By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
Councilmen John Liu and Bill de Blasio swept up the respective nominations for city comptroller and public advocate in a Democratic runoff Tuesday amid record low voter turnout.
Approximately seven percent of registered Democrats—or 228,000 people, according to the New York Post—turned up at the polls.
Liu won 56 percent of the vote to beat out Councilman David Yassky, while de Blasio triumphed over former public advocate Mark Green with 67 percent of the vote.
"I will be your voice, and whenever your government is not there for you, I will stand up for you," an exuberant de Blasio said during his acceptance speech, according to the New York Post.
Low voter turnout accentuated the political clout of the Working Families Party and unions in this year's election. Both winning candidates had the support of labor-backed organizations, which were able to marshal people to the polls.
The likelihood of a Democrat being elected to the comptroller position in the general election will make Liu the city’s first Asian American elected to a citywide office.
The Queens councilman caught some flak from the press and his opponent earlier in the campaign, when he ran TV ads claiming that he had spent his youth working in a city sweatshop, which his family denied.
But Liu is a strong fundraiser, having raised over $3 million according to the Campaign Finance Board, compared to Yassky’s $2.2 million, and Liu steadily polled ahead of his rival in the weeks before the runoff, leading by 6 percent according to the last Quinnipiac Poll.
“No one appreciates the wonder and possibility of New York better than me,” the New York Times reported a hoarse-voiced Lui said.
