de Blasio, Bill

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      How Many N.Y. Democrats Does It Take to Fill a House Seat? Try 15.

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      A congressman, an ex-congresswoman, an ex-mayor, a Trump prosecutor and several state and city officials are eyeing an open congressional seat in New York City.Beneath a maple tree by a red brick elementary school in Brooklyn, a lanky, recognizable figure lingered on a recent morning, hoping to catch the attention of moms, dads, the custodial worker mowing the lawn.“Registered Democrat?” asked Bill de Blasio, the former two-term mayor of New York City, as he cajoled potential voters to help him get back in the game.Mr. de Blasio, who once believed he could be elected president, has now set his sights lower, aiming to represent a newly redrawn House district in New York City. But he is far from alone.Others contesting the seat include a Levi Strauss heir who helped impeach Donald J. Trump; rising stars from the City Council and State Assembly; a Chinese American activist involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; and a pathbreaking liberal who was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — 50 years ago.There is also a sitting congressman currently representing a suburban region, who only recently moved into the district. Exactly when, he couldn’t say.“Time is a blur,” said the congressman, Mondaire Jones, pivoting away from questions about his new residency, “when you’re fighting to end gun violence in America.”Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do politicians. So when New York’s redistricting fiasco last month unexpectedly opened up a House seat in a safely Democratic area, stretching from Lower Manhattan through much of brownstone Brooklyn, the political floodgates opened wide.A total of 15 Democrats, representing a broad range of ages and backgrounds, have taken steps to enter a summertime primary that may prove to be one of the largest and most freewheeling in the nation.“It’s like a sweepstakes contest,” said Steven M. Cohen, a longtime government official and frequent donor from the district who said he has been inundated with fund-raising requests. “Everyone can potentially be a winner, no purchase necessary.”Bill de Blasio hopes his name recognition as the former mayor of New York City will carry him to victory in the race.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesThe candidates only have until Aug. 23 to win the sympathies of primary voters who represent some of New York’s most politically engaged and diverse neighborhoods: Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Chinatown, Park Slope, Sunset Park and even parts of Borough Park, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish stronghold.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.The Mapmaker: A postdoctoral fellow and former bartender redrew New York’s congressional map, reshaping several House districts and scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.The result is not so much a contest of ideas — almost every major candidate has condemned threats to abortion rights and bemoaned the lack of strict limits on guns — as of brute force, blunt ambition and identity politics.“Let me start by saying this: I fear no man,” said Mr. Jones, the sitting congressman who decided to try his hand in the reconstituted 10th District, rather than run for re-election in the 17th District or contest the neighboring one to the south. Either option would involve competing against a House incumbent.Mr. Jones did not have to move to Brooklyn to run for the seat; House candidates must live in the state they represent, but not the district. Mr. Jones, who grew up in Rockland County, contended that his status as a newcomer was irrelevant. He suggested that he is sufficiently tied to the district by virtue of his time living elsewhere in the city and socializing in Greenwich Village, as a young gay man of color trying to discover his “authentic self.”In any case, he said, regular voters care more about what a congressional candidate has done and whether he can fight for their interests rather than where he hails from or when he moved. (A spokesman later clarified that the move occurred June 6.)“Harping over the length of someone’s residency in a district and lines that were just drawn a few weeks ago is something that the political class, including many journalists, give outsize weight to,” Mr. Jones said.Jo Anne Simon, a former disability rights lawyer who currently represents parts of the district as a state assemblywoman in Brooklyn, adamantly disagreed as she pitched her own candidacy.State Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon’s district in Brooklyn is part of the newly redrawn 10th Congressional District.Hans Pennink/Associated Press“People vote for people that they know, that they trust and they have reason to know show up,” said Ms. Simon, referencing her decades of activism on local issues like pollution from the Gowanus Expressway. “Nobody here has voted for Mondaire Jones.”Then again, in such a crowded race, there may be no such thing as home-field advantage.Take Carlina Rivera, a city councilwoman who lives just outside of the district, and Yuh-Line Niou, another state assemblywoman. Both are up-and-coming progressive women of color representing parts of Lower Manhattan and could end up cannibalizing each other’s base of support.Ms. Niou said she had more than 600 volunteers eager to carry petitions for her. Ms. Rivera on Friday won the endorsement of Representative Nydia Velázquez, who currently represents much of the new district and is expected to wield substantial sway among voters. She is expected to win re-election in a neighboring redrawn district covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens.Carlina Rivera, a New York City councilwoman.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesYuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesThey, in turn, will face off against a progressive rising star from another era, Elizabeth Holtzman, spurred to re-enter the arena by the threat to abortion rights.In 1972, Ms. Holtzman became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, when she defeated a 50-year incumbent at age 31. Now, at age 80, she is trying to become the oldest non-incumbent elected to the House of Representatives in history.In between, she had a trailblazing career as the first woman elected district attorney in Brooklyn and as New York City comptroller, racking up experience that she argues positions her to make an immediate impact in Washington. Still, she has not held elected office since 1993, when several of her competitors were in elementary school.“Somebody said to me, your slogan should be something like ‘Google me,’” Ms. Holtzman said.Former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman.David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesMs. Holtzman, in 1974, with President Gerald Ford.Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesThe Chinese American activist, Yan Xiong, who after his role in Tiananmen went on to become a chaplain for the U.S. Army and now believes he can attract a significant number of votes from large Asian populations in Manhattan’s Chinatown and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park.Voters can be forgiven for being overwhelmed. There was not even supposed to be a primary race in New York’s 10th District until a court-appointed expert so thoroughly scrambled New York City’s congressional map in May that the technical incumbent, Representative Jerrold Nadler, decided to run in the 12th District in Manhattan instead.That decision set him on a collision course with a longtime ally, Representative Carolyn Maloney, but it also left a rare open seat in Manhattan and Brooklyn — political gold to which no one had a rightful claim.“Anyone who tells you that they know what’s going to happen in this race, or that there is an obvious outcome, is lying to you and themselves,” said Chris Coffey, the chief executive of Tusk Strategies, who is unaffiliated in the race.Mr. de Blasio has his claim. He enters the race with near universal name recognition, years of electoral successes and some policy triumphs too — most notably, universal prekindergarten. But Mr. de Blasio does not have a fund-raising advantage. That belongs to two other candidates.As of March 31, Mr. Jones had $2.9 million on hand — a huge sum in a race so short it will make fund-raising difficult. Last week, he dropped his first in an expected deluge of television advertising, a placement of at least $169,000, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm.Daniel Goldman, the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of Mr. Trump, and a frequent legal analyst for MSNBC, is running on his record fighting for democracy and public safety.He is also a former federal prosecutor who spent a decade working in the Southern District of New York, a lesser-known part of his résumé that may help him stand out with voters as the city confronts what Mr. Goldman called “the biggest public safety crisis in decades.”“The core experiences of my professional career, which has been devoted entirely to public service, happen to be very timely for the circumstances we are in now,” he said in an interview.Daniel Goldman served as the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesStill, he is a relative newcomer to electoral politics and starts the abbreviated race with few of the institutional relationships other candidates will draw on. To try to make up the difference, Mr. Goldman, the Levi Strauss heir who rents a Tribeca apartment listed for sale for $22 million, said he was prepared to “put some of my own money into this to level the playing field.”But given the timing of the contest, and its brevity, the race is also widely expected to turn on get-out-the-vote efforts, which may help candidates like Ms. Niou.“Field is the most important thing,” she said. “We’re running against folks with 100 percent name recognition.”Labor unions and outside political groups could also help turn the race. The retail workers union has endorsed Mr. Jones. Aspire PAC, an outgrowth of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Members of Congress, has been reviewing candidates and will make a decision soon, according to Grace Meng, the Queens congresswoman and PAC chair. It remains unclear if other unions will engage.It is also difficult to gauge how many voters will be in the district in late August, when the city gets torrid and all those who can, leave town. Matthew Rey, a prominent Democratic consultant who is unaffiliated with any of the campaigns, estimated voter turnout could be between just 70,000 and 90,000 in a district of 776,000 residents.The other Democratic candidates are Brian Robinson, John Herron, Maud Maron, Peter J. Gleason, Quanda Francis, Laura Thomas and Jimmy Li.Given the overcrowded field and the late summer election date, the race is hard to pin down.Last week, after dropping off his two children at school in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, Nicholas McDermott said he would absolutely consider voting for Mr. de Blasio.“I think it’s great to have someone with experience who’s from the area,” Mr. McDermott said.He was less certain if he would be around in August to vote.“That’s a good question,” he said. More

