Can Black Voters Propel a White Mayor to the Presidency?

Mr. diBlasio has provided incontrovertible proof that there absolutely is no substitute for incompetence.

Di Blasio Was elected because he promised New Yorkers the store with unions negotiating retroactive raises; after Bloomberg this seem to be an improvement. NYC workers have paid for those raises tenfold in higher taxes, more taxes, ridiculously high 2 digit tolls, transportation systems that barely move, City hospitals, NYCHA housing, CUNY and schools that are underfunded, understaffed & sub par, rampant homelessness & mental illness ... NYC isn’t any safer, cleaner or better for anyone under DiBlasio except for the DiBlasio’s & those of us who can take our NYC pensions out of NYC!

The simple answer to your question is no. Playing racial or any identity politics can only get you so far in your own small geo district. With the exception of the extremes, bigots on the right and Neo feminist ultra liberals on the left, most Americans hate identity politics. That is one of the things that did Hillary in. She ran as a woman and not as an American first and fizzled. Obama ran as an American and not as a black and served two terms.

Not that mayor. Sincerely, A New Yorker

Why would anyone think the rest of the country is ready to vote for another billionaire from New York City?

It should be obvious to all Americans by now that declaring one’s candidacy for public office is a way to make a quick buck ! “We the people” should smarten up.

I'm from neighboring CT, but I work in the city a lot and I see what mayor's do and don't do, on a certain level. I'm definitely not a New Yorker, but I want to just say I think de Blasio is a joke! I bet there are plenty of locals who think they were wrong when they thought Bloomberg should NOT serve any more time as mayor. Oh well, I think New York City is sometimes like a religion: you have to have faith.

His family is definitely the thing that helped him get elected in NYC. People here were intrigued by his wife's past alternative lifestyle and thought his son's giant fro was, as the kids say, mad cool. However, I doubt very seriously if those characteristics will get him over in the Midwest!

Hopefully, yes, if that mayor is Pete Buttigieg.

Not only is The Dope from Park Slope the worst mayor in my lifetime, he is also the most delusional and tone deaf, too. His corruption is surpassed only by his incompetency.

The subtext here that for black voters blackness is the only parameter that counts is insulting.

The title of the article is insulting. Who said Blacks are happy with deblasio? Through Democratic failure, Blacks have learned the dangers of voting for symbolism. By the last presidential administration, Blacks were disappointed. Agree, he can't run New York.

As Frank Sinatra once sang..... “If he can’t make it here, he can’t make it anywhere”

How many more candidates will come out of the woodwork? Give it a rest!

Yup - now the Democrats can get 90% of the vote in California and NY, and get 49% of Florida, Ohio.

I commend De Blasio for reforming aggressive stop and frisk practices used to intimidate black and Latino men of all ages. If De Blasio is elected President (on the day the sun rises in the west), I have no doubt he will nominate a diverse body of people to his cabinet. However, give black voters some credit. Regardless of a politician's party, race, color, ethnicity, or the racial makeup of their marriage, most no longer expect politicians to address pressing issues within our communities. As with many Americans, we will vote for seemingly strong and morally balanced leaders.

Uhhhhhh, NO!. Not going to happen. On top of that prediction, Pelosi and Schumer are doing their best effort to get him reelected.

I'm sorry, but de Blasio thinking he is presidential material is the personification of chutzpah. True, he is the tallest of all those who have put themselves forward. That's about it.

Funny headline. Well, yes, it's theoretically possible that black voters could someday help a white mayor become President. But the article isn't about some hypothetical mayoral candidate and election scenario. It's about Bill de Blasio, who has absolutely no chance of winning the White House against this year's field -- no matter how much black support he might attract. De Blasio won't even be the top vote-getting mayor in the race.

New Yorkers don't even like de Blasio--there is no way he will be the nominee. As far as reparations, that ship has sailed long ago. Nobody who is alive now was either a slave or a slave owner--the time for reparations to happen was when slavery was abolished. Just as slavery was wrong, it would be wrong to legally extract reparations from people who had nothing to do with slavery. Two wrongs don't make a right.

He's a waste of time as is his candidacy. Zero traction is the legacy of his candidacy.

de Blasio is running for one reason and one reason only - so he can fundraise, dole out quid pro quos and keep the loot when he falls flat on his face in the primaries. It will be a fittingly cynical exit for one of the worst mayors in the history of New York.

