Black Lives Matter leader DeRay Mckesson is polling abysmally in the Baltimore mayoral race — at less than one percent, according to a new poll out by The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore.
Mckesson, who was born in Baltimore and rose to national prominence after organizing protests following the police shooting death of Michael Brown in August 2014, is running against 12 other Democrats in the primary to replace Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who announced last year that she would not seek re-election.
State senator Catherine Pugh leads the crowded Democratic field with support from 31 percent of likely party primary voters. Former mayor Sheila Dixon is polling second at 25 percent. City councilman Nick Mosby, the husband of state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby, who is trying the six cops involved in the Freddie Gray case, is polling at five percent.
The survey was taken of 400 likely voters between April 1 and April 4.
Prior to his mayoral bid, Mckesson traveled the nation to protest cases involving alleged police brutality. He also took part in the Baltimore protests following Gray’s April 19 death. Six police officers have been charged in that case.
Mckesson has displayed a penchant for being unapologetically incorrect in his assessment of the police brutality cases he protests. For example, following the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland in a Texas county jail in July, Mckesson alleged that local sheriff’s deputies somehow killed her. But it turned out that Bland had hanged herself in her jail cell. The activist-candidate has not acknowledged that he was wrong.
Mckesson also added to false narratives in the Gray case. Before the six officers involved in Gray’s arrest were arrested and charged on May 1, Mckesson claimed that Gray had been beaten before his death. But prosecutors are not even asserting that claim in their case against the officers. A medical examiner found no evidence that the cops assaulted Gray in any way. (RELATED: All Evidence Suggests That Sandra Bland Killed Herself, But DeRay Mckesson Continues To Claim She Was Murdered)
Riots ensued following the announcement of charges against the six officers.
Mckesson has raised more than $250,000 for his campaign. Some of his biggest contributors came from outside of Baltimore. Executives with tech firms Netflix, Slack and Twitter contributed to Mckesson’s cause.
He responded on Twitter to news of his poor showing in the latest poll, saying that the poll “tells a story but not the story of a city.”