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      Bill de Blasio Knows He Isn’t Loved

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      New York’s former mayor is running for Congress in a newly drawn district, where distaste for him is epic. He’s sure he can change that.A few days after Bill de Blasio announced that he was running for Congress — a comparatively humble ambition when you think about his attempt at the presidency and his flirtation with the idea that he might govern the state of New York — I sat down for breakfast with him, mostly to ask: Why?We were in a nearly empty diner in Park Slope, where the former mayor has lived since the early 1990s and where theoretically affections for him should run high. Not too long into our conversation, a guy who appeared to be in his 30s, wearing a knit cap, walked passed a few feet away and took out his phone to get a picture. It seemed as if he was about to voice admiration or maybe ask for a photo. Instead he looked directly at Mr. de Blasio, informing him that he was “the worst mayor New York has ever had.”The moment all too perfectly distilled the problem that Mr. de Blasio faces: He seems to have little understanding of how he is perceived, even in a neighborhood he knows intimately, where he once served on the local school board and the City Council. But in fact, he has every understanding.“When it comes to being unpopular, I’m unfortunately somewhat of an expert,” he wrote in an essay earlier this month. The man who served two terms as the mayor of the nation’s biggest city, proudly indifferent to what you thought of him, now wants you to know that the bubble of City Hall was oppressive, that he found it hard to be his authentic self and that, as he put it to me, “the person you’re seeing right now is the person I am.”The person I was seeing was lighthearted and amiable. Bill de Blasio 2.0 is a rapid-response politician, a man seemingly engaged in self-reflection and comfortable with regret. Could we talk about his latest political gambit? “Sure,” he quickly wrote back, when I got in touch. We could meet in person — in fact that was his preference — and we could share a meal. Subsequent texts included exclamation points.While a journalist and a political candidate sitting down to egg-white omelets is not ordinarily noteworthy, the previous version of Bill de Blasio, the one we last checked in with at the end of the year when he was polling behind even the disgraced Andrew Cuomo, was as likely to offer himself to the press as Anna Wintour would be to mow your lawn.Despite the success of Mr. de Blasio’s major initiatives — universal prekindergarten, paid sick leave — the hallmark of his mayoralty was his talent for alienating people who were inclined to like him and largely agreed with his policymaking. His defining imperiousness bred distaste across constituencies. Almost nowhere was that distaste felt more viscerally than in brownstone Brooklyn, which, in addition to much of downtown Manhattan, makes up a large swath of the newly outlined 10th District, lending a kind of masochism to his current effort.On the way home from our breakfast, a few miles away but still within the territory he would represent, I ran into a neighbor in Brooklyn Heights who delivered a more measured appraisal than the one I witnessed two hours earlier at the diner, an evaluation that included the prospect that she would “almost vote for a Republican over Bill de Blasio.”Like so many others in the area, she had been an early supporter. We stood on a corner for about 10 minutes as she went through her grievances, beginning with Mr. de Blasio’s abandonment of a campaign promise to save Long Island College Hospital from real-estate developers and ending with his drive to incentivize Covid vaccinations in low-income neighborhoods — where resistance was a matter of entrenched distrust — with the promise of free Shake Shack French fries.Mr. de Blasio believes his last year in office was his most successful, and that his administration’s management of the pandemic, one that became a model for other cites, will matter to voters. Leaving aside that parents of schoolchildren who were stuck at home with them for much of last year may well feel differently, in the current news cycle, eight or 10 months ago can feel like a quarter-century; emotion can stick forever. “I came across as aloof,” the former mayor told me, understating things. “I needed to help people see me.”In many ways, Mr. de Blasio has spent the past five months since he left office living the creative-class Brooklynite fantasy — renovating a townhouse, writing, delivering commentary on “Morning Joe.” He thought about teaching. But none of this called to him for the long term. Then on Monday, May 16, after lunch with a friend in Greenwich Village — you don’t get to linger over a meal when you are governing eight million people — he arrived home to find emails about the newly created district, and he knew what he would do next. Little deliberation was necessary. “It was sweet to be connected to family,’’ he said of his brief reprieve from politics. “The writing was rewarding, but it pales in comparison to public service.”In the past, a seat in the House of Representatives has been a steppingstone to the mayoralty of New York and not an Act II. John Lindsay and Ed Koch both served in Congress before they managed City Hall. The precedent for going in the other direction is not glorious. Fernando Wood returned to Congress after his three-term tenure as mayor in the mid-19th century; he was known as a corrupt autocrat and Confederate sympathizer.The idea of Bill de Blasio, at 61, having held one of the most prestigious and challenging political offices available to mankind, then going to Washington as a freshman congressman, living with fellow representatives a generation younger in a three-bedroom rental in Dupont Circle, wondering whose turn it is to bring home a half-gallon of oat milk, is absurd enough to leave you wondering if a reality show isn’t the actual play. It is not. He wants to provide a voice for an urban agenda otherwise lacking in the federal government.That he believes he can build a winning coalition, which he has successfully done before, to get there overlooks certain difficult truths. In addition to all the disgruntled white professional-class voters he would represent, the new district also includes Chinatown and Sunset Park, where predominantly Asian voters, many low-income, did not take well to the former mayor’s position on ending the entrance exam for specialized high schools and his wish to phase out gifted and talented programs.When I asked him about this, he said that he did not fully realize the special place these schools and classes held in the culture. “I should have engaged leaders from the Asian community,” he told me. “I’m upset because I naïvely assumed there would be consensus.”It is hard to imagine living in New York for decades, driving past so many test-prep centers in Queens and not fully appreciating the vaunted status schools like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech — which Mr. de Blasio’s son, Dante, attended — hold in these communities.There is also the matter of who else will be entering the race, in a constellation of neighborhoods where voter-information levels are unusually high and name recognition might not matter much. Mondaire Jones, who serves in another district, grew up in Section 8 housing and made his way to Stanford and Harvard, has also announced his candidacy. Should Daniel Goldman enter the field, he is likely to raise a lot of money based on his popularity as the House Democrats’ lead counsel during the first Trump impeachment proceedings and the fact that he lives in TriBeCa. Mr. de Blasio is energized for a summer of knocking on doors. More

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      De Blasio Will Run for House Seat in Newly Drawn District

