City Field: Democratic Mayors Emerge as Hot Prospects for 2020

Bill de Blasio

 

by Adam Edelman and Jonathan Allen

WASHINGTON — A gay veteran. A Louisiana political scion. And the chief executives of the nation's two largest cities.

As the U.S. Conference of Mayors opens its annual conference in Washington this week, all eyes will be on the unofficial four-man class of mayors who may run for president in 2020.

That's because these mayors — Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Bill De Blasio of New York, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans and Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana — have emerged as rising stars of the Democratic Party at a time when Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress, the governorships of 33 states and about 1,000 more state legislative seats than Democrats across the country.

Dysfunction in Washington, punctuated by the federal government shutdown, highlights why voters may look outside the usual places for future leadership, said Andy Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio.

"If you had a mayor in the White House, you wouldn’t be staring at a government shutdown," Ginther said Friday morning, just hours before President Donald Trump and congressional leaders failed to pass a stopgap spending bill. "They want a leader who can get things done, who isn't as worried about ideological purity. ... There's not a Democratic or Republican way to plow the streets or pick up the trash or to form public-private partnerships." 

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Source: NBC News