Despite absolutely nobody believing he can win or even that he should be in the race, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is making his 2020 bid for the White House.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will declare his bid for the presidency on Thursday, a campaign spokesperson said Wednesday, joining the almost two dozen other candidates already competing for the Democratic nomination.
De Blasio will make the formal announcement Thursday morning and then travel to Iowa and South Carolina for multiple stops over four days. His wife, Chirlane McCray, who has been a highly visible presence and close adviser during his six years at City Hall, will join him for part of the trip.
A Facebook post from the Woodbury County Democratic Party in Iowa announcing that de Blasio would appear at an event Thursday as the first stop on his presidential tour let the cat out of the bag early before his formal declaration. The post was later deleted.
The mayor plans to highlight his record of liberal accomplishments in the nation’s largest city, including enacting universal pre-kindergarten, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and overseeing a drop in crime to an all-time low.
De Blasio is not particularly popular back home, nor in early surveys of Iowa and New Hampshire, which vote first in the primary process. His popular predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, opted out of a 2020 run.
But allies of de Blasio, who was easily re-elected in 2017 despite a testy relationship with the local press corps and an FBI investigationthat eventually cleared him, argue he has as much or more executive experience as any candidate in the 2020 field and a record of actually doing things other candidates have only talked about.
"Because he has such a present press corps in a tabloid city, we've seen him up close and in an aggressive and unflattering light, but if you look at his actual record of achievement, it's quite lengthy,” said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist and former top de Blasio aide. "Yes, there's an argument to be made about whether he should be running for president or not, but he is certainly qualified."
With an estimated 8.6 million residents, New York City has a bigger population than 38 states, including Washington, Colorado and Montana, whose governors or former governors are also running for president.
De Blasio isn't a bad guy, there's just no reason why he should be president. He doesn't bring anything new or useful to the table. Yes, the Big Apple press certainly tries to make him look like a buffoon every chance they get, but a lot of that is de Blasio himself constantly giving them the opportunity to dunk on him.
Besides, I don't think he can handle the pressure. He's notoriously thin-skinned and we have enough of that in the current jackass in the Oval Office.
Hard Pass, Bill. Get your public transportation and schools in order first, then get back to me.
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