Thanks, Don, for the win: Blaz
BILL CREDITS ANTI-TRUMP VOTE FOR VICTORY
MAYOR DE BLASIO claimed a mandate Wednesday, a day after his reelection victory, saying he’s already counting down the days he has left in his second and last term to make good on a host of progressive promises.
“It’s a clear mandate,” de Blasio told reporters at City Hall Wednesday. “It’s a mandate for fairness — to make this the fairest big city in America.”
De Blasio, a Democrat, soundly defeated Republican challenger Nicole Malliotakis, with 66% of the vote to her 28%.
Hizzoner gave credit for the win to his message — but also to President Trump, who he claimed drove many voters to the polls.
“Oh, my God. Yes. Absolutely,” he said when asked if Trump played a role.
“I say with humility, I have been a leading anti-Trump voice,” de Blasio said. “A lot of people have been turned back on to the political process because of their frustration with Donald Trump.”
The mayor said he has no plans to create a national PAC to push his anti-Trump agenda, though he did not firmly rule it out.
De Blasio and Malliotakis, a Staten Island assemblywoman who hammered him on qualityof-life issues and corruption throughout the campaign, finally spoke Wednesday, after playing phone tag Tuesday night.
Malliotakis said she called de Blasio to concede but got his voice mail. De Blasio’s camp said he called her back after his victory speech, but also got voice mail.
“I spoke with Mayor de Blasio this morning, congratulated him & offered my assistance on the issues where we share common ground and can work together to improve the lives of New Yorkers,” Malliotakis tweeted.
The mayor said in the early afternoon he had not received a congratulatory call from his fre-
quent rival Gov. Cuomo, but he did hear from the governor later in the day, de Blasio’s spokesman said. He also got a call from Hillary Clinton.
De Blasio was dogged in the days before the election by the testimony of donor Jona Rechnitz, though it was not enough to cost him a large margin of victory.
He refused to answer questions Wednesday on whether he had spoken to anyone at the Buildings Department about easing up enforcement of illegal hotel violations at Rechnitz’s Midtown building after the landlord cut a big check.
As the Daily News reported, illegal hotel complaints continued after the payment — but the city issued no violations.
“I’ve covered it many times over,” de Blasio claimed.
After taking a victory lap Wednesday morning thanking voters near Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, de Blasio turned to putting together an administration for the second term — determining which top officials will stay or go, decisions he declined to discuss.
He’ll face pressure to deliver on lofty promises, from shutting down Rikers Island to reducing the city’s waste production to zero.
“I’m a believer in term limits for executive office,” said de Blasio, who is barred by those laws from running again.
“Now I can count down to the last day of 2021, and I’ve got just that period of time, just those four years and seven weeks to get done everything that I am supposed to get done for the people of this city. I have a sense of mandate and urgency and I know I have a time limit.”
The mayor’s victory makes him the first Democrat to be reelected since Ed Koch, but he predicted a string of Democratic mayors would follow him.
“It will be the beginning of an era of progressive Democratic administrations in this city,” he said.