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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio just announced his presidential campaign — but it appears a sizable number of Democratic primary voters already have their minds made up about the big city politician.
And many of them aren't fans.
A Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday showed that 35 percent of Democratic primary voters viewed de Blasio unfavorably — the highest figure of any Democrat seeking the 2020 nomination. The next highest unfavorability number was 20 percent, belonging to Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. However, Sanders' favorability was 73 percent, easily dwarfing de Blasio's 14 percent favorability rating.
At -21, de Blasio was the least liked Democratic candidate by net favorability as well.
There was a silver lining for de Blasio in the poll as with 49 percent of respondents having an opinion on him, his name recognition was far higher than roughly three-quarters of the Democrats seeking office.
At the other end of the spectrum, the candidates with the highest favorability ratings were former Vice President Joe Biden at 82 percent, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at 63 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at 58 percent.
Those numbers mirrored the individuals who were at the top of the poll in terms of support, as 35 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaning voters said they would vote for Biden as the party's nominee, followed by 16 percent who selected Sanders, 13 percent who chose Warren and 8 percent who expressed support for Harris.
Notably, Warren won over more support from self-identified "very liberal" voters than did Sanders, as 30 percent of those respondents chose her as their selection for the Democratic nomination while 22 percent chose Sanders.
"It's former Vice President Joseph Biden and then there's everyone else, descending from Sen. Bernie Sanders to Sen. Elizabeth Warren to Sen. Kamala Harris to a bunch of people most Democrats have never heard of," Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said.
Quinnipiac surveyed 454 Democratic and Democratic leaning voters nationwide from May 16 through May 20, with a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percentage points.
