De Blasio Plans To Stay In Presidential Race Despite Almost Nonexistent Numbers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio says despite almost nonexistent numbers in a new presidential poll, he will stay on the campaign trail, but he needs to gather support quickly.
De Blasio is hanging tough, insisting in an interview he's in the presidential race for the long haul.
In the polls, he's been hovering around zero, earning an asterisk in the latest CNN poll.
"You see a bunch of candidates there, but there is not, in the end, I think a sense among Democratic voters that they're secure in where they want to go. The vast majority of Democratic voters are gonna make their decision late," de Blasio said.
But the mayor has to quickly raise his numbers now to qualify for the next Democratic presidential debate in September.
"De Blasio says he's in it for the long haul. What does he mean?" Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said. "He won't be missed around here 'cause no one even knows he's mayor anymore."
Sheinkopf says de Blasio wants to stay in the race, if only to get to the South Carolina primary in February.
"He's gotta get to South Carolina with the hope the fact that he's married to a black woman and has an interracial son, that that will help him get some of the black vote. Absent that, he needs to pack his bags and get back to Manhattan and to city hall as quick as he can," Sheinkopf said.
New Yorkers aren't exactly throwing support behind their mayor.
"He can't even be the mayor of New York. How the hell is he gonna run the whole country?" one man said.
"I think he should do his job that he was elected to do as mayor of the city of New York," Roy Martin, of the Upper West Side said.
"I don't think he is serving New York City very well and to take what he's doing here and amplify it to a greater scale is a little scary," one woman said.
De Blasio is also hoping that a CNN town hall on Sunday will give him the needed exposure to help raise his poll numbers.