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      Bill de Blasio, the ex-mayor of New York City, said on Friday that he would run for Congress in a new district that includes parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan.Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, announced on Friday that he would run for Congress in a newly created district stretching from Lower Manhattan to his home in Brooklyn, jumping into a crowded Democratic primary field.Mr. de Blasio, who left office with low approval ratings in December after two terms, had been publicly mulling a campaign this week after a state court released a slate of new proposed congressional districts that would open up a safely blue seat in the heart of New York City.He announced his comeback attempt early Friday morning on his favorite television program, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” hours before the map was set to be finalized, and potentially tweaked.“The polls show people are hurting, they need help, they need help fast and they need leaders who can actually get them help now and know how to do it,” said Mr. de Blasio, 61. “I do know how to do it from years of serving the people of this city, so today I am declaring my candidacy for Congress.”After eight years as mayor and a disastrous run for president in 2020, Mr. de Blasio will enter the race better known than almost any potential opponent, with a record of progressive accomplishments and a trail of political disappointments.But several other Democrats have already shown interest in running for the seat and could compete with him ahead of an Aug. 23 primary.They include State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan progressive; State Senator Simcha Felder, whose district includes the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn’s Borough Park; and Assembly members Yuh-Line Niou, Robert Carroll and Jo Anne Simon.Ms. Niou, a left-leaning former political aide who represents Chinatown and parts of Lower Manhattan in the Assembly, was scheduled to make a “major announcement” on Saturday. More

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      A State Budget With an Unexpected Twist: No Red Ink

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $216.3 billion spending plan as officials projected balanced state budgets through 2027.Good morning. We’ll look at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s state budget, which came with an unexpected twist. We’ll also look at who is not running for governor, and who is riding the subways.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressThe surprise about Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $216.3 billion budget proposal was what was not in it: a mention of big shortfalls, long a standard phrase in municipal budgets.My colleagues Grace Ashford and Luis Ferré-Sadurní write that Hochul is riding a windfall of federal funding and a jump in tax revenues, both of which fueled projections of balanced state budgets for the next five years.Her plans for spending the money are far-reaching. She called for significant one-time infusions of cash, including $2 billion in pandemic recovery initiatives and $2.2 billion in property tax relief for homeowners. She also laid out plans for increased spending on education, health care and infrastructure, including $32.8 billion for highways, bridges and other transit projects over five years.Hochul committed to placing 15 percent of the state’s operating expenses into reserves — a record number, but less than the 17 percent recommended by many independent budget analysts.[Surprise in $216 Billion Budget Plan: New York Is Awash in Money]Robert Mujica, the governor’s budget director, said no tax increases were contemplated. He said that some $7 billion in surpluses would finance one-time costs, not recurring expenses that could become unsustainable in the long run.When everything was added up, Hochul’s budget proposal totaled $4.3 billion more than the spending plan that was approved last year. She will have to negotiate with the State Legislature by April 1, when the state’s 2023 fiscal year begins. That is almost three months before the state’s Democratic primary, so the budget could help Hochul as she runs for a full term. She has already raised nearly $21.6 million, her campaign said on Tuesday, a record for a statewide race in New York.Some fiscal experts immediately criticized Hochul for not doing more to address the state’s population losses, which have led to concerns that the state’s tax base will shrink. “It’s a missed opportunity to provide a clear signal that New York is serious about making its tax rates more competitive relative to states that people are migrating toward,” said Peter Warren, the research director at the Empire Center, a conservative-leaning think tank.The budget also cleared the way for an additional three casinos in New York State, probably downstate. That would accelerate the current casino plan by a year and bring in significant revenue sooner.Still, much of the revenue not promised by the federal government is projected to come from high-income earners. That again raises the question of whether they will remain in New York and what the future of remote work will be. Closely tied to those questions is another: How rapidly will Manhattan rebound?New York’s population fell by more than 300,000 in the past year, according to census records — the most of any state — and New York City’s 9.4 percent unemployment rate is more than double the national average. Reversing the population drain and bringing down unemployment could prove critical to the future of the city and the state — and its governor.WeatherExpect a mostly cloudy day with temperatures in the mid-40s and gusty winds, so it will feel chillier. An approaching cold front will push temps into the mid-30s and usher in rain overnight.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Jan. 31. (Lunar New Year’s Eve).De Blasio says he will not run for governor after allHolly Pickett for The New York TimesAfter months of teasing, polling and preparing — as my colleague Nicholas Fandos put it on Twitter — former Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would not take the widely expected next step, which would have been to run for governor of New York.So what is next? “I am going to devote every fiber of my being to fighting inequality in the state of New York,” he said, adding that he would have more to say about his future in the coming days.De Blasio made the announcement in a 90-second video posted on Twitter. The video was shot on the street outside his house in Brooklyn. “Nine years ago, this is where we announced my campaign for mayor of New York City,” he said, before mentioning some of his successes in City Hall, including establishing universal pre-K, building affordable apartments and “making the city greener and cleaner for the future.”He leavened that by mentioning what he called “my fair share of mistakes.”“I was not good with groundhogs at all,” he said. (He dropped Charles G. Hogg, the female groundhog known as Chuck, at a 2014 Groundhog Day celebration — unless Chuck wriggled out of de Blasio’s arms. Chuck died a week later.)De Blasio also said: “Probably shouldn’t have gone to the gym.” (He was driven to the Prospect Park Y.M.C.A. in Brooklyn from Gracie Mansion in Manhattan regularly, even as the coronavirus pandemic closed in.)De Blasio’s video was released shortly after a Siena College poll showed him running far behind Hochul. He had a 12 percent share of Democratic voters. Hochul’s share was almost four times as large, at 46 percent. Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, had 11 percent and Representative Thomas Suozzi 6 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.In the race for campaign contributions, Hochul is also leading the field. She raised a record-breaking $21.6 million. She submitted filings showing that she took in roughly $140,000 a day, on average, from her swearing-in last August until last week.The latest New York newsThe New York State attorney general accused Donald J. Trump’s family business of engaging in a pattern of fraud.Michelle Gotthelf, the editor in chief of The New York Post’s website until she was dismissed last week, said in a discrimination lawsuit that she had endured “several years of sex-based harassment” during more than 20 years at The Post.Mayor Eric Adams noted that the numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in New York City, while still extremely high, have started to drop.Another sign of the economic divide: Who’s riding the subwayThe pandemic brought on “a virtual abandonment” of the subway system in 2020. Now the city’s uneven recovery is reflected in the uneven way riders have returned, a sign that the deep economic divide exposed by the pandemic is continuing. Stations in lower-income areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Upper Manhattan, where residents are less likely to be able to work from home and typically depend more on public transit, have rebounded faster than stations in office-heavy sections of Manhattan.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 5A crowded field. More

