- A new poll put former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in seventh place for his House run.
- Commissioned by the Working Families Party and NY Assemblymember Yuh Line Niou, de Blasio got 3%.
- The majority of undecided voters said they will definitely not vote for de Blasio.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is at the bottom of the barrel in a crowded race of more than a dozen candidates vying to represent New York's new 10th Congressional District, according to a Working Families Party poll released this week.
"If the Democratic primary election for United States Representative in your district were held today and the candidates were the following, for whom would you vote?" the survey asked.
De Blasio finished nearly last at 3%, while Councilwoman Carlina Rivera and Assemblywoman Yuh-line Niou — whom the WFP endorsed — led the pack, tying at 16%. Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel for House Democrats during President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, came in third at 10% while Mondaire Jones, who currently represents New York's 10th District, placed fourth at 8%. Former New York City Council candidate Maud Maron finished last at 2%.
A whopping 40% of respondents were undecided.
Goldman, for his part, recently told Insider that de Blasio, who has lived in the new 10th Congressional District for decades, is a "known commodity to every single voter."
While the former mayor has an upper hand when it comes to name recognition, undecided New Yorkers aren't keen on the possibility of him representing them, the poll found.
"Even though you're undecided, are there any candidates that you definitely will not vote for?" the survey asked. De Blasio placed first by a wide margin, at 49%, while the rest of the candidates were in the single digits.
The results of the WFP poll are in line with other recent surveys of the race. A new poll of the 10th Congressional District from progressive firm Data for Progress placed de Blasio second-to-last with only 5% of voters' support, with Maron trailing him at 1%. Forty-nine percent of the 533 likely Democratic primary voters surveyed said they have a very unfavorable opinion of de Blasio. The former mayor also was the only candidate with a negative favorability rating. Likewise, only 6% of voters said they support de Blasio, an Emerson College poll found.
The vast majority of current members of Congress from New York are Democrats. These incumbents were running for reelection in the new version of their districts, drawn by the Democrat-controlled legislature, before the New York Court of Appeals rejected it and ordered that a "special master" with the help of a "neutral expert" draw new district lines. In May, a state judge approved a new congressional map, drawn by court-appointed special master Jonathan Cervas, that gives Republicans an advantage.
The current iteration of the 10th Congressional District is home to long-time Rep. Jerry Nadler, but its new boundaries mark a significant departure.
Instead of stretching down the West Side of Manhattan and along Brooklyn's coastal neighborhoods before inching into the more central neighborhoods of Borough Park and Kensington, the new version forms a bloc across lower Manhattan below 18th Street and into the western neighborhoods of Brooklyn, going as far inland as Park Slope, de Blasio's home neighborhood.
Niou's Assembly district partially overlaps with the newly drawn House boundaries, and she's been a fixture in Chinatown throughout the pandemic, running point for mutual aid resources.
Rivera secured the highly coveted endorsement of Rep. Nydia Velázquez, whose current district overlaps substantially with the Brooklyn portions of NY-10's new boundaries.
Axios called the district "a potential venue for Democrats to expose various internal rifts as candidates fight for a simple plurality of the vote, where the winner can advance with far less than 50%." Politico rated the district as Solid Democratic.
