sex And The City actress Cynthia Nixon (left)
and her wife Christine Marinoni (center)
De Blasio's 15-year-old son Dante has been a
huge hit on the campaign trail with even President Obama admiring the
teenager's Afro
De Blasio thanked his family during the
celebration on Tuesday for all their hard work in his campaign to become
New York City mayor
Republican Joe Lhota gave his concession speech shortly before 10pm from the Gansevoort Park Hotel in Manhattan.
'It was a good fight and it was a fight worth having,' Lhota told a crowd of supporters in a Manhattan hotel before offering a word of caution to de Blasio.
'Despite what you might have heard, we are all one city,' Lhota said. 'We want our city to move forward and not backward, and I hope our mayor-elect understands that before it's too late.'
As election day dawned on Tuesday, de Blasio got a boost of moral support from his daughter Chiara who surprised him by flying to New York from her college in California in order to go to the polls with her dad.
The casting of ballots on Tuesday was the beginning of New York City's farewell to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has helped shape the nation's biggest city for 12 years, largely setting aside partisan politics as he led with data-driven beliefs and his vast fortune.
Bill de Blasio has become the mayor of New
York City following a landslide victory on Tuesday. He is pictured today
outside a Brooklyn polling station with his wife Chirlane, daughter
Chiara and son Dante
Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, accompanied by
his wife Chirlane McCray, speaks to the media after voting, at the Park
Slope branch Public Library in Brooklyn
Bloomberg opted out of any political celebrations on Tuesday night and instead was pictured with Hollywood actress Tilda Swinton at a Museum of Modern Art benefit in her honor.
De Blasio will take office on January 1 as the first Democrat mayor in Gracie Mansion since 1989.
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.
Republican candidate Joe Lhota, a one-time deputy mayor to Rudolph Giuliani, had vowed to continue Bloomberg's policies, which have helped make New York one of the nation's safest and most prosperous big cities, though they also may have contributed to the city's widening income equality gap.
But while polls show that New Yorkers largely approve of Bloomberg's record, those same surveys show a hunger for a change in style and tone.
De Blasio, who as the city's elected public advocate acts as an official watchdog, has positioned himself as a clean break with the Bloomberg years, promoting a sweeping liberal agenda that includes a tax increase on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-kindergarten and improved police-community relations.
To fund an enrollment in pre-K for an extra 48,000 four-year-olds, he proposes collecting $532 million a year in new taxes from New Yorkers earning more than half a million.
He railed 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.
New York City mayoral candidate Joe Lhota gives his concession speech in New York on Tuesday
So long, politics! Outgoing Mayor Bloomberg
opted for a benefit at the Museum of Modern Art in honor of Tilda
Swinton (left) on Tuesday instead of any political celebrations
Those tactics, and a pledge to reach out to New Yorkers who feel left behind by what they believed were Bloomberg's Manhattan-centric policies, have been rewarded in the polls.
De Blasio has been up nearly 40 percentage points in every survey conducted since the general election matchup was set nearly two months ago.
To his supporters, de Blasio symbolizes the city's progressive possibilities. He hails from Brooklyn, is married to an African-American woman and is father to two interracial teenagers, one of whom sports an Afro that became a sensation on the campaign trail.
But he is also a consummate pragmatist, having worked for both Bill and Hillary Clinton and Governor Andrew Cuomo, and was known for closed-door wheeling-and-dealing while serving in the City Council.
He was a distant fourth for much of the summer in the crowded Democratic primary, only to surge past former front-runners including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Though registered Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts six-to-one across the city, the last Democrat to become mayor was David Dinkins in 1989.
Surprise! Bill de Blasio got an election day
present with his daughter Chiara making a surprise visit from her
college in California to spend the day with her father and vote in his
favor
De Blasio, center, meets with voters on Tuesday
in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York as the final votes
were cast for mayor
However, the GOP victories were tied to some extraordinary events that scrambled the political landscape. Giuliani defeated Dinkins in 1993 amid fears about the city's soaring crime rates, and Bloomberg won in 2001 largely thanks to his fortune and the fallout from the September 11 attacks.
Lhota, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has pledged to continue their fight, suggesting that de Blasio would handcuff the NYPD by reforming stop-and-frisk, the tactic that allows police to stop anyone deemed suspicious.
Stop-and-frisk's supporters believe it has driven down crime while its critics, including de Blasio, think it is unfairly targets minorities.
But few of Lhota's arguments resonated and he struggled to raise money. He appeared to score some points in the second of the candidates' three debates by suggesting that the city would return to its crime-ridden past if de Blasio won.
De Blasio was an afterthought for much of the crowded Democratic primary, spending most of the year in a distant fourth, trailing City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, former Rep. Anthony Weiner and the Democrats' 2009 nominee, Bill Thompson.
But Thompson's campaign never ignited and Quinn could not shake her role in the decision to amend the city's term limits to let Bloomberg run again in 2009.
When Weiner's support imploded after another sexting scandal, many of his backers went to de Blasio.
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.
Democrats also captured the other two citywide races: Letitia James, a Brooklyn city councilwoman, was elected public advocate, while Scott Stringer, the Manhattan Borough President, was chosen to be comptroller.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (left)
embraces Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota as he greets commuters
on the day of the mayoral election
End of an era: Outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
with the help of poll worker Nicole Torres, casts his ballot at Public
School 6, in New York today
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