It’s easy to lump Bill de Blasio and John Liu into the same category: they’re both progressive Democrats who won their primaries with support from the Working Families Party.
But some of Liu’s advisers are now taking pains to say that their victory was not attributable to the W.F.P.’s help. (There is an obvious political motivation–now that he’s gotten through the primary–for Liu to publicly put some distance between himself and labor, which will have a great deal of interest in his decisions as comptroller.)
In turning out the vote for de Blasio in the public advocate race, a high-ranking Liu campaign source said, the W.F.P. was also pulling voters likely to support their opponent in the comptroller race, David Yassky.
De Blasio and Yassky both were City Council members from Brownstone Brooklyn, and got endorsed New York Times and Citizens Union.
“In certain places they pulled voters, like the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Brownstone Brooklyn. They clearly are not a Liu voters,” said the Liu campaign source.
The source said individual unions, particularly 1199 SEIU, helped out, and did extensive member-to-member contact and voter outreach.
“But as for the W.F.P., we got nothing,” this person said.
Also, this Liu source said the campaign refused to make changes to their staff, which the W.F.P. had strongly urged.
A campaign spokesperson noted that, unlike the de Blasio campaign, the campaign did not hire anyone from the W.F.P.’s campaign company, Data and Field Services.
The Liu field operation was organized by three people with no ties to the W.F.P.: Kirsten Foye, from the National Action Network, Kevin Wardally of Bill Lynch Associates and Josh Gold, who had worked at 1199.
