Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio (/dɪˈblɑːzioʊ/ dib-LAH-zee-oh; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm between 1983 and 2001) is an American former politician who was the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he held the office of New York City Public Advocate from 2010 to 2013.

De Blasio was born in Manhattan and raised primarily in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from New York University and Columbia University before brief stints working as a campaign manager for Charles Rangel and Hillary Clinton. De Blasio started his career as an elected official on the New York City Council, representing the 39th district in Brooklyn from 2002 to 2009. After one term as public advocate, he was elected mayor of New York City in 2013. De Blasio was reelected mayor in 2017.

De Blasio called attention to what he calls stark economic inequality in New York City, which he described as a "tale of two cities" during his first campaign. He supported socially liberal and progressive policies. In his first term as mayor, he implemented a free universal pre-kindergarten program in the city. De Blasio's other policy initiatives included the ThriveNYC mental health program, new de-escalation training for police officers, reduced prosecutions for cannabis possession, and ending the post-9/11 surveillance program of Muslim residents. De Blasio was term-limited and ineligible to seek a third term in the 2021 New York City mayoral election. He was succeeded by Eric Adams on January 1, 2022.

De Blasio ran in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election. After registering low poll numbers and failing to qualify for the third round of primary debates, he suspended his campaign on September 20, 2019. In 2022, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the newly redrawn 10th congressional district, but withdrew his candidacy prior to the Democratic primary.

Bill de Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm Jr. on May 8, 1961. While he did not grow up in New York City, his parents drove from their home in Norwalk, Connecticut, to Manhattan's Doctors Hospital for his birth. He is the third son of Maria Angela (née de Blasio; 1917–2007) and Warren Wilhelm (1917–1979). He changed his name to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm in 1983 and to Bill de Blasio in 2001 to honor his maternal family and to reflect his alienation from his father. De Blasio has two older brothers, Steven and Donald. His mother was of Italian heritage, and his father was of German, English, French, and Scots-Irish ancestry. His paternal grandparents were Donald Wilhelm, of Ohio, and Nina (née Warren), of Iowa. His maternal grandfather, Giovanni, was from Sant'Agata de' Goti, Benevento, and his grandmother, Anna (née Briganti), was from Grassano, Matera. His paternal uncle, Donald George Wilhelm Jr., worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in Iran and ghostwrote the memoir of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran.

His mother, Maria de Blasio, attended Smith College, served in the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II and authored The Other Italy: The Italian Resistance in World War II (1988). His father, a Yale University graduate, worked as a contributing editor at Time magazine. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. During the 82-day Battle of Okinawa, a grenade detonated below his left foot, and his leg was later amputated below the knee. After receiving a Purple Heart, he married Maria in 1945, and became a budget analyst for the federal government. During the 1950s, at the height of the Red Scare, both Maria and Warren were accused of having a "sympathetic interest in Communism". The family moved to Connecticut; Warren was chief international economist for Texaco and Maria worked in public relations at the Italian consulate.

In 1966, the family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Warren was offered a job at Arthur D. Little, and de Blasio began kindergarten. Bill and his brother Donald were then raised by Maria and her extended family. Of his early childhood, de Blasio said, "my mother and father broke up very early on in the time I came along, and I was brought up by my mother's family—that's the bottom line—the de Blasio family."

When de Blasio was 18, his father committed suicide while suffering from incurable lung cancer. In 1979, de Blasio graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was in student government and was known to peers as "Senator Provolone". He received a Bachelor of Arts from New York University in metropolitan studies, a program in urban studies, and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He is a 1981 Harry S. Truman Scholar.