Nationally, whether the gains Democrats made in statehouses and in Congress count as a blue wave will continue to be debated in the coming weeks. But here in New York the results are clear: voters are ready for a completely blue Albany.

After a decade of playing footsy with the idea – delayed, in part, by the actions of legislators from the Norwood neck of the Bronx (see: Pedro Espada and Jeff Klein) – New Yorkers voted definitively for a Democratic majority in the Senate, positioning state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers to be the first woman and second African American in history to lead state senate.

Governor Andrew Cuomo was easily re-elected to a third term, defeating Republican Duchess County Executive Marc Molinaro. Cuomo’s preferred Attorney General pick, Letitia James, cruised past Republican Keith Wofford and is set to be the first African American woman to serve in a statewide office in New York history. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, all Democrats, were re-elected by healthy margins.

In the Bronx, the Democrats won every Senate and Assembly seat without breaking a sweat. In most cases, candidates running on Republican or third-party lines were placeholders or barely campaigned. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who officially became the youngest woman elected to Congress in U.S. history, received nearly six times the vote total of her opponent.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s three ballot initiatives related to campaign finance and community boards were approved overwhelmingly in the Bronx and citywide. According to unofficial tallies from the city and state boards of elections, only 32 percent of eligible voters in the Bronx turned out, the lowest rate among the five boroughs.

Throughout the city, including many neighborhoods in the Bronx, problems with voting machines were reported thanks to high turnout, a longer-than-usual ballot, and what many elected officials believed to be incompetence on behalf of the city’s Board of Elections (BOE). City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called on BOE officials to resign. Other city councilmen called for hearings on the issue.

The Agenda
The Democratic takeover was telegraphed in September, when 32-year-old progressive Alessandra Biaggi successfully won her primary against incumbent state Sen. Jeff Klein, the former leader of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference. It seemed then, as it does now, that New Yorkers no longer had patience for Republican or bipartisan rule.

“The voters of the state are sending a clear message,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera told the Norwood News. “Whether we’re talking about the Bronx or upstate New York or Long Island… There is deep want for a Democratic majority.”

Rivera’s future colleague, Biaggi, campaigned on single-payer healthcare, housing justice, and codifying Roe v. Wade in state law thorough a series of bills like the Reproductive Health Act. Now that Republicans can no longer block Democratic efforts on these front, Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie intend to usher in a liberal agenda on all fronts.

In a post-election day press release, Heastie outlined ten policy areas he intends to pursue in the coming legislative session including: passing the Dream Act, passing early voting laws, combining state and federal primaries, modernizing transportation, criminal justice reform, rent law reform, and passing the Reproductive Health Act.

Perhaps, the Democrats know they cannot squander this opportunity. Twice in the last ten years, a slim margin in the senate and parliamentary shenanigans turned over power to the Republicans.

“We have to govern effectively. That has to be our number one priority,” Rivera said. “The Republicans tried to convince people – and obviously the electorate is way too smart for it – that the [incoming] Democratic conference … will be the same one that was there in 2009. And nothing can be further from the truth.”

Rivera would know. He took office in 2011, after defeating Pedro Espada, the man who triggered a leadership crisis in 2009 that ended Democratic rule after only six months.

Bronx Voter Turnout
In the Bronx, even in a year with an un-competitive gubernatorial race and virtually no competitive races in the borough, voters turned out in larger numbers than previous mid-term elections to support Democratic candidates in local and national races. Still, the Bronx had the lowest turnout of any borough, according to unofficial tallies from the state and city Board of Elections.

Biaggi garnered 53,262 votes to Republican Richard Ribustello’s 10,683 votes. Klein, ousted by Biaggi in the Sept. 13 Democratic Primary, received 5,176 votes on the Independence Party line, according to tallies from the BOE. Klein did not campaign after the primary – nor appear in public, for that matter – but some community stakeholders and organizations are still mourning his primary loss after decades of representing the Bronx in the state Assembly and Senate.

Unofficial vote tallies in Senate District 34 currently sit at 72,373, dwarfing the 41,143 votes cast in 2014, the only other midterm election after the new state Senate map was finalized in 2012. In Senate District 36, which includes parts of Norwood, Wakefield, and Mount Vernon, Jamaal Bailey received 40,000 more votes than his predecessor, Ruth Hassell-Thompson, received in 2014. Senator Gustavo Rivera, who represents parts of Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, and central Bronx, received 24,000 more votes than 2014.

Rivera and Biaggi will join their Democratic colleagues in Albany as part of the majority for the first time since 2009. If this new majority holds for a year, Democrats are projected to hold at least 35 seats in the 63 seat legislature – the amount of time Democrats will have held the state senate in New York since World War II will add up to less than four years.

In the Assembly, the Democrats held onto their large majority, in part due to the virtually uncontested races in the Bronx. The most votes a Bronx Republican received on Tuesday was Elizabeth English’s 4,953 in the 82nd Assembly District. Her opponent, incumbent Democrat Michael Bendetto, received 25,041 votes.

In Norwood, longtime Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz received 25,670 votes – 22,000 more than his Republican opponent and 10,000 more than he received in 2014 in the race for the 81st Assembly District. Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez, who won a special election in April, easily dispatched her Republican opponent and received 9,000 more votes than her predecessor, Councilman Mark Gjonaj, did in 2014. Assemblyman Jose Rivera, who represents much of Bedford Park and Fordham, won with 8,000 more votes than he received in 2010.