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In Memoriam: Bill De Blasio's 2020 Campaign

First socialist in Dem field ends campaign; Bernie survives

September 20, 2019

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's 2020 presidential campaign, if it could be called that, came to an end Friday.

"I feel like I've contributed all I can to this primary election and it's clearly not my time," he told MSNBC's Morning Joe. "So I'm going to end my presidential campaign, continue my work as mayor of New York City, and I'm going to keep speaking up for working people and for a Democrat party that stands for working people."

The far-left mayor's candidacy began and ended with a thud.

When he announced his White House run in May, reporters and comedians laughed at the overwhelmingly negative response from New Yorkers. One woman told MSNBC he should have made his announcement on April 1, because it would have been a good April Fool's Day joke. New York attorney general Letitia James just said, "Why?"

Protesters chanted loudly enough outside his launch interview on Good Morning America that host George Stephanopoulos made note of it during their interview. De Blasio laughed it off as a "serenade."

Among his campaign highlights were being in Iowa when New York City was hit by a massive blackout, a report he worked seven hours at City Hall in all of May, and skipping a 9/11 memorial and blaming his staff for it. The day of the latter event, he was seen getting coffee and exercising in Brooklyn.

Confined to the end podium of the 10-person-per-night debate stage in June, de Blasio annoyed MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace enough with his interruptions that she compared him to a loudmouth at a bar. Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) pronounced him "irritating."

Even nice guy candidate Andrew Yang took a dig at de Blasio's absence from the city.

"I live in New York," Yang said as he left a South Carolina event where de Blasio spoke. "You have to come to South Carolina to meet your New York mayor."

His Honor suffered the indignity of being the least popular politician in the state of New York, beating out even President Donald Trump. De Blasio's nickname for Trump, "Con Don," failed to catch on with the voters. Neither did his signature observation that there's plenty of money in the world, but it's "in the wrong hands."