Bill de Blasio wins New York mayoral election The 52-year-old, who rose from underdog status to clinch his party's nomination earlier this year, campaigned on an argument that New York had become "a tale of two cities" for the rich and poor. He proposed funding pre-school places for every child in New York by raising taxes on city residents earning $500,000 (£313,000) or more by an average of $973 (£610) a year, and pledged to increase affordable housing in a city where many families are being priced out by sharply rising rent prices. He also pledged to scrap the city police's "stop-and-frisk" policy, under which pedestrians are searched for weapons and drugs. Mr de Blasio won 95 per cent of black voters' support, according to the exit polls, while also securing a commanding victory among Hispanics. Mr de Blasio shrugged off claims from Mr Bloomberg during the campaign that he was waging "class warfare," and from Mr Lhota that he would return the city to its bad old days as "America's murder capital" during the 1980s. Earlier on Tuesday, Matt Drudge, editor of the influential conservative website The Drudge Report, even suggested that the city under de Blasio would quickly come to resemble its depiction in The Warriors, a high-violence cult 1979 film about fictional New York street gangs. Mr Lhota's weak performance came as a blow even to Republicans who knew the party would struggle to triumph in an increasingly Democratic city. "Everything I've done I've wanted to do," he said, after voting in Brooklyn Heights with his wife and daughter. Mr de Blasio, a towering Italian-American, attracted just as much attention for his multi-racial family. His win makes him the first Democrat to be elected to lead New York since David Dinkins in 1989. His predecessor Rudolph Giuliani, best-known for his leadership after the September 11 terrorist attacks, was also a Republican.