2013 election On January 27, 2013, de Blasio announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in the
fall election. The Democratic primary race included nine candidates, among them Council Speaker
Christine Quinn, former
U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, and former
New York City Comptroller and
2009 mayoral nominee Bill Thompson. After Weiner joined the race in April, early polls showed de Blasio in fourth or fifth place. Despite his poor starting position, de Blasio gained the endorsements of major Democratic clubs, such as the
Barack Obama Democratic Club of Upper Manhattan, and New York City's largest
trade union,
SEIU Local 1199. Celebrities such as
Alec Baldwin and
Sarah Jessica Parker endorsed him, as did prominent politicians such as former Vermont Governor
Howard Dean and U.S. Congresswoman
Yvette Clarke. By August, singer
Harry Belafonte and actress
Susan Sarandon had also endorsed de Blasio. De Blasio drew attention to issues of economic inequality in New York City, which he described as a "tale of two cities". De Blasio gained media attention during the campaign when he and a dozen others, including city councillor
Stephen Levin, were arrested while protesting the closing of
Long Island College Hospital. De Blasio and Levin were released a few hours later with disorderly conduct summonses. Fellow Democratic mayoral hopefuls Weiner and City Comptroller
John Liu were also at the protest but were not arrested. During his mayoral campaign, de Blasio outlined a plan to raise taxes on residents earning more than $500,000 a year to pay for universal
pre-kindergarten programs and to expand after-school programs at
middle schools. He also pledged to invest $150 million annually into the
City University of New York to lower tuition and improve degree programs. In August 2013, the de Blasio campaign released a television advertisement featuring de Blasio's then-15-year-old son, Dante, talking about his father's plans to "'really break from the Bloomberg years.'"
Time called it "The Ad That Won the New York Mayor's Race", noting that after it ran, "de Blasio built a steady lead that he never relinquished." He reached 43% in a Quinnipiac poll released a week before the primary. Preliminary results of the September 11 primary showed de Blasio with 40.1% of the votes, slightly more than the 40% needed to avoid a runoff. On September 16, second-place finisher
Bill Thompson conceded the race, citing the unlikelihood of winning a runoff even if uncounted absentee and military ballots pushed de Blasio below the 40% threshold. Thompson's withdrawal made de Blasio the Democratic mayoral nominee. Exit polls showed that the issue that most aided de Blasio's primary victory was his unequivocal opposition to "stop and frisk." After the primary, de Blasio was announced as the nominee of the
Working Families Party. In the general election, de Blasio faced Republican candidate
Joe Lhota. Voter turnout for the election set a new record low of only 24% of registered voters, which
The New York Times attributed to the expectation of a landslide in the heavily Democratic city. The finance activities of the 2013 de Blasio campaign became the subject of a federal corruption investigation led by U.S. Attorney
Preet Bharara, including whether campaign donors received preferential treatment from City Hall. The investigation ended in March 2017 with no charges being filed.
2017 election In 2017, de Blasio won reelection to a second term, defeating Republican Assemblywoman
Nicole Malliotakis, 65.2%–27.2%.
Tenure De Blasio was sworn into office on January 1, 2014, by former President
Bill Clinton. In his inaugural address, he reiterated his campaign pledge to address "economic and social inequalities" within the city.
The New York Times noted that "The elevation of an assertive, tax-the-rich liberal to the nation's most prominent municipal office has fanned hopes that hot-button causes like universal prekindergarten and low-wage worker benefits... could be aided by the imprimatur of being proved workable in New York." On January 10, 2014, the mayor received light-hearted criticism after a photoshoot where he ate a pizza with a knife and fork at a
Staten Island pizzeria. In defense, de Blasio said that it was traditional in Italy to eat pizza in such a manner. Marc Cosentino, the owner of the pizzeria, later auctioned off the notorious fork for $2,500 to raise money for the
Tunnel to Towers Foundation. The incident was variously dubbed "Forkgate", "Pizzagate", and "Pizzaghazi". At a February 2, 2014
Groundhog Day ceremony, de Blasio accidentally dropped a groundhog named Charlotte onto the ground in front of "shocked schoolchildren". Charlotte died of internal injuries on February 9, 2014, although the Staten Island Zoo did not make this fact public until several months later. In the first weeks of de Blasio's mayoralty, New York City was struck by a series of snowstorms. De Blasio was criticized by
Upper East Side residents who said efforts to clear the snow seemed to be lagging in their neighborhood. De Blasio apologized the next day, saying that "more could have been done to serve the Upper East Side." By the middle of February, the city had added $35 million to the
Sanitation Department's budget for snow removal. but had low approval ratings upon leaving office.
