New York Mayor Bill de Blasio endorsed Bernie Sanders’s bid for president Friday.
In an email to supporters, Sanders’s campaign said de Blasio will travel to Nevada this weekend and campaign on the Vermont senator’s behalf ahead of the state’s Feb. 22 caucus.
“I am standing with Bernie because he stands with working families, and always has,” de Blasio said in a statement, calling Sanders a “true progressive leader.” “New Yorkers know all too well the damage caused by Donald Trump’s xenophobia, bigotry and recklessness, and Bernie is the candidate to take him on and take him down.”
The mayor’s endorsement is a bit of a reversal for de Blasio, who endorsed Sanders’s rival Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination in 2016. De Blasio managed her Senate campaign in 2000.
In 2019, he said he thought Sanders likely would have defeated Donald Trump had he been the Democratic nominee.
“You know, hindsight’s 20/20, but I think when we look at it now, that was a moment where there was such desire for change,” he said at the time.
The mayor was briefly a presidential contender himself, but he dropped out in September after failing to consistently poll above 1% in the race for the Democratic nomination.