International

Democrat Bill de Blasio easily won a second term as New York’s mayor, defeating Republican Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, the Associated Press projected.
     Even with some polls showing de Blasio less popular than recent mayors, Malliotakis was unable to overcome Democrats’ voter-registration edge of almost 7 to 1.
     Unofficial returns as of 9:29 p.m. Tuesday had de Blasio leading Malliotakis 62 percent to 32 percent with 49 percent of districts counted, according to AP.
     The city has benefited from 23 consecutive years of falling crime, with homicides on track to total less than 300 this year for the first time since the 1950s. Record private-sector employment has come with increases in tech, tourism, health and education jobs, the result of nine straight years of economic growth since the 2008 financial crisis.
     Since 1954, Abe Beame and David Dinkins are the only New York mayors who failed to get reelected. Beame lost amid a fiscal crisis, while Dinkins was narrowly defeated during a crime wave. No such extraordinary circumstance existed this year.
     For de Blasio, a self-described progressive who campaigned four years ago decrying the city’s inequality between rich and poor, reelection gives him an opportunity to press his opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s agenda. He can increase his national advocacy of higher taxes on the rich and more federal spending on public housing, health care and education.