Poll shows New Yorkers want their new mayor to fix NYC — not spout ‘wokeness’

When running for NYC mayor in 1933, the late Fiorello La Guardia declared: “There is no Democratic or Republican way of cleaning the streets.” 

At the time, the city was gripped by the Great Depression. Millions of Americans were out of work, nearly half the country’s banks had failed, and New York City’s mayor at the time had presided over scandal, social unrest and incompetence. 

A progressive Republican, La Guardia also considered himself a “New Dealer.” He appealed to a complex coalition of working-class immigrants and minorities, middle-class Jews, liberal Democrats and German Republicans. 

“La Guardia intuitively understood the city was in decline and his focus needed to be in managing the city rather than preaching divisive ideology,” explained Seth Siegel, a lifelong New York Democrat, businessman and activist. 

Six months ahead of this year’s Democratic mayoral primary — which will essentially decide who the next mayor will be — New Yorkers are once again struggling. The pandemic, unemployment and rising crime have prompted even the most committed Gothamites to get out of Dodge. 

History suggests another La Guardia figure is needed. 

So does a new Public Policy poll of NYC-based Democratic primary voters. 

When asked to name their preferred candidate for mayor, a whopping 40 percent of respondents said they’d prefer “someone else” to the seven others in the survey: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Wall Street titan Ray McGuire, former non-profit exec Dianne Morales, Comptroller Scott Stringer, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, former de Blasio official Maya Wiley, and ex-presidential candidate Andrew Yang. (Yang came top with 17 percent followed by Adams at 16 percent, with the rest all falling in the single digits.) 

When asked to cite the most important issue in choosing a candidate, “responding to the coronavirus” and “improving wages and creating more jobs” came out on top. 

Reducing crime, creating more affordable housing, and criminal justice reform were tied for third; lowering health-care costs ranked fourth; and lowering taxes and improving K-12 education and schools both came fifth. Combating climate change and pollution came dead last. 

Meanwhile, a full 56 percent of respondents said they hold a “very or somewhat unfavorable” view of Mayor de Blasio. 

These results are very telling. They show a deep disappointment in the status quo, a rejection of placing ideological platitudes over real problem-solving during a crisis, and a failure of government at the most local level to meet the needs of all its people. 

New Yorkers are crying out for a pragmatic leader to roll up their sleeves and fix the big problems. But, so far, that out-of-the-box candidate has not yet emerged.

“What the city needs is a candidate who recognizes that we’ve got problems and doesn’t take growth for granted rather than a field of candidates who are more worried about getting sideways with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitter feed,” said Michael Hendrix, director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, which has commissioned surveys about the state of the city. 

That is not what they are getting from the current crop of candidates. 

“Take Stringer, he is a white progressive saying ‘Defund the police,’ which was completely at odds with black and Hispanic council members who were saying, ‘No, we don’t want you to defund the police, our council districts don’t want you to do it either because we’re worried that our kids are going to get shot on the way home,’ ” Hendrix added. 

Hendrix especially sees Stringer and Wiley approaching City Hall the way de Blasio did: as a progressive club for insiders that’s slow to respond to issues while using the job to pursue higher office. 

He’s not sure why a practical leader like Rudy Giuliani or Michael Bloomberg hasn’t appeared yet, “but it’s not too late for that to happen, it’s a wide-open field and people are hungry for leadership.” 

In the meantime, New York’s dissatisfaction with de Blasio’s policies has taken its toll. While data show that more than 300,000 New Yorkers fled during eight months of the pandemic’s height in 2020, this exodus actually started two years before the COVID outbreak. In 2018, NYC’s population dropped 2.6 percent, leading to 223,950 fewer residents, according to a city Health Department’s Vital Statistics report that year. 

Staten Island Councilman Joe Borelli blamed the sky-high cost of living and decline in quality of life for this years-long exodus. 

“It’s all quality of life and cost of living,” Borelli told The Post. “So many of my friends I grew up with have gone across the bridge to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other points south.” 

Siegel, a former New York City prosecutor who grew up in Queens and now lives in Manhattan, said he once shared a friendly relationship with de Blasio until he “pretty quickly” turned into a polarizing figure. 

“Ideology can be toxic in a mayor. And I think that is what ended up happening in City Hall as the Democratic Party has become ever more woke.” 

What he’s looking for now is competency. 

“I don’t care what their sexual orientation is. I certainly don’t care about their race or ethnicity. I just want to vote for somebody who I have a high confidence is going to see himself or herself as a problem-solver and not trying to make a statement.” 

Good management, he said, is what will save New York. 

Salena Zito is the author of “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” (Crown Forum).