Long-time supporters of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have failed to reach their recruitment goal in support of the 2020 presidential hopeful.
Reports said leaders of Satmar, an ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, recruited just 670 contributors, a number far short of their 10,000 goal.
“The Satmar leaders asked for donations as small as a dollar to help de Blasio meet the 130,000-donor threshold for the September debate by the Aug. 28 deadline. Their pitch brought in just $868,” according to the New York Post.
Former New York City Councilman David Greenfield who currently leads the Met Council on Jewish poverty, said the mayor’s relationship with the Hasidic community is decades old.
“He literally brokered the détente between Hillary’s campaign and the Hasidic community and that was before he ran for City Council,” Greenfield said. “So he has a deep relationship with this community and he certainly has a lot of friends and there’s a general sentiment that, ‘The guy’s a friend and if he’s only asking for a dollar why not be helpful?'”
However, reports said on Wednesday night de Blasio failed to qualify for the Democrat debate planned for the second week of September.
“Facing a midnight deadline to show both the fundraising and polling needed to reach the fall debates, de Blasio had reportedly failed to hit either mark,” according to CBS New York.
The report continued:
New York City’s mayor is among 11 other candidates who reportedly couldn’t gather 130,000 unique donors (with 400 each in at least 20 states) and to hit two percent in four national polls. Recently, de Blasio and Gillibrand had both seen their polling numbers around zero percent.
Breitbart News reported Wednesday that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) had dropped out of the race after she failed to qualify for the upcoming debate.
“The field is cut in half overnight, basically,” said Democrat fundraiser, David Brock. “That’s clarifying. It’s important to get all the major candidates on stage together. But on the other hand, there’s a lot of chatter about the candidates who got boxed out, they would say unfairly. I think it’s really tough if you’re not in the debate to have any hope.”