A $15 minimum wage. Paid sick leave. Guaranteed health care. Free pre-K for all. These are all things Mayor Bill de Blasio has delivered for New York — yet New Yorkers give him a 42 percent job approval rating, and 76 percent think he shouldn’t run for president, according to Quinnipiac.
Nevertheless, he persisted. De Blasio dropped his campaign announcement video on Thursday morning, reportedly a day earlier than planned, after being scooped by a high-school journalist. De Blasio’s pitch: in addition to implementing policies that put “working families first,” he knows how to take on fellow New Yorker Donald Trump, and in fact already has by challenging his immigration and climate policies.
New York is “tough and big and complicated,” the mayor notes (unlike, say, South Bend, Indiana). And what about the fact that pretty much everyone has been urging the mayor not to run? He asserts, “Good thing about New Yorkers is they look the same whether they’re really pissed off at you or they like you.” Huh, okay. We wouldn’t know, but we’ll take his word for it.
De Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray are set to appear on Good Morning America on Thursday. He’s expected to speak at the Woodbury County Democratic Party’s Truman Club in Sioux City, Iowa on Friday, Politico reports. Then this weekend, he’ll travel to South Carolina.
The mayor’s polling problems go beyond New York, according to a Monmouth poll conducted in March:
Among four new names included the latest Monmouth poll, Blooomberg’s city hall successor gets a net negative rating from fellow Democrats. Just 18% have a favorable view of de Blasio while 24% have an unfavorable opinion of him. De Blasio’s is the only name among 23 candidates or potential candidates who have been tested in Monmouth’s polling this year to earn a net negative rating among Democrats.
As the 23rd candidate to enter the race, de Blasio may struggle to even get on the stage for the first debate, which is capped at 20 participants.
