‘It’s clear .. People are looking for another option’
The day after receiving 3 percent support in a Working Families Party poll of the Democratic candidates for the new 10th Congressional District, former Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday announced that he is ending his run for the Democratic nomination.
The Democratic primary for U.S. Congress and State Senate races is Tuesday, Aug. 23.
The district’s map was changed in May and now includes Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Chinatown and a swath of western Brooklyn stretching from DUMBO to Sunset Park and a portion of Borough Park.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who represented the district for many years, lives on the Upper West Side and is thus outside the redrawn district. He has opted to run in Manhattan’s 12th District, leaving the field wide open — and crowded.
In de Blasio’s video, which was posted on Twitter yesterday, the former mayor, a Park Slope resident, said that he met with plenty of New Yorkers from Brooklyn and Manhattan throughout his campaign and decided to step away.
“I’ve listened really carefully to people and it’s clear to me that when it comes to this congressional district, people are looking for another option,” he said. “I respect that. I just want to say I love the people of this city. I really want to keep serving and I’m going to find a different way to serve but I’m filled with gratitude at the same time.”
Other candidates running in the crowd for the Democratic nomination include Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon; former U.S. Rep. and Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman; U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, who currently represents the 17th District in Rockland County and now seeks the 10th C.D. seat; Lower Manhattan Councilmember Carlina Rivera; lawyer Daniel Goldman, former senior advisor to the House Intelligence Committee; and Lower Manhattan Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou.
While he was still mayor of New York City, de Blasio was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president during the 2020 election. He announced his candidacy in May 2019 but withdrew that September.
He also considered running in Congressional District 10, which currently includes a race between the U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and former Congressmember Max Rose, but ultimately decided against it.
In his video, de Blasio adds that he’s made mistakes and hopes to continue to serve the city in another way.
“We’re going to do a lot together to make this city better in the future,” he said to his volunteers and supporters. “I’m recognizing I made mistakes. I want to learn from those mistakes and do better in the future. This has been a humbling experience but a healthy one. I am filled with gratitude today.”
—Additional material by Raanan Geberer
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