NEWARK — Mayor Ras J. Baraka strode through the room with confidence as he took the stage in a hotel in downtown Newark, which is booming with development that four years ago some feared Mr. Baraka might forestall.

“The city is finished with the past,” he said on Tuesday night, after his overwhelming re-election to a second term. “Today marks the day that you either go forward with all of us or you stay back with the few.”

It was a far different speech and a different mayor from the one who took the stage four years ago. That night, Mr. Baraka proclaimed that “the people of Newark are not for sale” after riding a populist campaign to an upstart victory that was seen by many as a referendum on the previous mayor turned Democratic senator, Cory A. Booker, whom he had criticized as more visible on the Sunday talk shows than on the streets of the city.

This time, Mr. Baraka promoted himself as a unifier who seeks to transform a city that has been mired in decay for decades, a leader intent on building relationships with business leaders and others with whom he has had frosty relationships, perhaps most notably his onetime political foe, Mr. Booker.