Despite the fact that both Amazon and Walmart are hiring, former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was giving serious consideration to applying for the job of governor of New York. But this month, after many weeks of signaling a run, de Blasio stunned many by announcing he would not seek the office.
Why the sudden change of heart? Secret polling data suggests de Blasio would have entered the race with a razor-thin, oddball bloc of supporters, unlike anything New York politics has ever seen. So just who did make up the de Blasio coalition?
- Masochistic New York City residents who wanted de Blasio to screw the state the way he screwed the city (97 voters)
- Frustrated late-night comedians who haven’t been able to lay a glove on current governor Kathy Hochul but smelled comedy gold in a de Blasio administration (six voters)
- Restaurant workers who lost their job during de Blasio’s coronavirus lockdown and now are so financially desperate they would have happily sold their vote for cash (5,436 voters)
Secret polling data suggests de Blasio would have entered the race with a razor-thin, oddball bloc of supporters.
- Members of the electorate with a fetish for freakishly tall candidates (41 voters)
- Bedrock Republicans who were convinced a de Blasio candidacy would deliver their party the governorship in a historic landslide (490,062 voters)
- Andrew Cuomo, who figured a de Blasio administration might be the one thing that could make his administration look good by comparison (one voter)
- Apolitical New Yorkers who’ve never voted in their lives and have no intention of starting now (zero voters)
- Career criminals who wanted to pay back de Blasio for his support of a New York law that eliminated bail and detention for most convicts awaiting trial (157,914 voters)
- The Seven Santini Brothers, salivating over the thought of a big payday moving all of de Blasio’s junk from Gracie Mansion, in Manhattan, all the way up to the governor’s mansion in Albany (six voters, one abstainer)
- Italian-Americans who were O.K. with de Blasio’s penchant for eating pizza with a knife and fork (three voters)
- Reporters who covered de Blasio’s disastrous run for the presidency in 2020 and were in desperate need of another good laugh (67 voters)
- De Blasio’s family, close personal friends, former co-workers (seven voters)
- The Naked Cowboy, reason unknown (one voter)
John Ficarra, former editor of Mad magazine, recently tested positive for immaturity