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- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is reportedly eyeing a run for governor once his term ends.
- He has a pollster looking into his statewide appeal and has reached out to labor leaders, according to Politico and The New York Times.
- The 2022 governor's race will get going right after the mayor leaves office in January.
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The "Summer of Bill" was supposed to be a farewell tour for outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, but he's reportedly taking a look at running for governor in 2022.
Beyond previous rumors, de Blasio has been reaching out to labor leaders – a key constituency for endorsements and organizing – to gauge their interest in a potential run, according to Politico.
He's also deployed his pollster, Anna Greenberg, to check out how much support he has statewide, according to The New York Times.
The mayor has made adversaries on several different fronts since taking office back in 2014.
"He's in the worst spot possible where the left thinks he's pro-cop and the cops think he's a Sandinista," a political operative told Politico anonymously.
Newly sworn in Gov. Kathy Hochul has already promised to seek a full term in 2022, but the shortened timeline and her lack of name recognition compared to her disgraced predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, has left the door open for a primary challenge from her left.
The landscape remains fluid with no other challengers having announced a run as of yet, but de Blasio's pollster already "conducted a survey testing the mayor's appeal outside of New York City and the potency of particular messages about him," according to The Times.
New York's population concentration across the five boroughs makes the Big Apple the most important battleground both for the general election and the Democratic primary. However, past winners have also needed to carry some of the more populated counties around the Upstate New York cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, as well as in the Capital Region surrounding Albany and Saratoga.
Hailing from Buffalo, Hochul has an advantage in Western New York, while someone like de Blasio rose to City Hall by forming a coalition of outer borough Black voters, the same group that propelled Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to victory in this year's Democratic mayoral primary.
On Thursday, de Blasio appeared alongside Hochul at a press conference updating New Yorkers on Wednesday night's deadly flash floods.