Low crime numbers will prevent Cuomo from ousting de Blasio

The worst-kept secret in New York City politics was all but made public when The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday evening that Gov. Andrew Cuomo was strongly considering working behind the scenes to identify a worthy challenger to Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017.

De Blasio and Cuomo have been embroiled in an often perplexing, occasionally destructive feud (though Cuomo has refused to call it that), and the threat of the governor acting as a puppet master for a potential 2017 foe undoubtedly has City Hall worried. After all, Cuomo has many friends in high places – namely in the charter school sector – that would surely love to bankroll a mayoral candidate.

The problem for Cuomo, as pointed out in the Journal piece, is that for all of de Blasio’s shortcomings as a manager and some puzzling political lapses (such as publicly going to war with Cuomo), he has managed to avoid the sort of crippling crisis that took down the city’s last Democratic incumbent, David Dinkins. Namely, the city continues to have low crime numbers, even in the face of a sharp downturn in the number of stop-and-frisks.

De Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton happily reported on Monday that the city experienced a 1.4 percent decrease in in crime compared with the same period last year, the lowest crime rate for the month of June in the post-Compstat era. Unfortunately for de Blasio, those low crime numbers appear to be falling on deaf ears, as his approval ratings continue to slide. A recent Siena poll found de Blasio’s approval rating at 44 percent, vs. 50 percent who view him unfavorably, a disconnect that is difficult to explain.

But the main problem Cuomo has is that the bench to challenge de Blasio is fairly thin. City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Bronx Borough President Ruben Díaz Jr. are mentioned most often, but neither has a broad enough base to steal loyal de Blasio voters (he remains fairly popular among blacks and Latinos). Christine Quinn? It’s a nice idea for New Yorkers wistful for the Bloomberg era, but she’s been largely out of the public eye for three years now. The Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts III? He hasn’t been shy about his interest in running, but he would appear to have the same problems as Stringer and Díaz, in that his base of support overlaps the mayor’s.

Barring a sharp uptick in crime, de Blasio’s re-election chances appear to be safe, and Cuomo likely knows that any public whiff of his involvement in undermining the mayor in 2017 could be a damaging political blow for his own re-election the following year. Cuomo carried the five boroughs handily in 2014, and enjoys a 70 percent approval rating among city residents, a reliable bastion of support that he would be unwise to take for granted. After all, if there’s one thing New York voters universally detest (aside from crime), it’s cronyism and backroom-style politics, and it’s hard to imagine Cuomo being able to maneuver silently and keep his fingerprints off of a preferred mayoral candidate, even if he stays neutral publicly.