Fellow Dems hold back Blas endorse
Endorsing a fellow Democrat with a 44-point lead in the polls is usually a no-brainer — except when it comes to Mayor de Blasio.
A number of well-known Dems aren’t backing the mayor for reelection, even though he’s a heavy favorite to win a second term.
“In my district, he hasn’t made it easy to support him politically,” said City Council member Rory Lancman (D-Queens), a frequent critic of the mayor.
Despite being a member of the council’s progressive caucus, outgoing Council member Rosie Mendez (D-Manhattan) said she’s withholding her endorsement because city bungling allowed the sale of the Rivington House nursing home in 2016.
The Lower East Side lost a protected health center after city officials lifted protections at the site at the urging of a labor union close to the mayor — a move that produced a windfall for the buyer, who flipped the property to a luxury housing developer.
Council member Ben Kallos (DManhattan) said he’s not with Team de Blasio either, because of the mayor’s plan to use space in Housing Authority complexes for private development and for the administration’s failure to bring pre-K to his entire district.
And Council members Peter Koo and Paul Vallone of Queens say they haven’t endorsed Hizzoner, even though they were named as backers in an August press release from de Blasio’s campaign.
Even a veteran politician who says she works well with the mayor is taking a pass on endors- ing him, citing her borough’s unmet housing needs.
“It’s not like I’m for somebody else . . . but I don’t endorse many people,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer told The Post.
Brewer said the main issue for her was the pressing need for lots more affordable housing in Manhattan.
On Monday, civic group Citizens Union said it wouldn’t make an endorsement for mayor for the first time in more than 50 years because of “troubling” ethical issues surrounding the administration.
The mayor’s fund-raising practices were investigated for nearly a year by federal and state law-enforcement authorities without charges being filed. But prosecutors also said that de Blasio and his aides had violated the “intent and spirit” of the election law.
The business publication Crain’s also chose not to make an endorsement, while the labor paper The Chief-Leader said last week it was supporting de Blasio challenger Sal Albanese.