{"id":194992,"date":"2025-09-02T20:26:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/194992\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T20:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:26:17","slug":"former-nyc-chief-de-blasio-backs-mamdani-in-current-mayors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/194992\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NYC chief De Blasio backs Mamdani in current mayor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sept. 2 (UPI) — New York City’s ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio<\/a> on Tuesday endorsed state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the hotly contested race to be the 111th mayor of America’s biggest city.<\/p>\n

De Blasio officially swung his public support behind<\/a> the Democratic socialist and mayoral nominee from Queens in a media blitz with an op-ed<\/a> and television appearance.\n<\/p>\n

He called Mamdani a “particularly perceptive, intelligent” and an “old soul” whose campaign is focused on “kitchen-table issues” affecting everyday New Yorkers, and the former mayor encouraged Democrats to follow Mamdani’s lead in order to win elections.<\/p>\n

The relatively young state legislator, 33, won a stunning Democratic primary victory against<\/a> former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/a> and will be on the November ballot with incumbent Mayor Eric Adams — running as in Independent<\/a> — and Republican nominee Curtis Silwa.\n<\/p>\n

“Rarely have I met someone in public life who listens so well, and I think that’s crucial,” de Blasio, 64, told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough<\/a> on his Tuesday morning<\/a> talk show.<\/p>\n

DeBlasio said Mamdani “relentlessly” talked about kitchen table issues impacting average voters in his successful grassroots campaign that toppled major establishment Democratic Party figures.<\/p>\n

“He did not talk about ‘woke issues,’ or identity issues,” he continued. “He talked about the kitchen table, and he won overwhelmingly.”<\/p>\n

Mamdani’s progressive policy agenda has been compared to de Blasio’s administration as mayor from 2014-2021 following the tenure of Michael Bloomberg<\/a> as mayor.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the former mayor praised Mamdani’s political platform to raise taxes on corporations and wealthier Americans, expand on free child care programs, free bus travel and affordable city-run grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Current polling has suggested that Mamdani leads in the five-way but fractured general election contest. If he wins Mamdani is poised to be the city’s second youngest mayor ever.<\/p>\n

For weeks DeBlasio has been active on social media in support of Mamdani and often critical of Mamdani’s other challenger and now second major Independent candidate in the race: former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.\n<\/p>\n

But DeBlasio stopped short of issuing an official endorsement until Tuesday’s op-ed.<\/p>\n

He wrote how Mandani is “relentlessly challenging the status quo of deepening unaffordability” and also praised his “bold sweeping” agenda to freeze rent, establish universal child care for kids up to 5 years old, and free city bus travel.<\/p>\n

“Yet, though many New Yorkers agree with him — many others are skeptical,” de Blasio conceded.<\/p>\n

DeBlasio, who at the time of his own successful primary election as mayor was considered a relative underdog for the job, compared pushback received during his own tenure to that which also has affected Mamdani’s campaign. He is now the only living former Democratic mayor of the “Big Apple.”<\/p>\n

“Still others have lost faith in the city government’s ability to not only talk, but deliver. They want to know one fundamental truth: can it be done?” he asked. “I can say definitely — and I know better than anyone — that the answer is yes.”<\/p>\n

He pointed to his administration’s “recklessly idealistic” agenda that saw three different rent freezes, efforts to create more affordable housing, paid sick days, a $15 minimum wage for New Yorkers and pre-K for all.<\/p>\n

“Often, these critiques were lodged by politicians and special interest groups who had a vested interest in maintaining the broken status quo,” DeBlasio wrote. “In short, labeling my agenda as infeasible masked their true problem with it: an unwillingness to cede power and opportunity to working people.”\n<\/p>\n

And DeBlasio dismissed Mamdani’s ability to achieve his goals as New York’s mayor.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a question of possibility — it’s a matter of political will,” according to New York’s 109th mayor.<\/p>\n

He called for public policy measures that put working people’s needs first.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, de Blasio said he supported Mamdani’s public safety plans to shift police officers away from mental illness and homeless issues to focus on heinous crimes instead.<\/p>\n

“Yes, we need police for a variety of situations, but why don’t we flood the zone with mental health workers to help get a lot of those people off the streets and create more of a sense of order?” said de Blasio.<\/p>\n

De Blasio went so far to suggest that a Mamdani City Hall would be able to “do things that previous mayors didn’t to create more order in this city, because he’s got the right approach.”<\/p>\n

“We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved,” he wrote in Tuesday’s op-ed.<\/p>\n

“We need him because in his heart and in his bones he cannot accept a city that prices out the people who built it and keep it running.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sept. 2 (UPI) — New York City’s ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday endorsed state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":194993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5297,21481,108629,12862,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,52,1439,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-194992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-andrew-cuomo","10":"tag-bill-de-blasio","11":"tag-joe-scarborough","12":"tag-michael-bloomberg","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-u-s","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115136586267807176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}