9/11 attacks In 2016, de Blasio expressed support for the
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that would allow relatives of victims of the
September 11 attacks to sue
Saudi Arabia for its government's
alleged role in the attacks.
Affordable housing A key focus of de Blasio's mayoral tenure was to build more affordable housing, with a goal of 200,000 units. His plan passed the City Council, but was controversial. Groups such as the
New York Communities for Change came out against the plan, arguing that it promoted
gentrification. In April 2017, the state government renewed the
421-a tax abatement program after unions and developers made a deal on wages in qualifying construction projects.
Atlantic Avenue, in the
East New York neighborhood of
Brooklyn, which has been scarred by decades of poverty and crime, was the first test and focus of de Blasio's strategy on affordable housing, one of the policy initiatives central to his platform of reducing inequality. Since 2012, city planners had been working to bring residents to forums to consult on the process. The plan was to "invite developers to build up local streets in exchange for more units of affordable housing." In January 2019, de Blasio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Ben Carson reached an agreement to change the operations of the New York City Housing Authority. The agreement created "specific requirements and milestones to address the serious health and safety hazards at NYCHA properties, including lead-based paint, mold, heat, vermin, among others".
COVID-19 response On January 28, 2020, de Blasio said, "this virus was underestimated by the
Chinese government. It was actually beginning to spread and was not recognized sufficiently and talked about openly." On February 13, in an interview with
NBC News, he said, "this is something we can handle, but you got to follow some basic rules." On March 9, he said that the "vast majority of New Yorkers, being folks under 50 and healthy, are not in particular danger, and if they were to get it, would experience something like a common cold or flu." On March 11, he was "telling people to not avoid restaurants, not avoid normal things that people do. ... If you're not sick, you should be going about your life." On March 16,
The New York Times reported that during the previous week, de Blasio's "top aides were furiously trying to change the mayor's approach to the coronavirus outbreak. There had been arguments and shouting matches between the mayor and some of his advisers; some top health officials had even threatened to resign if he refused to accept the need to close schools and businesses." De Blasio followed their advice. De Blasio was criticized for singling out Jewish residents of the city, following tweets directed at "the Jewish community", who described de Blasio's actions as
scapegoating. In early June 2020, he was criticized for enforcing restrictions on religious gatherings to no more than 25% of capacity whereas all other groups were allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Catholic priests and Jewish synagogue worshipers then sued both De Blasio and Governor Cuomo for being more than twice as restrictive of worship than protest events. In late June, a federal judge overruled the religious worship restrictions and others that limited New York outdoor gatherings. When
Brian Lehrer asked De Blasio in a July 2020 radio interview about his approach to helping businesses recover from the pandemic, de Blasio said that his "focus has not been on the business community and the elite", and, quoting Karl Marx's
Communist Manifesto, that "the state is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie." He quoted
Ché Guevara, another communist figure, at a rally in Miami a year earlier, upsetting that city's Latino community.
Education As mayor, de Blasio's signature initiative was the implementation of
Universal Pre-K, i.e. publicly funded pre-kindergarten for all New York City residents. He sought to fund the program by increasing taxes on New York City residents earning $500,000 or more. De Blasio's initiative saw an increase in Universal Pre-K enrollment in New York City through 2015, with over 70% of pre-K expansions happening within the ZIP codes of the city's poorest quartile. In 2017, de Blasio proposed an expansion of the program to "3-K", to include three-year-olds. Preschool for three-year-olds would start in poorer neighborhoods, with the goal of covering the entire city, if the state or federal governments provided funding. In 2014, De Blasio's decision to deny public space to several New York City
charter schools provoked controversy among advocates of
school vouchers. The decision overturned a Bloomberg administration arrangement that allowed for "co-locations", where charter schools were housed in public school buildings. De Blasio also revoked $200 million of capital funding earmarked for charter schools.
The New York Times emphasized that de Blasio approved 14 charter school co-locations and only denied three, suggesting that he was being unfairly cast as being opposed to charter schools. Two months after the initial decision, the mayor's office announced that it had found space for the three schools. The city would lease, renovate, and maintain three buildings, which were previously used for Catholic schools, from the
Archdiocese of New York. The three charter schools are run by
Success Academy Charter Schools.
