New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce he's running for president sometime next week according to a report from the New York Daily News, which cited "three sources with knowledge of the plans."
The mayor, who will turn 58 Wednesday, would become the 23rd entrant on the Democratic side according to a list compiled by Ballotpedia.
"De Blasio's federal political action committee, Fairness PAC, recently polled Iowa voters. The PAC also bankrolled the mayor's recent travel to key early voting primary states, including trips to Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina," the Daily News report noted.
However, the PAC's spokesman Mike Casca, tried to throw cold water on new inquiries about the candidacy.
"Very hard to announce something without a decision—nearly impossible, some might say," Casca said in a Friday text message to the Daily News.
The mayor has endured a long string of difficult headlines, and earlier polling from his own state showed him badly trailing other New York politicians.
Local media has also been unkind on his continued flirtations with a presidential run over the last three months.
The New York Times house editorial team highlighted a string of vacancies in his administration, intoning "Before Mayor Bill de Blasio indulges his presidential hopes with another trip to Iowa or Nevada, he has some pressing business closer to home."
A separate report from the Times highlighted the fact that the mayor generating the biggest political presidential buzz in the Big Apple was Pete Buttigieg, not Bill de Blasio.
"Polls of Democrats nationally and New Yorkers in the five boroughs show little enthusiasm for a de Blasio 2020 campaign," the Daily News concluded. "A whopping 76% of city voters don't want him to run for president next year, according to one Quinnipiac University poll released last month."