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Republican Joe Lhota wants to be the next mayor of New York.

His odds are long — Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-to-1 in a city President Obama won in 2012 with 81 percent of the vote.

But Democrats have been out of the mayoral office since 1994, when Republican Rudy Giuliani was elected, followed by Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Big-Gulp-banner Michael Bloomberg.

"J-Lho," as the New York tabloids have tagged Giuliani's former deputy mayor and recent head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, can't rely on his plodding campaigning style. Or earnest lack of charisma.

But with Democrats still in limbo (a recount of Tuesday's primary votes and the counting of thousands of paper ballots will determine whether the party has a nominee or faces a contentious runoff), here's a look at where Lhota can, and has already begun to, exploit opportunity.

Divided Democrats

Lhota's best opportunity would be a forced Oct. 1 runoff between Democratic primary opponents Bill de Blasio, who appeared Tuesday to barely get the 40 percent of the vote needed for the nomination, and Bill Thompson, the distant second-place finisher who has refused to concede, despite party boss entreaties.

"Lhota would love for there to be a Democratic runoff," says Lee Miringoff, who heads the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. It would pin de Blasio in his move-to-the-left primary mode, and eat up money and precious time before the Nov. 5 general election.

Says New York Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein: "The positioning that de Blasio established during the primary has left him vulnerable on a couple big issues — crime and taxes."

He advocated a city tax hike for high earners, and attacked Bloomberg-era street policing that targeted minority residents.

The 'Bad Old Days'

New York City voters may be overwhelmingly Democratic, and want a change from the super-rich Bloomberg, his cronies, and his policing policies.

But Lhota is banking on the assumption that they also don't want to go back to the crime and chaos that convulsed the city in the 1980s and early 1990s.

"He's got to depict New York under a de Blasio as a return to an era of high crime rates, huge budget deficits, property abandonment," says Doug Muzzio, a Baruch College expert on city politics. "Bad old days, bad old days, bad old days — if he makes that part of the narrative, he wins or gets close."

Lhota's already practicing the narrative. His primary victory speech warned of Democrats promoting a "class warfare" that would "send our city back to the days of economic despair, fear and hopelessness."

'Stop And Frisk' Divide

De Blasio emerged as a Democratic front-runner in no small part because of his eloquent opposition to the city's "stop and frisk" policing tactic, recently found unconstitutional.

Lhota, whose father was a city police officer, has strongly supported what he calls "stop, question and frisk," and in his victory speech asserted that "handcuffing and demoralizing our police officers will have catastrophic consequences."

The union representing the city's police sergeants has filed a notice to appeal the court decision that halted the practice.

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