Metro

De Blasio backs breakaway Democrats

ALBANY — Mayor de Blasio is throwing his support behind two breakaway Democrats in the state Senate who have promised to return to the party fold.

The mayor announced Tuesday that he will back the re-election bids of both state Sen. Jeff Klein of The Bronx and Tony Avella of Queens.

The two are members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of five Democrats who have shared power with the GOP the past two years.

They are the only IDC members facing primaries in September.

Klein faces former state attorney general and City Councilman Oliver Koppell, while Avella is tangling with former city Comptroller John Liu.

“Throughout this past session, Sen. Jeff Klein and Sen. Tony Avella worked tirelessly on behalf of the residents of New York City and helped make progress on issues that had been stalled for far too long,” de Blasio said in a statement.

The mayor pointed to the progress made in passing funding for universal pre-kindergarten and cutting taxes for Superstorm Sandy homeowners.

The endorsement cames two months after the mayor agreed to help mainline Democrats re-take control of the state Senate, as part of a deal he helped engineer to secure the Working Families party ballot line for Gov. Cuomo in November.

The WFP, which had endorsed both Liu and Koppell, said it would withdraw its support and leave its line for those two races blank.

Last week, de Blasio was the lead speaker at a fundraiser that raised about $500,000 for Senate Democrats.