Bone up on Bill de Blasio: New York's new mayor promises to be shot in arm for city

The family man and late-riser may owe his success to a sexting scandal, say Samuel Muston

Bill de Blasio, New York’s new mayor (AP)

Bill de Blasio defeated republican Joseph Lhota by a 49 per cent margin in the New York mayoral election on Tuesday evening, making him the first Democrat in Gracie Mansion since 1993. Not been following the action across the pond? Here's our primer to make sure you don't get caught out at the water cooler.

De Blasio's given name was Warren Wilhelm Jr The name Bill de Blasio is a composite of his mother's maiden name and his school nickname. His relationship with his one-legged war veteran father, Warren Wilhelm senior, has been called "tempestuous".

After Wilhelm senior, an economist at the US commerce department, was pulled in for questioning in one of the McCarthyite purges of the late 1950s, his career ambitions were crushed and he fell prey to the demon drink. When de Blasio's parents divorced and he graduated from high school, he ditched his birth name. "Just so many people were badly affected [by his father's alcoholism]," de Blasio told the New York Times.

He may owe his success to Anthony Weiner's penis His lead may never have fallen short of 40 points since he emerged victorious from the 10 September primaries, but, six months previously, De Blasio's candidacy was at best a long shot, and at worst he looked like a lame duck. Then, Anthony Weiner, the Democrat front-runner, started logging on to chat rooms using the nom de porn "Carlos Danger" and that particular house of cards collapsed. After Weiner was exposed as a serial sexter and online exhibitionist – for the second time – De Blasio's route to victory was almost assured.

The kids are all right De Blasio's mixed-race family played a crucial role in his campaign, a vivid representation of racial harmony in a city long beset by ethnic tension. From the get-go his daughter, Chiara, and son, Dante, have been front and centre. After the ever-charismatic Dante, who has a towering afro, appeared in a campaign ad for his father in August, he surged forward in the polls. As his daughter noted, his family's visibility showed he "wasn't some boring white guy".

What the Dickens is all this about a tale of two cities? The new mayor's central campaigning tenet has been that New York is a city fast cleaving in two, with income inequality, housing shortages and pressure on public schools ever worsening (nearly 46 per cent of residents live near the poverty line). Hence, the "two cities" thing. What's his plan? He wants to create 200,000 affordable homes and increase taxes by 1 per cent on those earning over £500,000 a year to pay for pre-kindergarten schooling for all the city's children.

Limousine liberals and Sandinistas His Republican opponents have made much hay with the revelation that his first job was as a political organiser at the Quixote Centre in Maryland, where he solicited donations for the Nicaraguan revolutionaries. Youthful indiscretions aside, he has also been called a "yuppie" and mocked for his "limousine liberalism" after staging a block party in Brooklyn that came complete with a food truck serving lobster rolls.

Night owl or early bird Mayor Michael Bloomberg famously ascribed his success to being first into the office in the morning, last to leave in the evening and taking "[the least] time away from the desk to go to the bathroom". De Blasio is a little different, however. After turning up an hour late to his own rally – he blamed his "sleep cycle" – he jokingly observed: "I am not a morning person ... I think we should re-orient our society [to] staying up late."