Perhaps Bill de Blasio’s comfort level was aided by familiarity: This was believed to be his fourth trip to Iowa since he became mayor of New York City in 2014.
It could have been the sparse crowd: Only about two dozen people braved blizzard-like conditions to attend the gathering organized Saturday by the Woodbury County Democrats, a traditional stop for presidential hopefuls.
More likely it was the repetition of themes that the mayor has made familiar in New York, focusing on accomplishments that he has said could be a model for the nation. He spoke about a recent health care initiative for immigrants without legal authorization, paid sick-leave, universal prekindergarten and early childhood education.
“I came into office after 20 years of Republicans,” he said. “We had to start from scratch to do some of the real changes. We had to make my city a place that went head on at income inequality, at institutional racism.”
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There was no mention of the difficulties he has had taming homelessness, repairing the city’s decrepit public housing or the fallout of the recent decision by Amazon to pull out of a plan to build a campus in Long Island City, Queens.
Indeed, the appearance gave de Blasio a chance to escape the fierce criticism back home that he did not belong here.
“If you look at the everyday discourse, you might think this is a country mired in division and that conservative forces are dominant. I think it’s quite the opposite,” de Blasio said. “I think this is a country waiting to be unified.”
The question of whether de Blasio would try to unify the country by running for president or just continue to talk about it remained unanswered. The mayor gave his stock response of late that he has “not ruled out a run for president, obviously.”
Even if he hasn’t declared, de Blasio was acting and was treated like a candidate. He was the third Democrat who has announced or is mulling a presidential bid to be hosted by the Woodbury County Democrats in the previous 48 hours. The former governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, held court in a nearby coffee shop earlier in the day, and Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, attended a fundraiser at a private home the day before.
“Why else is the mayor of New York in Iowa?” asked Gary Lipschutz, 76, who has participated in the Iowa caucuses since 1966, and attended events by all three of Sioux City’s recent political visitors. “Iowa and the other early primary states don’t decide who is going to be president. We decide who is not going to be president.”
De Blasio called the decision “personal” and said in an interview afterward that he would need to speak with his family. The mayor spoke for about 12 minutes and spent another 35 minutes fielding questions from the crowd, all while hitting on themes that are by now familiar to New Yorkers.
Democrats need to focus on improving the lives of “working people” who are being paid less money, he said. That message would bring out voters who stayed home during the 2016 presidential election, and bring the party back to its earlier roots.
Being critical of President Donald Trump is not an election strategy that works, the mayor added, criticizing his former boss and former Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton.
“We’re not going to win by talking about Donald Trump. I have deep respect for our previous nominee. I know her very well, but I think that was one of the mistakes,” de Blasio said.
As part of his push to spread this message, the mayor said he would be traveling to early primary states such as Iowa. De Blasio canceled a recent trip to New Hampshire after the death of a New York City police detective, but he has visited Harvard University and the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington in recent weeks. More trips could be on tap, he said.
On Sunday, de Blasio was scheduled to meet in Des Moines with Mayor Frank Cownie, the former Iowa governor and U.S. agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, and J.D. Scholten, who almost defeated Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who was recently stripped of two committee assignments after he questioned why white supremacy is considered offensive.
On Sunday afternoon, de Blasio was to deliver a speech before the Asian & Latino Coalition, a political action committee that has recently hosted Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
De Blasio said the rules of the game have changed and he was not concerned that he had not assembled the typical machinery of consultants and on-the-ground personnel needed for a presidential campaign. No one thought he would be mayor when he first started running, he said.
Either way, de Blasio was welcome in Iowa despite his indecision. “Our group is very progressive and we like that progressive message he brings,” said Mitch Henry, co-founder of the Asian & Latino Coalition.
In Sioux City, the mayor was asked questions pertinent to a presidential campaign, such as how he would approach foreign policy, his strategy to beat Trump and how he would handle appointing less conservative judges.
Natalie Hattorf, 28, and her mother Jaime, 55, said they felt de Blasio showed empathy after they described their difficulty in getting marijuana products for a sick uncle.
De Blasio has been criticized for being a step behind other progressive Democrats on legalizing marijuana, endorsing it recently after it became clear that New York state seemed poised to do so. The mayor responded to the mother and daughter about how his marijuana plan for the city aims to keep corporate producers of the drug from dominating the industry.
“If he’s not a front-runner,” said the elder Hattorf, “he could easily be someone’s running mate.”
But there was also the cold acknowledgment from some in attendance that they did not know much about de Blasio and were wary of his chances to even compete for the presidency.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure what he’s doing here,” Vladimir Landman, 36, a software developer who grew up in Brooklyn but now lives in Sioux City, said after the mayor’s speech.
Unlike some of the mayor’s colleagues in New York City, Landman believes de Blasio is qualified to be president, but said the Democratic field might be too deep this time around for the mayor to make an impact.
“I don’t know how far he’d get,” Landman said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.