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      Bill de Blasio Says He Won’t Run for Governor After All

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      Mr. de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, had signaled for months that he planned to run for governor, but he faced long odds in a crowded Democratic primary.Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, said on Tuesday that he would not run for governor of New York, as he had been widely expected to do.Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who served two terms in office, had signaled for months that he was planning a campaign, saying repeatedly that he did not feel ready to leave public service.He made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter, highlighting the accomplishments of his mayoral tenure before announcing that he would not be joining the governor’s race.“No, I am not going to be running for governor in New York State,” Mr. de Blasio said, standing on the street outside his Brooklyn residence. “But I am going to devote every fiber of my being to fight inequality in the state of New York.”Mr. de Blasio then hinted that he would have more to say about his future in the coming days.He declined to enter a crowded Democratic primary field, with the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, facing challenges from Jumaane D. Williams, the city’s public advocate, and Representative Tom Suozzi of Long Island.A Siena College poll released earlier on Tuesday showed Ms. Hochul with a significant lead over her competitors and potential competitors, including Mr. de Blasio. She earned the support of 46 percent of Democrats polled, while Mr. de Blasio had 12 percent, Mr. Williams had 11 percent and Mr. Suozzi had 6 percent. Across party lines, 45 percent of voters polled said they viewed Ms. Hochul favorably. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Ms. Hochul has also outpaced her competitors in fund-raising, having raised a record-breaking $21.6 million so far.For months, Mr. de Blasio had signaled that he would run. He appeared on MSNBC frequently and promoted a statewide education plan. He was also sounding out trusted former aides about joining a campaign, and he made overtures to labor leaders.Mr. de Blasio had said that he was not deterred by polls that showed him badly trailing his rivals.“I have a long, rich history of being an underdog,” he said.New York City mayors have had a difficult time attaining higher office. The last one to do so was John T. Hoffman, who was elected governor in 1868. Many mayors have run for president, including John V. Lindsay in 1972 and, more recently, Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. de Blasio himself.Mr. de Blasio had planned to focus on his popular universal prekindergarten policy, his handling of the pandemic and his focus on aggressive vaccine mandates. He also used his final weeks in office to argue that he had reduced inequality, which he set out to do when he was elected in 2013 on a message that he would address the imbalance that had led to a “tale of two cities.”In his video on Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio also acknowledged some of his less popular moments as mayor, including accidentally killing a groundhog and driving out of his way to visit his preferred gym in Park Slope.“Now I made my fair share of mistakes,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I was not good with groundhogs at all. I probably shouldn’t have gone to the gym. But you know what, we changed things in this town.” More

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      Kathy Hochul's Speech Is a Road Map to the Campaign That Lies Ahead

