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    Cash Is Pouring Into the N.Y.C. Mayoral Race. Here’s Who Has the Most.

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCash Is Pouring Into the N.Y.C. Mayoral Race. Here’s Who Has the Most.Eric Adams and Scott Stringer, two of the best-known candidates, continue to far outpace the rest of the Democratic field in raising money.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, left, has raised the most money so far in the New York City mayor’s race.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesJan. 15, 2021Updated 8:58 p.m. ETFor several months, the New York City mayor’s race seemed to revolve around two presumed front-runners: Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller.The two Democrats had name recognition, ties to party leaders and established bases of political and financial support. They had far outpaced the rest of the field in raising money, and were the only two candidates who had raised enough to qualify for public matching funds.Another Democratic candidate, Maya Wiley, may have qualified for the matching-funds program on Friday by meeting the criteria of raising at least $250,000 from at least 1,000 donors, according to her campaign.The contours of the race changed this week with a double jolt of news from two other Democrats: Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, reported raising $5 million in three months, and Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate, officially joined the race.But the fund-raising numbers, which the city’s Campaign Finance Board released late Friday, offered even more shape to the crowded race, which has more than a dozen candidates.Mr. Adams has raised the most money overall so far, $8.6 million, and will have just over $8 million on hand once matching funds are distributed, his campaign said. He raised $438,000 in the most recent period, with $123,000 of it matchable, and expects a $1 million matching funds payment.Mr. Stringer was expected to have raised at least $8.3 million overall, and to have $7.5 million on hand after raising $458,000 in the latest period, keeping pace with Mr. Adams. Mr. Stringer’s campaign said it expects $1.57 million in matching funds. Ms. Wiley a former MSNBC analyst who served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, may have solidified her status as a contender by meeting the matching-funds threshold with her latest fund-raising figures. Ms. Wiley raised $715,000, $280,000 of it matchable, qualifying her for $2.2 million in public money, and bringing the total she has raised to almost $3 million, her campaign said.Ms. Wiley’s campaign flooded email inboxes and social media before this week’s deadline with desperate pleas for donations of as little as $10, offering “Maya for Mayor” bumper stickers to contributors and raising questions about whether she would qualify for matching funds.In a message to her supporters, Ms. Wiley celebrated meeting the threshold and said the fund-raising support she received showed that “we gon’ win this race.”.Mr. McGuire, the only mayoral candidate who is not participating in the matching-funds program, raised much of his money from the business community. At least 20 billionaires — including the hedge fund founder John Griffin and Howard Schultz, the former chief executive of Starbucks — appear on Mr. McGuire’s donor list, which also includes people who have been big contributors to Republican candidates. Mr. McGuire had $3.7 million on hand.Because Mr. McGuire has raised so much money, the spending cap for the June primary will probably be increased to $10.9 million from $7.3 million, meaning candidates like Mr. Adams and Mr. Stringer who were close to the spending limit can continue to raise money.The city’s public campaign-finance system is built to withstand that sort of shock because of the emphasis it places on small-dollar donors, said Matthew Sollars, a Campaign Finance Board spokesman.Democratic candidates who failed to meet the matching-funds threshold included Zach Iscol, a nonprofit entrepreneur and former Marine; Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary under President Barack Obama; and Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive.Mr. Donovan reported raising a total of $1.6 million and had $913,000 on hand. Mr. Iscol reported falling just short of qualifying for matching funds. Ms. Morales said she had missed the threshold by about $70,000. Ms. Morales told supporters that her campaign had raised $340,000 overall and had 4,100 contributors from the city who gave an average of $50. About 30 percent of Ms. Morales’s donors described themselves as unemployed, her campaign said. Ms. Morales’s campaign, which is focused on working-class and poor New Yorkers, expects to qualify for matching funds at the next deadline after a strong showing in raising money in the past week.“If we keep making money the standard for viability then you have to be connected to wealthy networks,” Ify Ike, a senior adviser for Ms. Morales, said. “We are not going to have a billionaire donate to our campaign.”Several other candidates, including Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn; Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner; and Loree Sutton, a former veteran affairs commissioner, also failed to qualify for matching funds. Ms. Sutton’s campaign reported a $4,400 deficit.Mr. Yang, who entered the race officially on Thursday, is expected to be competitive with other leading candidates in raising funds. He had 21,000 donors from New York City during his presidential run, giving him a list of potential contributors that he is expected to tap into quickly.Before the pandemic, fund-raising had proceeded at a rapid pace, and face to face. Before he dropped out of the race in November, the City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, held 55 house parties from March 2019 to March 2020. Mr. Stringer held 65 house parties over the same period, including six events in January and February last year.Now, most candidates are holding virtual fund-raisers. Mr. McGuire’s son, Cole Anthony, who plays for the N.B.A.’s Orlando Magic, held a fund-raiser with a teammate, Mo Bamba. Mr. McGuire has had 41 fund-raising events in three months, his campaign said.The Campaign Finance Board could issue almost $5 million in taxpayer money to the three candidates who are accepting, and have qualified for, public funds, according to estimates from the candidates.The board must audit the donations before distributing any money, which it is scheduled to do next month based on the latest filings. Those filings covered money raised from July 12, 2020 to Jan. 11. That would bring the total of public funds to be distributed in the race to close to $14 million. Ioanna Niejelow, Mr. Donovan’s finance director, said was “very different” to be campaigning through a pandemic. Mr. Donovan has been holding hourlong virtual fund-raisers with 50 to 75 people to allow him to interact with attendees.