New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce his candidacy for the presidency

WASHINGTON – New York City mayor Bill de Blasio will announce his candidacy for the presidency on Thursday, a campaign spokesman said on Wednesday, joining the 20 or so other nominees already in the running for the nomination. Democrat.

De Blasio will make the official announcement Thursday morning, then will travel to Iowa and South Carolina to make several stops over four days. His wife, Chirlane McCray, who has been a very visible presence and a close advisor during his six years at City Hall, will join him for part of the trip.

The mayor intends to highlight his liberal achievements in the country's largest city, including the promulgation of the universal pre-kindergarten, the raising of the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour and the reduction of the crime at its lowest level.

De Blasio is not particularly popular at home, nor in the first surveys of Iowa and New Hampshire, who vote first in the primary process. His popular predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, chose not to play in 2020.

But Blasio's allies, who were easily re-elected in 2017 despite a difficult relationship with the local press and an FBI investigation that finally wiped it out, argue that he has so much experience, even more, than any candidate in the 2020 field and record to actually do things that other candidates have only talked about.

"Since he owns a press corps so present in a tabloid town, we have seen it closely and in an aggressive and unflattering light, but if you look at his record, it is quite long," said Rebecca. Katz, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Blasio, "Yes, you have to ask yourself whether or not he should run for president, but he is certainly qualified."

With an estimated population of 8.6 million, New York City has a population of more than 38 states, including Washington, Colorado, and Montana, whose governors or former governors also run for president.

And New York is about 85 times larger than South Bend, in Indiana, whose mayor, Pete Buttigieg, has become a prominent unlikely candidate. (The district council Blasio represented in Brooklyn is larger than South Bend.)

And given the unique global importance of the city, Blasio oversees an anti-terrorist police force and welcomes world leaders to the United Nations, headquartered in the city.

Nevertheless, de Blasio has struggled in the past to try to form a progressive national group.

He has clearly refused to back Hillary Clinton in 2016, when he once ran his campaign in the Senate, claiming that he wanted to hold candidate forums in Iowa to compel all candidates to prove their progressive probabilities. The forums never materialized and Blasio ended up endorsing Clinton.

De Blasio is the last major candidate to enter the field of the 2020 Democrats, although unexpected additions are still possible.

There will only be room for 20 candidates in the first debate next month, organized by NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo. Later candidates like Blasio may have difficulty qualifying.