Michael Nutter

PHILADELPHIA — Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter cruised to a second term Tuesday, easily defeating little-known Republican challenger Karen Brown in a city where voters haven’t elected a Republican mayor in more than 60 years.

Nutter, a 54-year-old former city councilman, was the heavy favorite over Brown, a 52-year-old former high school math teacher and Democrat who switched parties to face Nutter and barely survived a challenge in the May primary.

Democrats outnumber Republicans by a more than 6-to-1 ratio in Philadelphia, whose last Republican mayor, Bernard Samuel, left office in 1952.

With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Nutter had 133,252 votes, or about 75 percent of the ballots cast in a low-turnout election. Brown had 38,640 votes, or about 22 percent. Political activist Wali “Diop” Rahman was a distant third.

In his re-election bid, Nutter touted the fact that homicides are down about 18 percent since his election in 2007. He also successfully oversaw the implementation of single-stream recycling and a 311 information call center, while avoiding drastic cuts to core city services during the recession.

One of the main focuses in his second term, Nutter said, will be continuing to try to get illegal guns out of the city and slow its stubborn homicide rate. Philadelphia has had 282 homicides so far this year, compared with 274 at this point last year.

“There’s still too much gun violence. There’s still too many people dropping out of school,” Nutter said. “Our work is not done yet.”