NEW YORK (AP) – Billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg stormed to a second term Tuesday with an overpowering victory over Democrat Fernando Ferrer – the culmination of a campaign that will go down as the most expensive mayoral re-election in history.

With 32 percent of precincts reporting, Bloomberg had 216,223 votes, or 56 percent, compared with Ferrer’s 160,423 votes, or 41 percent.

Ferrer gathered his supporters at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where his grandmother once earned a living working in the kitchen. He strode through the kitchen to meet the workers on Tuesday night, and said he felt “very close” to the people there.

“Now it’s time for the people to speak, and their verdict is always something that you accept,” he said.

Bloomberg, a former Democrat who was elected four years ago as fires still flared at World Trade Center site, tapped his $5 billion fortune to bankroll his campaign and was on pace to equal his spending record of $74 million from the 2001 race.

The pile of money paid for a blizzard of advertising and an army of staffers and advisers who orchestrated a massive get-out-the-vote machine and a campaign that appeared to undercut Ferrer at every turn.

It was Ferrer’s third run for mayor, and the former Bronx borough president would have been the city’s first Latino mayor if elected.