Nicole Malliotakis breaks foot, gets Italian-American group’s endorsement

Republican New York City mayoral hopeful Nicole Malliotakis will spend the last leg of the mayor’s race campaigning with a fractured foot, following an accident involving her pet chihuahua Tuesday morning.

Malliotakis arrived at an endorsement event in Queens on Tuesday afternoon wearing a brace on her left foot, which she said was the result of accidentally hitting the base of a table after trying to avoid stepping on her dog Peanut Tuesday morning.

“Peanut is the culprit,” Malliotakis told reporters when asked about the injury at Villa Erasmo, an Italian restaurant in Middle Village.

Malliotakis, a state assemblywoman from Staten Island, was at the restaurant to receive the endorsement of the Italian Cultural Association of New York, a Queens-based Italian-American civic organization.

As she accepted the group’s endorsement, Malliotakis joked: “I’m ready to give the boot to Mayor Bill de Blasio.”

Malliotakis told reporters she was not treated at a hospital but rather by an orthopedic specialist. She noted that during her first race for the Assembly in 2010 she had a hairline fracture on her right foot before winning the election.

“So maybe it’s an omen,” Malliotakis said ahead of the Nov. 7 mayoral election.

Members of the Italian Cultural Association, including former Republican state Sen. Serphin Maltese, said they supported Malliotakis because she had spoken out against calls to remove the Christopher Columbus statue that towers over Manhattan’s Columbus Circle.

“We are here today in support of that giant of history, and the statues and monuments that honor his courage and achievements,” Maltese said of the explorer.

De Blasio, a Democrat, has faced criticism from the Italian-American group after he named a blue-ribbon panel last month to examine the city’s controversial monuments and other “symbols of hate” in the wake of violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over a statue honoring a Confederate leader.

After the panel was formed, several activists and Democratic lawmakers called for the Columbus statue to be removed to protest the explorer’s treatment of the indigenous people he encountered. When asked about the statue, de Blasio, who is of Italian and German descent, has repeatedly deferred to the panel, saying they will be tasked with examining the issue.

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.