New York City Mayor Bill de BlasioBill de BlasioProtesters splash red paint on NYC streets to symbolize blood De Blasio: Robert E Lee’s ‘name should be taken off everything in America, period’ House Democratic whip pushes back on calls to defund police: We need to focus on reform MORE (D) formally launched his presidential campaign on Thursday, but he was scooped by a high school journalist a day earlier.
The Democratic Party in Iowa reportedly wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday that de Blasio would visit Sioux City as the first stop on his presidential announcement tour.
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The post was deleted, but not before it was seen by 17-year-old Gabe Fleisher, whose daily “Wake Up To Politics” newsletter has more than 50,000 subscribers.
The high school junior from St. Louis posted a photo of the information to Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
“The cat was out of the bag,” Fleisher told The Washington Post.
New York City Mayor @BilldeBlasio to headline an event in Sioux City, Iowa, on Friday, which the local Democratic Party is calling the “first stop on his Presidential announcement tour”: https://t.co/WEiKNXXmfg pic.twitter.com/BNSabvbPav
— Gabe Fleisher (@WakeUp2Politics) May 15, 2019
Before breaking the big news, Fleisher was taking the AP English exam.
“My day started with the four-hour-long AP English test, so being able to help break a 2020 presidential announcement is definitely a positive turn of events,” he wrote on Twitter.
Thanks, @feliciasonmez! My day started with the four-hour-long AP English test, so being able to help break a 2020 presidential announcement is definitely a positive turn of events…. https://t.co/iUaDW3Y5Si
— Gabe Fleisher (@WakeUp2Politics) May 15, 2019
Fleisher later reached out to de Blasio’s team, and an aide confirmed the mayor would be visiting Iowa this week, The Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, media outlets, reporters and social media users started to get wind of de Blasio’s launch — and Fleisher’s scoop.
For those keeping score, de Blasio’s 2020 announcement appears to have been scooped by a high school journalist & the Iowa group hosting his visit spelled his name wrong https://t.co/0QoP6ley9Y
— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) May 15, 2019
“Wake Up To Politics” has more than 24,000 followers on Twitter, and The New York Times has described the newsletter as a “surprisingly sophisticated, well-researched summary of the day’s political news.”
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“I feel a sense of responsibility,” Fleisher told the Times in 2017. “Not everyone reads it every day, and it’s obviously not the only thing people read. But some people tell me that it is. And that’s a responsibility that I take seriously.”