Environmental issues In April 2019, De Blasio announced his support for the
Green New Deal and for legislation to ban the construction of glass and steel skyscrapers in New York City, citing environmental concerns and feeling they contribute to global warming. He also criticized the development at
Hudson Yards in Manhattan.
Foreign Policy On April 24, 2015, the
100th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide, De Blasio voiced support for its national
recognition.
George Floyd riots and protests On May 31, 2020, de Blasio issued a statement blaming protesters for being in the way of two police cruisers that pushed a barricade into them. On June 7, 2020, he announced: "We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services." De Blasio blamed "anarchist" protesters for inciting and organizing violent riots. On June 21, 2020, the
American Museum of Natural History announced that it was asking city officials to remove the
Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse. De Blasio endorsed the decision.
Immigration In July 2014, de Blasio signed a bill authorizing the creation of
municipal identification cards for all residents regardless of immigration status, to help secure access to city services. Homeless New Yorkers were also eligible to obtain the
IDNYC cards if they registered a "care of" address. The IDNYC card program was launched on January 1, 2015.
Investigations and fines In May 2019, de Blasio consulted with New York City's Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) to ask if he could bill the city for an NYPD security detail while campaigning for president of the United States. The COIB warned de Blasio at the time against billing taxpayers for travel expenses incurred by the security detail. De Blasio ultimately went on 31 out-of-state trips while campaigning, racking up $319,747 in travel costs which he billed to New York City. In October 2021, the New York City Department of Investigations published a report with findings that "the City has not been reimbursed by the de Blasio Campaign for the travel expenses of the security detail during the Mayor's presidential campaign, totaling over $300,000." In June 2023, the COIB ordered de Blasio to repay the $319,747 in security travel costs and fined him an additional $155,000, the largest fine it had ever issued.
Israel in June 2013 On February 14, 2019, while addressing a rally in New York City about combating
antisemitism, De Blasio said: "Maybe some people don't realize it, but when they support the
BDS movement, they are affronting the
right of Israel to exist and that is unacceptable." De Blasio condemned Representative
Ilhan Omar's remarks about Israel and
pro-Israel lobbyists as "absolutely unacceptable" and "illogical".
Law enforcement in November 2014|279x279px During his mayoral tenure, de Blasio's relationship with the
New York City Police Department was called "strained", "combative", and "frosty". Ending
the NYPD's "stop and frisk" policy was a centerpiece of De Blasio's campaign. The practice had been challenged by civil rights groups in federal court, where it was
ruled unconstitutional in 2013. The federal appeal of this decision filed by the Bloomberg administration was dropped by de Blasio when he took office. He vowed to settle cases with claimants who had ongoing litigation against the police for stop and frisk arrests. The NYPD union appealed the decision without de Blasio's support, and was rejected. De Blasio selected
Bill Bratton for
New York City Police Commissioner, a position he had held under Mayor
Rudy Giuliani. Bratton, who introduced
stop and frisk under Giuliani, promised it would be used "legally, respectfully" and less frequently. Some de Blasio supporters were disappointed by Bratton's appointment. A 2016 report from
Politico, based on data from the New York Civil Liberties Union, showed that the use of stop-and-frisk by the NYPD had been reduced during the de Blasio administration. In February 2014, Pastor Bishop Orlando Findlayter—the founder of the New Hope Christian Fellowship Church, and a friend and supporter of de Blasio—was pulled over for failing to signal before making a left turn. Findlayter was then detained by police on outstanding warrants and driving with a suspended license. De Blasio is alleged to have called the police on Findlayter's behalf. Findlayter was released shortly thereafter. In a press conference, de Blasio told reporters that while he had called the police to make an inquiry regarding Findlayter's arrest he did not ask the police to release him. A spokesperson for the mayor said that de Blasio's call occurred after the police already had decided to release Findlayter. In April 2014, the NYPD disbanded a unit that had engaged in secret surveillance of Muslim organizations. De Blasio commented, "'This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys'". On December 3, 2014, after a
grand jury decided not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the
death of Eric Garner, de Blasio said in a speech that he and his
African American wife,
Chirlane McCray, had had many conversations with their biracial son about taking "special care in any encounters he has with the police officers who are there to protect him". De Blasio also "offered qualified support for protesters after the grand jury decision not to charge the officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York City". Under de Blasio, New York City police officers were trained in de-escalation techniques. After New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed in an ambush in December 2014, "cops and union leaders publicly rebuked [de Blasio], arguing [that] his earlier remarks had stoked anti-police sentiment."
