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http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-is-increasingly-unpopular-with-white-voters-1433465818
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Is Unpopular With White Voters
Stark racial divide keeps widening over policing and income inequality; administration is ‘mindful’ of gap
By MARA GAY and JOSH DAWSEY
Updated June 4, 2015 10:47 p.m. ET
They are worried about crime. They don’t want to pay any more taxes. And they really, really miss Michael Bloomberg.
But to understand why many white voters are so down on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, consider that some of them said they believed the feeling was mutual.
“He’s so down on me,” said Gene Reilly, a 71-year-old Democrat from Manhattan’s Cooper Square neighborhood who is white. “He’s looking out for the poor.”
Mr. de Blasio, also a Democrat, rode into office on a landslide in 2013, taking 73% of the vote. But the racial divide was there from the beginning. While winning 85% of Hispanic voters and 96% of black voters, he captured just 54% of the white vote.
A year and a half later, the mayor’s approval rating among whites is at 32%, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC 4-Marist Poll in May. That compares with a 49% approval rating among Hispanics and 59% among blacks.
The heart of the mayor’s political support, in his campaign and in his administration, has been New Yorkers of color and liberals. They responded to his calls to address income inequality and de-emphasize long-standing policies that had a disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities, including the street-policing tactic known as stop-and-frisk.
Yet in interviews, many white voters said they were increasingly concerned about crime, and they faulted the mayor for how he had handled policing issues.
And many said the mayor’s loyalty to his base and his liberal agenda had left them uneasy.
Some cited his decision to continue a losing battle last year to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for his prekindergarten program even after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had made state funding available.
“He thinks it’s all the fault of the rich,” said Aida Gurwicz, a 69-year-old retiree on the Upper East Side.
Some said they felt overlooked or even abandoned by the mayor.
“I think he has good intentions…yes, I’m glad you’re giving something to the lower class. But what about the middle class? He has to deliver something for us,” said Ellen Warmstein, 62, of Rockaway Beach.
And many white voters said they struggled to identify with Mr. de Blasio, who followed two mayors with deep reserves of white support— Rudolph Giuliani among the working class and Mr. Bloomberg among the well-to-do business set.
“He’s almost a social-communist,” Rochelle Weinberg, a Democrat from the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, said of the mayor. “He’s out of town all the time. He’s disrespectful and shows up late. I can’t stand him. Everything he does makes me angry.”
Nicholas Valentino, a political-science professor at the University of Michigan who studies race, said Mr. de Blasio’s waning support among white voters hinted at their discomfort with their shifting role in the city.
“They’re used to having representation that feels like them,” Mr. Valentino said. “This is an anxiety about attention to certain groups that aren’t their group.”
Not all white voters interviewed dislike the mayor. Some said his universal pre-kindergarten program, among other initiatives, had helped the city.
Of little help to Mr. de Blasio has been that his first year was marked by a series of high-profile moments involving the police force he had vowed to change, white voters say. The mayor’s aides agree. Among those were the protests following the decision by a grand jury last year not to indict an officer in the death of Eric Garner, demonstrations that white voters said shouldn’t have been allowed to snarl traffic.
“You don’t have to read the tea leaves to read which way things are going,” said Stanley Bleeker, 62, of the Mill Basin neighborhood of Brooklyn.
“I believe that he is genuflecting to the black community, to Mr. Sharpton and all the race baiters, to bring them into some kind of inner circle.”
It is unclear whether the disenchantment among white voters carries political risk for Mr. de Blasio. The city is increasingly diverse, so any Republican candidate who hopes to win would have to peel away significant parts of Mr. de Blasio’s base.
“All of this doesn’t seem to jeopardize his future as mayor,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Polling Institute.
Yet, aides to Mr. de Blasio say they are keeping an eye on the numbers. Recent signs suggest adjustments are being made.
The mayor has softened his tone on police issues even as he continues to speak about changes to the department. He has responded to protests against police this spring with more force, angering many in his base. And he has defended the broken windows theory of policing, which focuses on cracking down on so-called quality-of-life offenses to head off more serious crimes.
Meanwhile, Mr. de Blasio has taken pains in recent weeks to visit neighborhoods where many of his toughest critics live, also home to a significant portion of white voters.
“Us going to a school in Staten Island or celebrating Sandy recovery in Rockaway is not foreign to what this mayor is about,” said Phil Walzak, a spokesman for the mayor.
Mr. Walzak said he believed the racial divide in support for Mr. de Blasio could be overcome.
“You always want to make sure you’re talking to and connecting with the residents and citizens of the city,” he said. “So we’re mindful of it, yet I would say that we also have a lot of belief in the agenda that we’re putting forward, as an agenda that will resonate with voters of all backgrounds. We don’t view it as an agenda that caters to one constituency or another.”
Write to Mara Gay at mara.gay@wsj.com
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