N.Y. TIMES
Bill de Blasio, who transformed himself from a little-known occupant of an obscure office into the fiery voice of New York’s disillusionment with a new gilded age, was elected the city’s 109th mayor on Tuesday. His overwhelming victory, stretching from the working-class precincts of central Brooklyn to the suburban streets of northern Queens, amounted to a forceful rejection of the hard-nosed, business-minded style of governance that reigned at City Hall for the past two decades and a sharp leftward turn for the nation’s largest metropolis.
Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who is the city’s public advocate, defeated his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, by a wide margin. He won support from voters regardless of race, gender, age, education, religion or income, according to the exit poll. Even traditionally conservative-leaning neighborhoods fell to Mr. de Blasio.
Throughout the race, Mr. de Blasio overshadowed his opponent by channeling New Yorkers’ rising frustrations with income inequality, aggressive policing tactics and lack of affordable housing, and by declaring that the ever-improving city need not leave so many behind.
To an unusual degree, he relied on his own biracial family to connect with an increasingly diverse electorate, electrifying voters with a television commercial featuring his charismatic teenage son, Dante, who has a towering Afro.
In interviews on Election Day, voters across the five boroughs said that his message had captured their deep-seated grievances and yearning for change.
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N.Y TIMES
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey [cruised to victory]on Tuesday, a victory that vaulted him to the front rank of Republican presidential contenders and made him his party’s foremost proponent of pragmatism over ideology. In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 700,000, Mr. Christie won decisively, making impressive inroads among younger voters, blacks, Hispanics and women — groups that Republicans nationally have struggled to attract.
The governor prevailed despite holding positions contrary to those of many New Jersey voters on several issues, including same-sex marriage, abortion rights and the minimum wage, and despite an economic recovery that has trailed the rest of the country.
But he attracted a broad coalition by campaigning as a straight-talking, even swaggering, leader who could reach across the aisle to solve problems, unlike the bickering politicians of Washington.
Republicans alarmed by the surging grass roots support for the Tea Party wing were cheered by Mr. Christie’s success, saying they hope their party will learn not only from the size of Mr. Christie’s margin over Barbara Buono, a Democratic state senator, but also from the makeup of his support. Mr. Christie’s strategy of bipartisanship and outreach deliberately echoed that of another Republican governor who seized the White House after eight years of Democratic control: George W. Bush.
His in-your-face style has won over New Jersey so far, but not everyone is at ease with it. Over the weekend, Mr. Christie was caught on camera wagging his finger at a teacher who challenged his cuts to classrooms, a moment reminiscent of the presidential campaign of 2012, when Mitt Romney’s advisers were alarmed by a video of Mr. Christie shaking an ice cream at a critic he encountered on the Jersey Shore.
Mr. Christie’s gains among black and Hispanic voters at the polls are the result of an aggressive, years-long effort: He has held more than 100 town hall-style meetings, including several in predominantly black areas that he lost in 2009.