Come on. DeBlasio is largely ineffective. He could be married to Lady Liberty and it wouldn't help him. As the song says, Got to Give it Up.

Anyone remember who deBlasio ran against in 2014? It was Anthony Wiener ( who was actually leading by a large margin until his incident) and Rudy Giuliani. One just got out of jail and the other is a laughing stock. deBlasio ran in 2017 basically uncontested. He never really had the support of those from NYC. They just didn't have any options.

It's doubtful anyone can. Even if their votes were counted at a 100-1 ratio. He is probably the only potential Democrat that is more loathsome than Hillary. I'm not even sure he'll win the votes of his immediate family. Please stop covering him so his candidacy ends as soon as possible.

I am hearing this from tens of thousands or hundreds of thousand of readers who will see the title of this column today: "You have to be kidding me."

I will vote for literally anyone up to, including and well beyond Trump as opposed to de Blasio. After reading one article about him in this newspaper, before he was mayor I knew what a pathetic job he would do as mayor. Its a testament to the failures of our political system and the complete and total lack of talent in politics that we have de Blasio for not even one but two terms.

If having a Black wife and mixed kids is supposed to endear de Blasio to Black voters, what will (and should) a white husband and step kids do for Harris, one of the "actual black candidates?" Funny, de Blasio had his family up front from the start when he ran for mayor. Same with Obama (and I'd love to see someone attempt to argue his Black support would have been just as strong had Michelle been white). I haven't seen much of Ms. Harris'.

That would be "no." He could be married to Madonna and it wouldn't matter.

I live in nyc and, boy oh boy, do I miss Mike Bloomberg. The city feels less safe, and dirtier. The subways are in disrepair, and seem to getting worst, not better. I have no confidence in de blasio, and couldn’t vote for him. And...I’m a Democrat.

The answer to this question is NO. And why? Because black voters already vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. A few percent more black voters will not put him de Blasio the top.

"Mr. de Blasio will no doubt repeat “the narrative about his family, how he talks to his biracial son about police brutality..." He will of course avoid talking about family corruption, preferential hiring and the scandals linked to his wife.

de Blasio should run on the treadmill at his Park Slope gym and that's about it. He could save the City a ton of money by running to City Hall instead of motorcading from Gracie Mansion to Brooklyn but that would mean showing up for work.

Mr. Mayor go back to The Big Apple, you are not electable. Why can’t you understand this?

Let’s check the polls for De Blasio...nope, less than 1 per cent! That is DOA in most books except the NYT. Let’s check the other polls...highest “dislike” rating of any candidate. That is also DOA in most books except the NYT. Wow!

Hopefully not. I actually like DeBlassio, but don't feel he's anywhere near qualified to be President (not that that seems to matter any more), doesn't have a chance and should be focusing on running NY, not running around the country on a fools errand.

This will be a disaster for progressives. The pure efficiency that Democratic left is able to deploy when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot is often breathtaking. Mayor de Blasio will bleed energy and money from other progressives candidates like Booker, Harris, and Warren. He will force them out of the race early, watering down their message & engender lots of infighting. Biden will be the main beneficiary of this move. He will stay above the fray and pad his lead. But Mayor de Blasio will also prove another point that Democratic moderates know to be true. If Democrats nominate a progressive candidate then all is lost. This is political suicide. There is no progressive majority in America & never will be. The numbers are simply not there. And there certainly is no progressive Electoral College coalition in America that could get to the needed 270 votes. This point can't be emphasized enough: almost every progressive candidate in whom Democrats invested tremendous time, money, & emotional energy in 2018—Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia— lost. Almost every significant progressive initiative on the ballot in this country was voted down. What progressives & their co-dependents will never understand is that far left mobilizes it's opponents to an even greater degree. Anti-left” will always beat “anti-Trump” in most places in this country but especially in swing states like Ohio & Florida. This is great news for Biden supporters!

I disagree with Mayor deBlasio politically; however, what irks me most about him is that he doesn't follow through on what he proposes. He's always the smartest person in the room, and if asked about the failure of his administration on following through on his promises to bridge the economic and racial divisions in NYC, he will berate the questioner and state how he is fulfilling his promises. He is not. I have more respect for the other Democratic candidates who I actually believe mean what they say. Our Mayor believes in politically expediency, and in many ways is not much different from Trump.

