If you want a comprehensive list of last night's NYC election results, the Daily News has a handy resource here.
The up-shot: almost all incumbents were re-elected (and the vast majority are Democrats) at all levels of government -- the one exception is a City Council race out in Queens that's probably going to go into a recount.
Thoughts?
Well, it was a good night for the status quo. Status quo is usually a pejorative but, if the status quo is low crime and improving schools, it's hard to argue that it's bad. Of course, the status quo also includes massive income inequality and the challenge of affordability, and that needs to change.
Mayor De Blasio promises it will, as he stated in his victory speech. He also wants to tax millionaires to improve transportation but that probably won't happen. We shall see.
Here's the real loser of this election: the NYC tabloids. Once upon a time tabloids like the Post and the Daily News were powerful enough to elect and defeat mayors. In 1977, the Post endorsed Ed Koch and he credited it with his election; in 1993, the constant negative coverage of David Dinkins certainly contributed to his defeat. Newspapers used to be so ubiquitous, their power so absolute, they made politicians quake and could sway elections.
No more.
It's a new world. The decline of newspapers and tabloids and the rise of the Internet and social media have voided their power. We can go above and around them. Every single day for the last four years the NYC tabloids (mainly the Post, the News, and the Observer) have blasted Mayor De Blasio with relentless negative coverage. They've gone after everything, calling him a communist, an idiot, corrupt; criticizing his family, his punctuality, even his eating habits; smearing him with lies and half-truths and all sorts of nasty headlines, day after day. The tabloids did EVERYTHING they could to whip up an atmosphere of crises in this city and drag down the mayor's popularity, leading to his defeat.
They tried. They tried hard. And they failed.
As the president would say, Bigly.
The tabloids are now officially irrelevant.
De Blasio won a landslide in spite of the tabloids and the negative coverage. The people are smart and they ignore the loudest voices in the room. There are otherwise to get the truth out. The nonsense the tabloids spewed about the city being in crises, about rampant corruption, about all sorts of mean nasty stuff, were at odds with the reality of a city that's thriving more than ever.
The truth will out or, in this case, win. Bigly. So what comes next? We have four years to find out.
The up-shot: almost all incumbents were re-elected (and the vast majority are Democrats) at all levels of government -- the one exception is a City Council race out in Queens that's probably going to go into a recount.
Thoughts?
Well, it was a good night for the status quo. Status quo is usually a pejorative but, if the status quo is low crime and improving schools, it's hard to argue that it's bad. Of course, the status quo also includes massive income inequality and the challenge of affordability, and that needs to change.
Mayor De Blasio promises it will, as he stated in his victory speech. He also wants to tax millionaires to improve transportation but that probably won't happen. We shall see.
Here's the real loser of this election: the NYC tabloids. Once upon a time tabloids like the Post and the Daily News were powerful enough to elect and defeat mayors. In 1977, the Post endorsed Ed Koch and he credited it with his election; in 1993, the constant negative coverage of David Dinkins certainly contributed to his defeat. Newspapers used to be so ubiquitous, their power so absolute, they made politicians quake and could sway elections.
No more.
It's a new world. The decline of newspapers and tabloids and the rise of the Internet and social media have voided their power. We can go above and around them. Every single day for the last four years the NYC tabloids (mainly the Post, the News, and the Observer) have blasted Mayor De Blasio with relentless negative coverage. They've gone after everything, calling him a communist, an idiot, corrupt; criticizing his family, his punctuality, even his eating habits; smearing him with lies and half-truths and all sorts of nasty headlines, day after day. The tabloids did EVERYTHING they could to whip up an atmosphere of crises in this city and drag down the mayor's popularity, leading to his defeat.
They tried. They tried hard. And they failed.
As the president would say, Bigly.
The tabloids are now officially irrelevant.
De Blasio won a landslide in spite of the tabloids and the negative coverage. The people are smart and they ignore the loudest voices in the room. There are otherwise to get the truth out. The nonsense the tabloids spewed about the city being in crises, about rampant corruption, about all sorts of mean nasty stuff, were at odds with the reality of a city that's thriving more than ever.
The truth will out or, in this case, win. Bigly. So what comes next? We have four years to find out.
