White people really don't like Bill de Blasio

(Image credit: Illustrated | Andrew Burton/Getty Images, Scharfsinn86/iStock)

published 5 June 2015

New York City is known as a bastion of liberalism and diversity — so much so that Hillary Clinton is basing her 2016 campaign headquarters in the borough of Brooklyn — but truly this reputation is only skin deep. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mayor Bill de Blasio's popularity has plunged with white voters, over the perception that he is hostile to whites and insufficiently sensitive to their needs.

His approval rating among whites has sunk to 32 percent, according to the Journal. The drop can be attributed to the fallout from a series of high-profile protests sparked by police brutality against minorities and de Blasio's crusade to tax the wealthy to pay for universal pre-K. As such, he has lost support among blue-collar white voters and rich white voters, both important New York City constituencies. A taste of how some white New Yorkers feel about their mayor:

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. [Al] Sharpton and all the race baiters, to bring them into some kind of inner circle." [The Wall Street Journal]

Analysts say de Blasio's support among Latinos, blacks, and white liberals is strong enough that he doesn't have to be too concerned. But still, it goes to show that issues like police brutality and taxing the super-rich are not clear winners even in New York.