I couldn't care less about who Bill chose to marry. I am more focused on his policies, which aside from Pre-K have done very little to help New Yorkers. Homelessness is rampant, with entire subway cars uninhabitable due to the smell. That is a more pressing problem to me than this vanity project.

I like to think that Black voters will be more sophisticated and discerning than to be taken in by Mr. de Blasio's promises about how effective he will be at spending other people's money. After all, he was overwhelmingly elected to his second term as Mayor of NYC with a resounding 16% of the electorate voting.

What I miss the most from Bill De Blasio's and most other Democratic candidates who want to be President is a believable strategy of how to take back the Senate. Let's face it: the best and smartest plans on how to address income inequality, improve healthcare and education and protect a woman's right to choose don't mean that much if the majority leader in the Senate after 2020 is still called Mitch McConnell. So, I am waiting to hear a plan about how to change that. Still waiting. Anybody?

While it is possible, though I think unlikely, that de Blasio could do well in the Democratic primaries, he would be a weak candidate in the general election (at least in the portion of the country west of the Hudson River and east of San Francisco Bay). His nomination would likely result in a second term for President Trump.

Mayor de Blasio was good for Brooklyn, not NYC. There is no affordable housing anywhere in the city. More and more people are moving farther and farther away from the city in order to be able to afford their rent or mortgage/property taxes. I know people who commute two hours into NYC to work because they cannot afford to live there. And, they keep raising the toll rates and train fares, even though the roads are in disrepair and there are fewer trains working. The City University of New York continues to be de-funded, which means some college classrooms still do not have smart podiums (they still have chalkboards!), and most professors are underpaid adjuncts with no healthcare. These issues affect working people, the supposed people he claims to have helped. He is not what he claims to be.

I’m thrilled that Mr. de Blasio is running for president. My only concern is that he won’t be able to dedicate his full attention to his campaign if he retains his day job as Mayor of NYC. Therefore, I respectfully urge Mr. de Blasio to step down as Mayor and devote himself full time to the job of bringing his particular variety of progressivism to the service of the entire nation. The nation is crying out for the type of leadership that Mr. de Blasio has displayed. I’m sure he will offer a counterpoint to Mr. Trump.

If the candidates don't support reparations for ADOS citizens, then they will not get our support or vote. We are using the leverage we have like others have historically. Trump really has no effect on us because we have lived thru 43 or so racist POTUS, he's just another one as far as many ADOS are concern. Many of us are saying No tangibles,No Vote.

In an article that asks ‘can black voters propel DeBlasio to the White House’ you have to get to paragraph #33 (!) to learn that his polling numbers among NYC black voters have collapsed since early 2018. Collapsed. You can’t even say he’s a distraction in the Democratic race, as he’ll never rise to that level. His ‘candidacy’ is a joke, and he appears to be the only one not in on the joke. The NYT does its readers a disservice by covering anything he says or does.

Let's hope not. Two years ago, a lot of Democrats of both colors sat out the election because they saw no difference between Clinton and Trump. I guess they showed us.

He is not running effectively NYC. Why would anyone think he will do a better job for the country?

Yeah..... when it comes time to vote, I will be voting for the candidate, regardless of his or her multiracial family. The issues matter most. Morality, the environment, the economy, re-establishing normal relationships with our foreign allies, and equitable domestic policies that benefit ALL with equal treatment regardless of race or class. As for de Blasio, he should not use his track record as mayor of NYC. My $.02

Can Black Voters Propel a White Mayor to the Presidency? In the case of Mr. de Blasio and New York City's Black voters, the answer would have to be a resounding NO. And having a multiracial family is no big deal is no deal here. But our quality of life is.

Short answer is "No."

Simple answer- No.

Blasio is a loud mouth. he's the Democratic version of Trump, all talk, bad ideas, and little action. And he only cares about appeals to his base (black people). We need someone who will move the country forward with real leadership.

Cliff's Notes: NO If he can not run NYC why does he think he can run the country?

True de Blasio has a few glaring weaknesses- but, he is better placed and qualified and competent to bring the fight to Trump, than any other democrat, I think. Sanders is passionate and strong, but clumsy in some ways- he is not natural with the public; Biden can fight, but he puts his foot in his mouth. Buttigieg is smooth and polished, but not a firebrand. Warren might be a better campaigner than de Blasio- my point is that de Blasio is a strong campaigner and if his record of governance was up to that level, he'd be a world beater- but alas, that seems to be far from the case