NEW YORK CITY (By Sam Roberts, NYTimes) November 10, 2005 — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg forged his historic re-election victory on Tuesday by drawing roughly half of New York's black voters and about 3 in 10 Latinos to the Republican line, even though he faced a Hispanic challenger who sought to capitalize on ethnic pride, an analysis of voting returns shows.

The mayor's wide support among minority voters is a sign that the strategy of the Democrat, Fernando Ferrer, to build on a dependable base of black and Hispanic votes fell victim to emerging political realities: that blacks and Hispanics no longer vote reflexively as a bloc, and that a middle-class coalition can trump traditional ethnic-based appeals. The winning multiethnic coalition turned out to be Mr. Bloomberg's.

He won a second term by wooing liberal defectors from Democratic ranks and by carrying every Assembly district in which white Catholics or Jews predominate. He also carried the only district in which Asians outnumber others.

What was most striking was the depth of his support among blacks and Hispanics, whom he aggressively courted in running against the city's first major-party mayoral nominee of Hispanic heritage. Mr. Bloomberg actually won several districts where Hispanics constitute the largest group among the population or the electorate, including the 34th in Queens, which includes parts of Corona, and the 80th District around Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. He also won about half of the mostly black districts.

"If Ferrer got about 31 percent of the white vote, that's about what he would need," said John H. Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York Graduate Center. "But the really interesting thing is that he did not get black and Latino support to the extent he needed."

Yesterday, the Democratic Party engaged in deep soul-searching in the wake of its embarrassing defeat, as its leaders said the party needed to shun the racial and ethnic politicking of the past.

Mr. Bloomberg returned to work in City Hall, as he fended off speculation that he would run for governor or president next.

His victory - 59 percent to 39 percent - defied the conventional political calculus in what was projected as the first mayoral race in which non-Hispanic whites would be a minority of the electorate. Most analysts said it was too early to draw long-term implications from this campaign for several reasons, including that Mr. Bloomberg spent more than $70 million on his campaign. In addition, not only was the mayor an incumbent in a city that typically gives first-term mayors the benefit of the doubt but also a lifelong Democrat until he first ran for mayor as a Republican in 2001, in contrast to his Republican predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

"He changed his party registration, but not his values," said Robert Shrum, a media consultant who is now teaching and writing at New York University. "You cannot imagine Rudy Giuliani getting half of the African-American vote or a big chunk of the Hispanic vote against a Hispanic."

In unofficial returns, Mr. Bloomberg got 648,920 votes on the Republican line and 74,715 on the Independence Party line, which meant he spent about $100 a vote to win re-election.

"The record is the record," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's communications director. "The money helps you amplify that record, but you couldn't run an ad that said crime was down 20 percent if it wasn't."

After the Republican triumph, Ferrer campaign officials said they faced formidable odds - perhaps insurmountable odds.

"The reality is, when the incumbent has 60 percent job approval and the 'are-we-going-in-the-right-direction' numbers are in the 70's and he outspends his opponent more than 10-to-1, that person is likely to win," said Jef Pollock, Mr. Ferrer's pollster. "I don't know that we've moved beyond ethnic politics, but it's fair to say it's only piece of a larger picture."

Most news organizations did not invest this year in surveying voters as they leave the polls, a practice that tries to determine voting patterns of people who identify themselves by race, ethnicity, ideology, income and other categories. One, by Pace University, estimated that Mr. Bloomberg got 48 percent support among Democrats to Mr. Ferrer's 50 percent.

An analysis of the results by Professor Mollenkopf for The New York Times, on the basis of census population figures in fairly homogenous Assembly districts and a sample of smaller election districts that are even more uniform, found that about half of black voters voted for Mr. Bloomberg. Only 5 percent of that group supported Mr. Giuliani in 1993, 20 percent backed him in 1997, and 25 percent voted for Mr. Bloomberg in 2001. (A much higher proportion supported another Republican, John V. Lindsay, in 1969, but he was running on the Liberal line and against two more conservative candidates.)

Mr. Bloomberg lost Harlem but still carried a respectable 45 percent of the vote there. He did best among blacks in middle-class neighborhoods generally and among Caribbean voters. In other largely black areas, he carried the entire 29th Assembly District in southeastern Queens, including parts of St. Albans and Laurelton, by 9,412 to 7,261, according to unofficial returns, and edged Mr. Ferrer in several largely Caribbean districts in central Brooklyn.

Representative Charles B. Rangel said yesterday that the combination of term limits and Mr. Bloomberg's unprecedented spending "breaks all the rules," including assumptions about ethnic and racial politics.

"People may have a sense of pride, but there's no way for the black or the Puerto Rican community to stick with their own if they're exposed to a guy spending $100 million who appears to be able to appeal to people regardless of their color," Mr. Rangel said.

One reason cited for Mr. Ferrer's mixed support among blacks was an early stumble in which he said that the fatal 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, was not a crime. A more fundamental reason for the defections is that immigration has made the black and Hispanic communities increasingly diverse economically and culturally and more receptive to appeals on the issues.

"It's an assumption that people of color would vote for someone of color," said Raymond Gamble, a 55-year-old black man who lives in Jamaica, Queens, works for the Housing Authority and voted for Mr. Bloomberg. "I can't say I would vote for a Republican again in my life. But he didn't give the usual spiel. I looked at the kind of things that I saw coming out of City Hall, some of his objectives and goals on education and affordable housing, and I was impressed. He is someone who has my interests in mind."

In 2001, Mr. Bloomberg actually got a larger share of Hispanic votes - about 47 percent, according to exit polls - but he was running against Mark Green, who had won the Democratic nomination by defeating Mr. Ferrer in a runoff.

On Tuesday, Mr. Ferrer carried only his home borough, the Bronx, won Washington Heights with its Dominican community, but did best in heavily Puerto Rican neighborhoods.

Diane Cardwell contributed reporting for this article.