“I know all about grip and grin, and there’s a real beauty to that,” said Ms. Niejelow, a veteran fund-raiser who has worked on campaigns for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. “But given this environment, virtual has been remarkable in terms of getting out there and having great conversations.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Rep. Max Rose Moves Toward Entering New York City Mayor’s Race

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRep. Max Rose Moves Toward Entering New York City Mayor’s RaceThe Staten Island Democrat, coming off a re-election loss, filed paperwork indicating that he is set to enter an already crowded field.Mr. Rose, who is finishing his single term in Congress, attracted attention for a six-second ad in which he called Mayor Bill de Blasio “the worst mayor in the history of New York City.”Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesDec. 10, 2020, 9:11 p.m. ETRepresentative Max Rose, the Staten Island Democrat who was soundly defeated last month in his bid for a second term, signaled on Thursday that he plans to enter an already crowded field in the 2021 mayor’s race in New York City.The evidence of Mr. Rose’s intentions came in a bare-bones filing with the city’s Campaign Finance Board indicating that he had formed a mayoral campaign committee.Neither Mr. Rose nor anyone associated with him returned calls seeking comment on the filing. But the congressman did post a cryptic message on Twitter at around 7:30 p.m. that appeared to telegraph an imminent announcement.He cited Taylor Swift, who announced on Thursday that a new album was forthcoming, saying that the singer was “not the only one previewing news tonight.”“Stay tuned NYC!” he added.The social media tease notwithstanding, Mr. Rose’s filing brought him a significant step closer to vying to become the next mayor of a city that is facing huge challenges caused by the pandemic and the financial crisis it touched off.Several of his congressional allies had suggested they expected him to join the race after losing his re-election bid to Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican member of the State Assembly, in a district that encompasses parts of South Brooklyn in addition to Staten Island — the city’s most conservative congressional district.Ms. Malliotakis, who has been resolute in her support for President Trump throughout his term and re-election campaign, claimed 53 percent of the vote to Mr. Rose’s 47 percent. And although The Associated Press did not declare her the winner until Dec. 1, Mr. Rose had conceded defeat two weeks earlier.Mr. Rose had been far more reluctant himself to criticize Mr. Trump than many of his Democratic colleagues. In April, he went so far as to say that it would be all right with him if the president won re-election if it was because he had reined in the pandemic. He also initially opposed the move to impeach Mr. Trump, but ultimately voted for impeachment.In a nod to the district’s conservative tilt, Mr. Rose, who won election in 2018 by a margin similar to the one he lost by this year, effectively ran his centrist campaign against two opponents: Ms. Malliotakis and Mayor Bill de Blasio.He did not waste words in criticizing Mr. de Blasio, referring to his fellow Democrat in a memorable six-second ad as “the worst mayor in the history of New York City.”Mr. Rose also attended a June demonstration on Staten Island to protest the police killing of George Floyd. Ms. Malliotakis made his participation in the event a focal point in the campaign as she sought to cast him as supporting calls to “defund the police” in a district that is home to many law enforcement officers.He said he had taken part in the protest as a gesture of unity, and stood by his decision to do so on election night even as defeat loomed.Mr. Rose, 34, is among several well-known Democrats who have been rumored to be considering joining a field that already includes more than a dozen candidates, with nearly half viewed as potentially serious contenders.Others who may be set to enter the fray include Andrew Yang, a technology entrepreneur who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination this year, and Christine Quinn, the former City Council speaker, who placed third in the Democratic mayoral primary in 2013.It is unclear how Mr. Rose’s political persona would play in the mayoral campaign. His positions were on the liberal side for his district but might not be liberal enough to win over a plurality of mainstream Democrats in a citywide primary.On the flip side, several leading candidates are already battling for those voters, and Mr. Rose, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, might appeal to more conservative voters who consider law and order a priority at a time when homicides and shootings are rising in the city.One quality that he would bring to a race that will most likely be expensive is a proven ability to raise money: He collected, and spent, more than $9 million for his re-election campaign, federal campaign finance filings show.Mr. Rose’s filing came amid a flurry of activity in the race, arriving the same day that another Democratic mayoral hopeful, Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, formally announced her candidacy, and two days after Shaun Donovan, a former top housing official in the Obama administration, did the same.They and the other contenders are competing to lead a city that is in the midst of one of its most wrenching and consequential periods in recent history.The coronavirus, which has already been linked to the deaths of more than 24,000 residents, is surging again. On Staten Island, emergency hospital beds were added in November to handle a spike in virus cases.Katie Glueck contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More