2 years ago
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio is done running.
In a Tuesday tweet, the Park Slope resident — who represented the neighborhood on the City Council and served as the city public advocate before moving into Gracie Mansion — announced he was dropping out of a crowded congressional race to represent Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.
The move, he noted, also marked his end in electoral politics. De Blasio ran for president in 2019 and more recently toyed with a run for governor before launching a bid for the 10th Congressional District, an open seat created this year in the state's chaotic redistricting process.
"It's clear the people of #NY10 are looking for another option and I respect that," de Blasio tweeted. "Time for me to leave electoral politics and focus on other ways to serve. I am really grateful for all the people I met, the stories I heard and the many good souls who helped out."
Campaign adviser Neal Kwatra said in an interview that while the former mayor received great feedback while interacting with voters, public polls and internal research showed a narrow path for de Blasio to win.
"There was a cognitive dissonance with what we were seeing on the campaign trail and in the streets and what we were finding in the research," he said.
De Blasio ended his eighth-year tenure in City Hall with low polling numbers, especially among the type of white liberals in brownstone Brooklyn that represent a key voting bloc within the 10th District.
The former mayor raised nearly $500,000 during his short-lived congressional run — with many former staffers chipping in — and as of the end of June had spent just over $60,000, leaving him sitting on a serious pot of cash. The former mayor and some of the past campaign committees he is associated with have outstanding tabs, though it was unclear if he could use any of the federal contributions to pay off those bills.
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