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul sought to exude decisiveness in crisis, previewing her efforts to run as the steady-hand candidate as she seeks her first full term.As Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her most consequential speech since becoming chief executive of New York, she did not discuss the contested Democratic primary she is navigating to retain her seat, nor did she mention the likelihood of an expensive general election against a well-funded Republican.But in tone and substance, her address on Wednesday and accompanying 237 pages of policy proposals offered a road map to how she is approaching both dynamics.In her State of the State remarks, her first as governor, Ms. Hochul often emphasized core Democratic priorities, from combating climate change to expanding access to affordable child care. But she also moved to blunt more conservative messaging on matters of public safety, the economy and the culture wars that have raged around how to handle the coronavirus pandemic.“During this winter surge, our laser focus is on keeping kids in school, businesses open and New Yorkers’ lives as normal as possible,” she said, even as some Republicans seek to paint the Democratic Party as the party of lockdowns.Ms. Hochul assumed the governorship last August, taking over after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace, and she is running for her first full term as governor this year at yet another moment of staggering challenges for the state.As coronavirus cases spike, parents grapple with uncertainty around schools,and the Omicron variant upends the fragile economic recovery, Ms. Hochul acknowledged the pain and exhaustion gripping many New Yorkers. But she also emphasized a record of accomplishment, in particular around vaccination rates, and sought to exude competence and decisiveness in crisis, offering a preview of her efforts to run as the steady-hand, above-the-fray candidate.A number of Democrats are seeking to challenge that image.Representative Thomas Suozzi of Long Island, a former Nassau County executive who has positioned himself to Ms. Hochul’s right on some issues and in tone, is sharply questioning her executive experience. He sometimes refers to the state’s first female executive as the “interim governor” — a move that could backfire with some voters — and he is working to cut into her base in the suburbs.“New York needs a common-sense governor who has executive experience to manage Covid, take on crime, reduce taxes and help troubled schools,” Mr. Suozzi said in a statement after her speech.Jumaane D. Williams, the New York City public advocate who lost the 2018 lieutenant governor’s race to Ms. Hochul by 6.6 percentage points, is running as a self-declared “activist elected official” with close ties to New York’s left-wing political movement, which can play an important role in energizing parts of the primary electorate. He said on Wednesday that some of her proposals were not sufficiently “bold” to meet the challenges of the moment — a view echoed by leaders of a number of left-wing organizations.“Discussion of these issues is important, acknowledged and appreciated,” Mr. Williams said in a statement. “But that discussion must be accompanied by the political courage to envision and enact transformational change for New York City and across the state.”Former Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City has also taken steps toward a run.Attorney General Letitia James had been Ms. Hochul’s most formidable opponent, but she dropped her bid for governor last month, and on Wednesday she stood next to the governor, applauding. Ms. James’s exit cleared the way for Ms. Hochul to rapidly lock down more institutional support from unions and elected officials, and she is expected to post a formidable fund-raising haul later this month.Ms. Hochul, who has referred to herself as a “Biden Democrat,” on Wednesday sounded by turns like a centrist who welcomes big business and an old-school politician keenly focused on the needs of working-class New Yorkers.For example, she called for efforts to bolster the salaries of health care workers “so those doing God’s work here on Earth are no longer paid a minimum wage.”Ms. Hochul, who wore an all-white outfit to honor the women’s suffrage movement at her inauguration, did so again on Wednesday.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesBut at another point, she pledged that New York would be “the most business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation.”Ms. Hochul laid out a number of measures to bolster the social safety net, and she also endorsed some left-leaning criminal justice proposals, including a “jails-to-jobs” program and other efforts to help formerly incarcerated people access employment and housing.She also pledged to pursue a five-year plan to offer 100,000 affordable homes, though some housing advocates thought she should have offered far more comprehensive protections since the state’s eviction moratorium is poised to expire. And she laid out a bevy of climate, infrastructure and transportation-related initiatives.If many aspects of the speech played into concerns of rank-and-file Democratic voters and union officials, Ms. Hochul also repeatedly made overtures to a broader ideological and geographical swath of voters who will power the general election. (“I think I have a personal experience with just about every pothole in New York as well, especially on the Long Island Expressway,” she said, referring to an important political battleground.).A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More

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      The Rise of Eric Adams and Black New York