Marijuana In May 2018, de Blasio directed the NYPD to stop making arrests of persons smoking marijuana publicly, and to instead issue summonses in such cases. In December 2018, De Blasio announced his support for
marijuana legalization in New York City, calling it a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to get a historic issue right for future New Yorkers." He worked with a marijuana task force to produce a report on licensing and regulation, which was released along with a letter of endorsement.
Mohel disclosure rule In 2015, de Blasio repealed a public health requirement that
mohels inform parents of the risks of
metzitzah b'peh, an oral circumcision ritual that was linked to 17 cases of infant herpes, brain damage, and two deaths since 2000. In 2012, the rule was passed by the city's Board of Health, which required parents to sign a consent form. Some ultra-
Orthodox Jewish leaders called the requirement an infringement on religious freedom, sued the city in federal court, After de Blasio installed allies and donors on New York City's Board of Health, a new policy was instated that mohels could be banned for life if they tested positive for herpes and the DNA strain matched the infant's, but only after a child was infected. It was soon revealed that the city was not disclosing new infections as required by the new policy, and children continued to become infected after undergoing the ritual.
Nepotism laws De Blasio put his wife, Chirlane McCray, in charge of major policy initiatives such as the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City and ThriveNYC (a $850 million mental health initiative). This caused criticism since McCray had never been elected to office and was chosen for these positions only because of her relationship with De Blasio. De Blasio accused critics of the arrangement of "sexism" and bemoaned the city's anti-
nepotism laws that prevented McCray from receiving a substantial salary.
Technology and innovation When de Blasio appointed Minerva Tantoco as the city's chief technology officer in fall 2014, he said her goal would be to "develop and implement a coordinated strategy for technology and innovation, for how this city as a whole is going to approach the role of technology in our everyday lives, in our economy, in our schools, in our civic participation." Two years later, Tantoco's efforts were only partially successful. Along with Governor Cuomo, de Blasio supported moving
Amazon's
headquarters to
Long Island City in the
Amazon HQ2 search, and worked with Cuomo to develop a benefits package from New York City and State funds totaling $2.988 billion. In November 2018, Long Island City in Queens was selected as one of two sites for HQ2, along with
Crystal City in
Arlington County, Virginia, outside of
Washington, D.C. De Blasio criticized Amazon's decision. ThriveNYC promoted an integrated
public health approach focusing on awareness and early identification. In February 2019,
Politico criticized ThriveNYC for having an "opaque budget" and "elusive metrics". In a March 2019 article on ThriveNYC,
The New York Times reported: "Public health officials credit the plan for drawing attention to mental health… At the same time, some initiatives failed to get started, while others placed unrealistic demands on already strained mental health services". The
Times added: "A spreadsheet of nearly 500 data points tracked by City Hall included almost none related to patient outcomes". ThriveNYC drew harsh criticism over allegations of mismanagement and accusations that it had failed to produce records of tangible results. As of March 2019, nearly $850 million in funding for McCray's mental health program was unaccounted for; furthermore, the program was on track to spend $1 billion over five years. Bronx Councilman
Ritchie Torres criticized ThriveNYC, stating that there was "no evidence it's working". In 2021, de Blasio made ThriveNYC permanent by executive order, rebranding the initiative as the Office of Community Mental Health. Furthermore, a 2021 budget deal allocated a further $115 million to the program; the spending plan included $96 million for B-HEARD, an initiative to dispatch EMTs and social workers as first responders to 911 calls involving mentally ill people in an effort to prevent confrontations with the police.
Transportation In 2014, de Blasio released a report dedicated to "better transit for New York City." Some of the ideas brought up in the report were to rebuild
Penn Station/
Madison Square Garden, create more
bus rapid transit routes, and a "Vision Zero" initiative to reduce traffic-related deaths in the city. The "Vision Zero" initiative, inspired by a successful Swedish plan, saw a gradual decrease in pedestrian fatalities, from 299 in 2013 to 200 in 2018. But in 2019 there was an increase in cyclist deaths, and de Blasio discussed several proposals to combat cyclist deaths, including a $58.4 million plan and requiring cyclists to wear helmets and acquire licenses to operate a bicycle. While the de Blasio administration planned on increasing the rate at which bicycle racks were added in the city, the annual rate instead fell by 42% compared to the Bloomberg administration, reaching a new average of 1,633 new racks per year. Jon Orcutt, a spokesman for Bike New York, said, "Everybody's talking about
Citi Bikes and scooters but it's the humble bike rack that needs more attention." ==2020 presidential campaign==