Mayor Bill de Blasio rose to power by depicting New York as a "tale of two cities" riven by income inequality, and then built his biggest successes like universal prekindergarten around that theme. Now he will test whether his platform can resonate on a national stage.
De Blasio, a Democrat, announced Thursday that he was running for president, seeking to show that his brand of urban progressive leadership can be a model for the country, and that his familiarity with President Donald Trump, a fellow New Yorker, made him best suited to defeat the president.
It will be a steep challenge: He becomes the 23rd Democrat to enter the presidential race, and he does so against the counsel of many of his trusted advisers, and in the face of two centuries of history.
No sitting mayor has been elected to the presidency, and if de Blasio, 58, is to be the first, he must overcome daunting deficits in polls and fundraising.
His announcement, in a three-minute video titled "Working People First," comes after months of groundwork that has included visits to early presidential primary states, a fundraiser in Boston and a circuslike news conference this week in the lobby of Trump Tower.
The video began with what has become the mayor's tagline this year, as he has flirted with declaring his candidacy. "There's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands," he said, before highlighting his accomplishments as mayor-most of them tied to reducing income inequality, like raising the minimum wage or paid sick leave-and said that those successes could be replicated nationwide.
De Blasio then appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" with his wife, Chirlane McCray, seemingly intent on drawing the attention of Trump right out of the box, calling him "Con Don."
Asked what set him apart in the big Democratic field, de Blasio returned to a likely central campaign theme: "Working Americans deserve better. And I know we can do it because I've done it here in the largest, toughest city in this country."
The mayor will have to make up a huge fundraising disadvantage as he builds out a campaign staff, and close a seemingly insurmountable gap in polls. In a Monmouth University poll last month, de Blasio had a net favorability of zero: 24% like him, 24% do not like him. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the only candidate with a higher unfavorability number, 26%, but his favorability rate was 67%.
De Blasio seemed undaunted, saying that if he had listened to the polls, he would have never run for mayor or public advocate.
He seemed similarly unaffected by the group of protesters outside the television studio Thursday, made up largely of members of the police union, which has been at odds with de Blasio over contract talks and other issues. They chanted, "Can't run the city! Can't run the country!" outside; the mayor called it "a little serenade."
De Blasio joins a crowded field that already includes two other current mayors: Pete Buttigieg, of South Bend, Indiana, and Wayne Messam of Miramar, Florida.
De Blasio planned to fly to Iowa on Thursday night. He will campaign there Friday and then visit South Carolina for campaign stops Saturday and Sunday.
In precampaign stops in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, de Blasio has said that the country is witnessing "the dawning of a new progressive era." In interviews, he has said that his leadership in New York should be seen as a model for how "you can make profound progressive change and make it quickly."
He is fond of citing his "pre-K for all" program as a prime example; it was one of de Blasio's earliest initiatives, and it remains his largest success. He has also highlighted his role in ending the policing practice of stop-question-and-frisk, which a federal judge ruled discriminated against black and Latino men.
De Blasio often says that he has a "story to tell" about New York's accomplishments, but his own narrative is also compelling. He was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. to a German American father and an Italian American mother; his father, a veteran who struggled with alcoholism, later killed himself. His relationship with his father was strained, and de Blasio eventually took his mother's last name.
Raised in Massachusetts, de Blasio attended New York University and became a leftist activist who admired Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista party. He later ran campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Charles B. Rangel, and then ran for office himself, winning elections to become a New York City councilman, public advocate and mayor.
He and McCray, who has spearheaded ThriveNYC, the city's mental health initiative, have two children. Their biracial family's prominence played a large role in his 2013 bid for mayor; a pivotal campaign ad featured his son, Dante, whose giant Afro gained its own following.
Some of de Blasio's colleagues have scoffed at the idea of him becoming president and have urged him to abandon his exploration of occupying the White House and instead focus on a bevy of nagging issues in New York City, such as crumbling public housing, high levels of homelessness and problem-plagued subways. De Blasio said that many of the answers for what ails the city actually lie 200 miles beyond its borders in the nation's capital.
"I am concerned that I think right now our federal government is not helping New York City in a whole host of ways and we're being hurt all the time by bad policies in Washington," de Blasio said at a news conference last month. He cited the lack of a national infrastructure plan and fractured health care policies. "So real changes are needed in our country," he said. "If they don't happen, New York City continues to suffer."
The mayor who came closest to the presidency was from New York City: DeWitt Clinton, who won his party's endorsement but lost to James Madison in 1812. The last sitting mayor of New York who tried to run for president was John V. Lindsay in 1972; Rudy Giuliani, who left City Hall in 2002, unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 2008.
In fact, it has been nearly a century since any New York City mayor went on to be elected to any office; the last was Ardolph Loges Kline, who was acting mayor in 1913, and served a term in the House of Representatives from 1921-23.
Nonetheless, being mayor of America's largest city does offer built-in visibility and stature, and de Blasio has used his platform to try to push the Democratic Party toward embracing his vision as it looks to dislodge Trump from the White House in 2020.
But along the way, de Blasio has made missteps. He has faced investigations and criticism for his fundraising tactics. State and federal prosecutors investigated his practices but declined to bring charges, although federal investigators found a pattern in which de Blasio or his associates solicited contributions from donors seeking favors from the city, and then contacted city agencies on their behalf.
In April, the mayor held a fundraiser in Boston hosted by Suffolk Construction, a company that is aggressively trying to extend its footprint in the city.
He also angered some national Democratic Party leaders by withholding his endorsement of Clinton for months, even though he had been her campaign manager during her successful first run for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000.
He began to make clear indications of his own ambition earlier this year, appearing at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington in January, embracing the underdog narrative that he rode to victory in 2013 when he became mayor.
"I have spent a lot of time in dead last in many a poll, in many a race," de Blasio said then. "It's not where you start. It's where you end."