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      It was winter in Black New York, and the last thing Eric Leroy Adams wanted to do was join the New York City Police Department.It was the early 1980s and waves of joblessness and crime were sweeping over working-class swaths of the city. In Black neighborhoods, the Police Department, still overwhelmingly white, had become an occupying force, deepening the misery and the injustice.Inside a Brooklyn church, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a veteran of the civil rights movement, told a young Mr. Adams, then a local college student, that it was time to join the N.Y.P.D. The community, Mr. Daughtry said, needed someone to make change from the inside.“You gotta be out of your mind,” Mr. Adams recalls telling Mr. Daughtry.On Jan. 1, when Mr. Adams, 61, is sworn in as mayor, Mr. Daughtry’s vision will be realized. Working-class Black New York, which makes up the heart of the Democratic base but has long been shut out of City Hall, will finally have its moment.To many, the future mayor is still an enigma. The Black Democrat talks of law and order, but also Black Lives Matter. He courts Wall Street, then travels to Ghana to be spiritually cleansed. He parties late into the night alongside the rapper Ja Rule and the former Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt. His talent and intellect are obvious. But he sounds nothing like Barack Obama.What exactly Mr. Adams intends to do once at City Hall is unclear. What is certain for now is that Mr. Adams knows who sent him there.New York’s Black Democratic base had endured a plague and marched for Black lives. They had kept the city going, along with municipal workers of all backgrounds, while wealthier New Yorkers remained safely at home. They had felt the rise in violence in their neighborhoods, and seen the resurgence of white supremacy under President Donald Trump. Their choice for mayor was Eric Adams.In his victory speech in November, Mr. Adams said his election belonged to the city’s working poor. “I am you. I am you. After years of praying and hoping and struggling and working, we are headed to City Hall,” Mr. Adams boomed. “It is proof that people of this city will love you if you love them.”New York’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins, died last year at the age of 93. A soft-spoken Marine, in his signature bow tie, he made plain he intended to serve the entire city, which he famously called a “gorgeous mosaic.” Mr. Dinkins served just one term in office after he was ousted by Rudy Giuliani in 1993 in an election fraught with racist backlash. It was a bitter defeat Black New York would never forget.Mr. Dinkins was part of a storied tradition of Black politicians from Harlem that included Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charles Rangel, Percy Sutton, and Basil Paterson. The political club swung Black votes in the city for more than a generation.Mr. Adams’s pathway to Gracie Mansion runs through a different New York.He was born in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, among the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Later, the family moved to South Jamaica, a largely Black enclave in Queens. Like many of his neighbors, Mr. Adams grew up poor, the fourth of six children of Dorothy Mae Adams, a single mother who worked cleaning houses, and later, at a day care center.At 15, Mr. Adams was arrested on a criminal trespass charge for entering the home of an acquaintance. He has said he was beaten so severely by police officers that his urine was filled with blood for a week.Several years later, Mr. Adams met the Rev. Herbert Daughtry. The pastor was recruiting young Black New Yorkers to organize Brooklyn’s struggling communities as part of the National Black United Front, a Black empowerment group.“It was a tough time,” Mr. Daughtry, now 90 years old, said in a phone interview. Mr. Adams stood out. “He was rather precocious,” Mr. Daughtry said. “He didn’t just want a job. He was concerned about the lack of progress, the gang violence, the addiction.”Mr. Adams joined the N.Y.P.D. in 1984 and served in the Police Department for 22 years. He co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group that protested police brutality. He also served as president of the Grand Council of Guardians, a statewide group of Black law enforcement officials.He was protesting police brutality in the late 1980s when he met the Rev. Al Sharpton. Both were the sons of single mothers who had arrived in New York from Alabama.And both men said they reveled in eschewing the snobbishness exuded by the Black elite: a small but dazzling world of the powerful — if not always wealthy — shaped by historic college fraternities and sororities, and exclusive societies like the Boulé (boo-lay) and The Links. The groups were created in the depths of segregation to help members network and uplift the Black community. Some of the organizations are over a century old.