The Republican mayoral hopefuls are running short of endorsements. Longtime supporter of Republicans for mayor and the nation’s first Puerto Rican-born congressman, Herman Badillo is returning to the Democratic Party, endorsing William Thompson’s candidacy for City Hall, according to the Daily News.

Ironically, Mr. Badillo served as an attack dog for mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 reelection campaign against Thompson. However, Badillo now believes that Thompson is the right man for mayor, and is also expressing regrets for backing Mr. Bloomberg.

“I am sorry it happened that way,” Badillo said about his role in 2009. “Nobody thought Bill was going to come that close to winning. It was just that back then he did not have a theme to bring us together.”

Badillo, who ran six unsuccessful mayoral campaigns between 1969 and 2001, told the Daily News that Bloomberg’s education policies have largely failed in the past four years — in part because the mayor installed non-educators to head the school system.

Photo: NY1

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)