De Blasio Defends Low Polling: ‘Folks Had To Have Liked Me’ To Make Me Mayor Twice

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shrugged off the poor reception to his 2020 presidential campaign on Sunday morning, arguing that people “had to have liked me to have made me mayor of New York City twice.”

De Blasio appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, during which Dana Bash asked the mayor about polls showing that even most New Yorkers don’t want him to run for president.

“If I had believed the polls and listened to the polls in all my other elections, I might have just stayed home,” de Blasio said. “But it’s not where you start, it’s where you end. So much of the time, the polls don’t tell you the truth.”

“I’m going to ask you a question that is frankly often asked of women when they’re running,” Bash said later in the interview. “Do you have a likability problem?”

“I would argue, you know, when you’re talking about appealing to every kind of new Yorker and every kind of American, I’ve built those very broad coalitions,” de Blasio responded. “Folks had to have liked me to have made me mayor of New York City twice.”

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