“Me and Eric used to tease each other,” Mr. Sharpton told me recently. “I used to say, ‘You’re the guy with the patrolman’s hat and I’m the guy with the conked hair style like James Brown, and we do not care if the bougies don’t like us,’” he said. “We used to laugh about that.”Mr. Dinkins was a member of Sigma Pi Phi, known as the Boulé. That fraternity, among the most exclusive of the bunch, counted Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a member. Percy Sutton, once the highest ranking Black elected official in New York, belonged to Kappa Alpha Psi — one of the “Divine Nine” historically Black fraternities and sororities. Representative Hakeem Jeffries is also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. Former Representative Charles Rangel is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha but only joined Boulé several years ago (“They never invited me” before that, he said). Vice President Kamala Harris is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.“I’m not part of any of those things, you know what I’m saying?” Mr. Adams told me. “But the energy and spirit they bring, we need that.”By 2006, Mr. Adams had risen to the rank of captain, but his public advocacy had made him a thorn in the side of the N.Y.P.D.’s clubby, white male brass. He left the department and was quickly elected to the State Senate. In 2013, he was elected Brooklyn borough president, a largely ceremonial role — but a good launching pad for a campaign for mayor.In the decades since David Dinkins had left office, the center of Black life and political power had shifted firmly from Harlem to Brooklyn. Letitia James, the state attorney general, is from Brooklyn. Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, is also from Brooklyn. Representative Hakeem Jeffries represents part of the borough, as well as a part of Queens.Making the rise of these Black politicians possible was a decades-long shift to an increasingly diverse electorate from one that had once been dominated by white voters. Some white Democrats have proven more willing to vote for Black candidates. The changes have turned Brooklyn into a political powerhouse.In 2013, that Brooklyn coalition, led by Black voters, sent Mayor Bill de Blasio to Gracie Mansion.Then, in early 2020, the pandemic hit New York City, claiming tens of thousands of lives. It killed people from all walks of life, but hit especially hard in the minority and immigrant communities in the Democratic base. Every level of government, including City Hall, had failed them.A year later, the Democratic primary included three major Black candidates. One of them, Maya Wiley, a progressive, garnered significant support. But working-class Black New York went with Mr. Adams, handing him a narrow victory. Basil Smikle, director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said they wanted someone who understood their everyday lives. “The Dinkinses and the Obamas of the world, yes it’s aspirational, we’d all like our children to grow up to be them,” said Mr. Smikle, who is Black. “But to what extent do you know how people are living?”Mr. Adams’s political showmanship doesn’t hurt.In 2016, when Mr. Adams became a vegan, reversing a diabetes diagnosis, he touted the diet as a way to liberate Black Americans from the history of slavery and published a cookbook.Years earlier, in the State Senate, Mr. Adams produced a dramatized video from his office encouraging parents to search their children’s belongings for contraband. “You don’t know what your child may be hiding,” Mr. Adams tells the camera, pulling a gun out of a jewelry box. The political stunt left political insiders giggling. But it demonstrated how deeply connected Mr. Adams was to the voters he represented.“It is comical, but let me tell you, my mom would probably be nodding her head for the entire video,” said Zellnor Myrie, 35, who holds Mr. Adams’s former Senate seat, and was raised in the district by his mother.Much of what appears to be paradoxical about Mr. Adams is, to Black Americans, just familiar.“All of us have been at dinner with some uncle who talks about ‘Black on Black’ crime,” said Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “We know Eric Adams.”Yet, Mr. Adams is familiar to New Yorkers of many backgrounds. They recognize the swagger of the beat cop; the blunt cadence of southeast Queens, with its languorous vowels; the hustle and ambition found all over New York.Starting Jan. 1, he will be mayor for the entire city. His support is expansive and includes large numbers of Asian, Latino and Orthodox Jewish voters. If he can cement this coalition, he may become a formidable force nationally in a Democratic Party hungry for stars.Mr. Adams has also shown a savvy for courting The New York Post, announcing his pick for police commissioner — Nassau County chief of detectives Keechant Sewell, a Black Queens native — in the right-wing tabloid. Better to feed the beast, Mr. Adams understands, than let it maul you.At his inner circle, though, is a tight-knit group of Black New Yorkers who have waited a generation for their shot to run City Hall.Outside a public school in Brooklyn recently, Mr. Adams stood with David Banks, a veteran Black educator he tapped to serve as schools chancellor. “If 65 percent of white children were not reaching proficiency in this city, they would burn the city down,” Mr. Adams said to the enthusiastic, largely nonwhite crowd.From the moneyed corners of Manhattan to the gracious brownstones of Cobble Hill, there is a creeping sense of shock: The new mayor is not necessarily speaking to them. Power in America’s largest city has changed hands.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Who Wants to Be Governor of New York?

