HEY , GUE$$ WHO’S LATE
Blas woos donors who already gave to Hochul
Mayor de Blasio’s penchant for being late is now costing his potential gubernatorial campaign.
De Blasio has recently been reaching out to donors to discuss his planned Democratic primary challenge — only to find out they already put their money behind Gov. Hochul.
The mayor had lunch at Smith & Wollensky recently with business moguls John Catsimatidis and Dennis Mehiel — after the pair already held two fundraisers and raised nearly a half million dollars for Hochul.
Hochul, the former lieutenant governor, became New York’s first female chief executive when Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual-misconduct scandal.
Although de Blasio hasn’t thrown his hat into the ring for a 2022 gubernatorial bid, he has created a candidate committee and opined on how “there’s a lot of things that need to be fixed in Albany.”
“Mayor de Blasio asked us to have lunch with him to discuss what he wants to do in the future, after he leaves office on January 1. It was about what he’s going to do after January,” said Catsimatidis, a billionaire whose business interests include oil companies, real estate and the Gristedes supermarket chain.
Catsimatidis, a former mayoral candidate who has described himself as a “Republican liberal,” wouldn’t say what advice he gave de Blasio about running for governor, but another source told The Post that he and Mehiel discouraged a bid.
“It was a cordial and friendly discussion. I’ve known the man for 35 to 40 years. You know the expression, ‘You don’t go to bed and talk about it the next day.’ I’m not going to kiss and tell,” Catsimatidis said.
Mehiel is a corrugatedpackaging company executive who served as chairman of the Battery Park City Authority.
Both Catsimatidis and Mehiel are big political donors and philanthropists with deep ties to the Greek-American community.
Catsimatidis and his wife, Margo, contributed more than $300,000 to Cuomo’s campaigns for governor and attorney general. His United Metro Energy Corp. has been awarded tens of millions of dollars in city contracts.
Hochul has raised $10 million since August, when she filed with the state Board of Elections to run for a full term, and has $11.1 million in cash on hand.
Lobbyists, real-estate tycoons and politicos have attended multiple fundraisers for her campaign — with ticket prices soaring as high as $25,000 a pop.
That means de Blasio — and Hochul’s official challengers, state Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — likely have a lot of ground to make up.
But the public will have to wait until January to find out just how much each contender has, as the Board of Elections won’t post updated public-finance reports until the new year.
Right now, de Blasio’s 2020 presidential campaign account has just $4,731 left in cash on hand, but is also saddled with a debt/loan balance of $67,371.
The cold shoulder he’s getting from donors indicates he likely won’t have much pull for a gubernatorial race.