De Blasio comes out swinging in NYC mayoral debate
In some polls, Democrat Bill de Blasio is up by nearly 50 points over Republican Joe Lhota in the race to become the next mayor of New York City. But that didn’t stop him from coming out aggressively in the first debate before the Nov. 5 general election to determine who will lead the nation’s largest city.
De Blasio, the city’s public advocate, repeatedly attacked Lhota by linking him to the national Republican party, which is largely unpopular in a city where Democrats outnumber the GOP by a 6-to-1 margin.
“My opponent told the Staten Island Tea Party that their values are so close to his,” said de Blasio, trying to group Lhota, a former head of the city’s transit agency, with the right-wing Republican faction that polling suggests is largely being blamed for the federal government shutdown.