Budget Director Shaun Donovan has never run for elected office before. | AP Photo Shaun Donovan eyes NYC mayoral run Rev. Al Sharpton calls a bid by the president's budget director 'intriguing.'

Shaun Donovan, President Barack Obama’s budget director, wants to run for mayor of New York City — and one of Michael Bloomberg’s top political hands is putting together a preliminary effort to draft him into the 2017 primary race against incumbent Bill de Blasio.

The moves come as de Blasio, who’s been on the outs with the White House after saying President Barack Obama showed up late to the income inequality conversation (and is in such bad shape with the Clintons that all the mayor got was a midafternoon speaking slot at last month’s Democratic convention), is battling rocky poll numbers and a list of investigations that has grown almost by the week.


Donovan, who also served as Obama’s Housing and Urban Development secretary through the mortgage crisis recovery before moving into his current job, has been quietly talking up the idea of running for years in private, and those conversations had picked up recently, according to several people who've been involved in them.

But even as he’s told friends and people who’ve come back to him to talk about running that he wants to see his children finish high school, and he wants to see out the end of the administration — 2017 isn't the year he wanted to run — the calls have kept coming. Anti-de Blasio players in New York politics are hoping he could become the unlikely first Obama alum since Rahm Emanuel to run for major office, according to several of the people who’ve gotten interested in his possible candidacy.

The race wouldn’t be easy: Donovan’s never run for elected office before and doesn’t have the stump skills of a natural politician. Though a native New Yorker who was Bloomberg’s housing commissioner before signing on with Obama, he hasn’t lived in New York for eight years and lacks the deep ties to the African-American and Latino communities that would be essential for undercutting de Blasio in a Democratic primary.

Donovan’s entry “would be intriguing,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a power broker who supported de Blasio in 2013 and said he’s likely to again, “the question is where his base would be.”

That’s where Bloomberg and Obama would come in, according to Bradley Tusk, the Bloomberg adviser and former campaign manager who’s become a nexus of the business community antipathy toward the current mayor. A defender of the Bloomberg legacy that de Blasio’s made it his mission to uproot, Tusk has started a group called NYC Deserves Better to bash de Blasio in next year’s race, and has been talking up Donovan as the candidate who could fit with the cause.

“If [Obama] and Mike sat together in an ad and said, ‘We don’t agree on everything, but Shaun’s worked for both of us, and we think he’d be really great mayor,’” Tusk said, that would instantly establish Donovan as a serious contender.

“People want the competency of Bloomberg, but they want something that’s more progressive,” Tusk explained.

Tusk hasn’t spoken to Donovan about promoting him. He also never told Donovan about the poll he commissioned in early June that showed 17 percent of people saying they’d consider voting for him, and 35 percent saying they wouldn’t (holding roughly steady across age, race, borough and educational breakdowns) — but he isn’t the only one interested.

“It’s not just Bloombergians of the world. It’s progressives, union folks who are frustrated and disappointed,” said one person familiar with discussions that have occurred.

Tusk says he also hasn’t discussed the idea with Bloomberg, and Bloomberg spokesman Howard Wolfson batted down the idea of an endorsement, saying, “Mike has made it pretty clear he intends to stay out of New York City politics and I don’t see that changing.”

For Obama, an endorsement would mean having his first major post-presidential political foray would be going out on a limb in an internal party primary — a stretch even if his former political director Patrick Gaspard wasn’t de Blasio’s best friend, and if important allies like Sharpton stick with de Blasio.

The White House declined comment about the prospects of Obama getting involved.

Then there’s the Andrew Cuomo factor. The governor had both de Blasio and Donovan serve under him when he was HUD secretary himself during Bill Clinton’s second term, and his years-long power feud with de Blasio is the thread that runs through everything in New York politics. Most assume Cuomo would love to see de Blasio lose but wouldn’t put skin in the game unless he was confident he wouldn’t be embarrassed.