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      Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s resignation has led to a rush of candidates from both parties declaring their intent to run for the state’s highest office.The surprise resignation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo instantly upended the 2022 governor’s race in New York, opening the floodgates for a rush of candidates vying for the state’s highest office after more than a decade with Mr. Cuomo at the helm.At least seven candidates have formally begun campaigns for governor, the most powerful job in one of the country’s largest states, with the potential to shape policies with wide-ranging influence.The race on the Democratic side is shaping up to be the first contested primary in decades, attracting candidates with history-making potential that will test racial, ideological and geographical lines in one of the nation’s liberal bastions.Republicans, who have not won a statewide election in New York since 2002, face an uphill battle to reclaim the governor’s office, but they are hoping to replicate the party’s successes in the November 2021 off-year elections.The field remains fluid, fractured and unpredictable, with the potential for others to join the fray ahead of the primary in June.Here are the candidates:Officially RunningThe Democratic field has continued to swell with well-known political figures of diverse backgrounds since Mr. Cuomo resigned, while the contours of the Republican field began to emerge earlier in the year.Kathy Hochul, 63, DStephanie Keith for The New York TimesGov. Kathy Hochul was the first candidate to jump into the race, officially declaring in August, after she ascended to the state’s top job following Mr. Cuomo’s resignation and made history as the state’s first female governor.Ms. Hochul, a former congresswoman from the Buffalo area, previously served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for six years, a largely ceremonial role.A moderate Democrat, Ms. Hochul has focused her first months as governor on responding to the pandemic and its economic fallout, hoping to use the advantage of incumbency to introduce herself to voters and secure a full term.Letitia James, 63, DJoy Malone/ReutersLetitia James, the state attorney general, announced her candidacy in late October after months of rumors, instantly positioning herself as one of the most formidable challengers to Ms. Hochul.Ms. James, a Brooklyn Democrat who is hoping to build a coalition anchored by Black and Latino voters, as well as white progressives, could become the first Black female governor in the nation.Ms. James, who was elected attorney general in 2018, oversaw the investigation into the sexual harassment claims that led to Mr. Cuomo’s resignation and has garnered praise from liberals for suing the National Rifle Association and investigating President Donald J. Trump.Tom Suozzi, 59, DStefani Reynolds for The New York TimesRepresentative Tom Suozzi of Long Island entered the race in late November, casting himself as a centrist Democrat focused on lowering taxes and reducing crime, and as someone unafraid to confront the party’s left wing.Mr. Suozzi, who is looking to cut into Ms. Hochul’s support among moderate and suburban voters, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2016, after serving eight years as Nassau County executive.Jumaane Williams, 45, DAnna Watts for The New York TimesJumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, formally declared his candidacy in mid-November, pitching himself as the candidate most suitable to become the standard-bearer of the party’s progressive left flank.Mr. Williams, an activist who has described himself as a democratic socialist, ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor against Ms. Hochul in 2018, but came within six percentage points of defeating her.Rob Astorino, 54, RJonah Markowitz for The New York TimesRob Astorino, who served as Westchester County executive from 2010 to 2017, announced his bid for governor in May, marking his second run for the state’s highest office.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 7A crowded field. More