New York City voters stepped decisively to the political left on Tuesday, turning their collective back on two decades of Republican-backed mayoral rule.  Scott M. Stringer, left, was elected to the post of city comptroller, and Letitia James was elected New York City's public advocate. More Photos »  Bill de Blasio, a professorial and insistently liberal politician who came of age in the left-leaning politics of the 1980s, is the Democratic mayor in waiting, and a symbol of these politics.  He talked repeatedly of a gilded world capital rived by class divisions and inequality, where the children of the middle and working class struggle to find jobs and apartments.  His vows to tax the rich in service of universal prekindergarten and to rein in police stop-and-frisk tactics that inflamed young black and Latino men became twin pillars of his campaign. Such talk worried some business leaders, who had grown accustomed to attentive treatment from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.  But in a post-Occupy Wall Street world, the mayor-electâs message resonated with voters.  âI keep telling my members that the Bloomberg era was an aberration,â said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a leading business group. âBill captured the disconnect for many New Yorkers between the fact of the cityâs prosperity and the reality of their lives in this increasingly unaffordable city.â  Just how far Democrats can lean left is a matter forever debated; even as some national Democrats criticize President Obama as having strayed from his core tenets, others guard against wandering too far left, for fear of toppling into an electoral abyss. But for this cityâs liberals, the chance is to make policy on the grandest urban stage in America is exhilarating.  âTo be the left wing of the possible is a great opportunity,â noted Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party, a labor-backed coalition that has taken the role of the left-wing mouse that roared in city politics.  New Yorkâs veer to the left extends well beyond the mayorâs office. Christine C. Quinn, the departing City Council speaker, lost badly in the Democratic primary for mayor. Her reputation was that of a centrist, all too willing to mediate disputes and align herself with the mayor. Her successor will probably not share those traits: Unabashed liberals with full policy agendas will vie to replace Ms. Quinn.  The elected public advocate, Letitia James, a forceful liberal, has spoken emphatically for people seen as marginalized.  Even Scott M. Stringer, elected to the post of comptroller, that green-eyeshaded steward of bonds and finances, hails from the Democratsâ liberal flank.  The municipal labor unions, often with a new generation of leaders, put muscle to electoral oar. Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor, often cut deals and divided labor. Those divisions ended this year.  Councilman Donovan Richards Jr. is an example of this new ruling coalition. He hails from Southeast Queens, a black, home-owning, union-label province battered by storms meteorological and economic. Home prices have resumed an upward climb in upper-class Manhattan and the brownstone belt, but deflationary prices and foreclosures plague his constituents. âThose at the bottom need to know they can find opportunity,â he said. âWe want to assure them that we will hear their cries a lot more.â  Such talk worries conservatives, who write of a âfull-tilt boogieâ pursuit of liberal policies. Mr. de Blasioâs Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, warned that Mr. de Blasioâs New York would tumble backward into the âEscape From New Yorkâ days of the 1980s and early 1990s.  Their bill of worries is a long one: New City Council laws installing an inspector general and tightening the regulation of stop-and-frisk tactics could push the Police Department into a defensive crouch. Higher taxes could chill the financiers, and tougher zoning laws could anger real estate developers. Emboldened labor unions might extract billions of dollars in contract settlements.  The Daily News, which is center-right, published an endorsement of Mr. de Blasio that read like a dirge. âBig doses of reality will soon force de Blasio to act on tough issues that he smiled past in the campaign and to revise ill-considered stances,â The News wrote.  The electoral victors do not dismiss worries out of hand.
Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, is a liberal Democrat, as are the newly elected public advocate and city comptroller.