Asked about the possibility of Donovan getting into a primary race against de Blasio, a spokesperson for the governor declined comment.

Donovan declined comment himself.

A person familiar with Donovan’s thinking, however, noted that while he has “no intention on running next year … he’s certainly thinking about the future — and New York is his home, and he cares very much for the future of the city.”

“I’m certain that coming back to New York and being a part of the future of New York is something he’s interested in long term,” the person said.

Donovan’s not the only outsider possibility that Tusk explored. He also polled MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (13 percent said they’d consider voting for him, 60 percent said no), former New York police Commissioner Ray Kelly (38 percent for to 51 percent against), 2013 Republican candidate and local billionaire John Catsimatidis (6 percent for to 52 percent against), Sharpton (16 pecent for to 76 percent against), according to results provided to POLITICO.

Tusk also did head-to-head polling with de Blasio against the field of local politicians who are most widely talked about as potential challengers. The mayor clocked 27 percent support, with all the rest far behind, though last week’s Quinnipiac University poll showed de Blasio back up to 43 percent.

Donovan’s the one whom Tusk has focused on in conversations with political and business leaders, saying he’s got the profile to be the non-de Blasio candidate. That few voters know who Donovan is or what he’s done, including heading up the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, is a secondary concern to Tusk, who imagines an independent expenditure budget as high as $20 million, with three-quarters spent tearing the mayor apart.

“The campaign’s all about killing de Blasio, and then you just need someone who seems like a credible alternative,” Tusk said.

Money would flow into both the outside group and directly to a Donovan campaign, Tusk argued, from the many New Yorkers de Blasio’s turned off, and from Bloomberg allies and the business community.

Sharpton isn’t quite convinced it could work, barring an alignment of endorsements and indictments that would have to all work out in Donovan's favor.

“He would be attractive under normal circumstances, but I just don’t know if de Blasio is the right target,” he said, noting that Donovan’s impressed him by speaking to his National Action Network convention every year.

Those opposed to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are looking for a candidate for 2017. | AP Photo

Meanwhile, Donovan could be vulnerable to potential attacks from de Blasio as the person who oversaw the housing squeeze under Bloomberg that the mayor turned into a prime issue. He could also find himself boxed out by the political connections de Blasio’s spent 20 years lining up.

De Blasio spokesman Dan Levitan wouldn’t comment on the possibility of running against Donovan, but cited a record the mayor will run on next year that includes, “crime just hit another all-time low, jobs are at record highs, the city is building and preserving affordable housing at a record pace, while graduation rates and test scores continue to improve.”

And coming in as an outsider in New York isn’t easy: Bloomberg, after all, ran as a Republican only because he didn’t see a path in the 2001 Democratic primary, and even then needed to spend $74 million of his own money to win. Donovan’s got family wealth, but not into the billions, and would have the extra difficulty of trying to knock out an incumbent.

None of that, or Donovan’s efforts to turn down the outreach, has stopped some people from hoping for him, even if they don’t quite know who he is.

“It is my wholehearted hope that New York City has a new mayor coming this time around, if he doesn’t get indicted before,” said the Rev. Dr. Johnnie Green, a Harlem-based leader of a clergy group working with Tusk. “Shaun Donovan has not contacted me, but it’s my understanding, I heard through the grapevine that Shaun Donovan is interested, or he has stated some interest in running. I don’t know very much about Shaun Donovan, but I’m certain I will learn a bit more about him.”

The next day, Green called back, eager to point out that the seven officers in his group had held a conference call Friday evening and they were suddenly alive with interest for the budget director’s candidacy. Donovan needs to get to know the voters, Green said, though on the upside, he wouldn’t have the baggage of the politicians like City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who are most discussed as candidates against de Blasio.

“The menu looks nice,” said Rev. Patrick Young, the group’s general secretary, who joined the call, “but we haven’t actually tasted the food.”



