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      Biden Speaks on Voting Rights in Philadelphia

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      WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Tuesday that the fight against restrictive voting laws was the “most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War” and called Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election “a big lie.”In an impassioned speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden tried to reinvigorate the stalled Democratic effort to pass federal voting rights legislation and called on Republicans “in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God’s sake.”“Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote,” the president said in remarks at the National Constitution Center. “Have you no shame?”But his words collided with reality: Even as Republican-led bills meant to restrict voting access make their way through statehouses across the country, two bills aiming to expand voting rights nationwide are languishing in Congress. And Mr. Biden has bucked increasing pressure from Democrats to support pushing the legislation through the Senate by eliminating the filibuster, no matter the political cost.In fact, the president seemed to acknowledge that the legislation had little hope of passing as he shifted his focus to the midterm elections.“We’re going to face another test in 2022,” Mr. Biden said. “A new wave of unprecedented voter suppression, and raw and sustained election subversion. We have to prepare now.”He said he would start an effort “to educate voters about the changing laws, register them to vote and then get the vote out.”The partisan fight over voting rights was playing out even as the president spoke, with a group of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to deny Republicans the quorum they need to pass new voting restrictions there.In his speech, Mr. Biden characterized the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — hatched and spread by his predecessor, Mr. Trump — as a “darker and more sinister” underbelly of American politics. He did not mention Mr. Trump by name but warned that “bullies and merchants of fear” had posed an existential threat to democracy.“No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny, such high standards,” Mr. Biden said. “The big lie is just that: a big lie.”About a dozen Republican-controlled states passed laws this spring to restrict voting or significantly change election rules, in part because of Mr. Trump’s efforts to sow doubt about the 2020 results.Republicans, who have called Democrats’ warnings about democracy hyperbolic, argue that laws are needed to tamp down on voter fraud, despite evidence that it is not a widespread problem. They have mounted an aggressive campaign to portray Mr. Biden’s voting-rights efforts as self-serving federalization of elections to benefit Democrats.The president’s speech, delivered against the backdrop of the birthplace of American democracy, was intended to present the right to vote as a shared ideal, despite the realities of a deeply fractured political landscape.Democratic efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Washington have stalled in the evenly divided Senate. Last month, Republicans filibustered the broad elections overhaul known as the For the People Act, and they are expected to do the same if Democrats try to bring up the other measure — the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, named for a former Georgia congressman and civil rights icon — which would restore parts of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.In a statement, Danielle Álvarez, the communications director for the Republican National Committee, said that Mr. Biden’s speech amounted to “lies and theatrics.” Republicans had unanimously rejected the For the People Act as a Democratic attempt to “pass their federal takeover of our elections,” she said.There were also concerns among more moderate members of Mr. Biden’s party that the legislation was too partisan. Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have publicly said they would not support rolling back the filibuster to enact it.But other Democrats see a worrying increase in efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to restrict voting, along with court rulings that would make it harder to fight encroachments on voting rights.A Supreme Court ruling this month weakened the one enforcement clause of the Voting Rights Act that remained after the court invalidated its major provision in 2013. Mr. Biden said last year that strengthening the act would be one of his first priorities after taking office; but on Tuesday, he sought to shift responsibility to lawmakers.“The court’s decision, as harmful as it is, does not limit the Congress’s ability to repair the damage done,” the president said. “As soon as Congress passes the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, I will sign it and want the whole world to see it.”His rallying cry only underscored the impossibility of the task: Neither bill currently has a path to his desk.Activists who had wondered whether Mr. Biden would stake out a public position on the filibuster got their answer on Tuesday: “I’m not filibustering now,” the president told reporters who shouted questions after his speech.“It was strange to hear,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the anti-filibuster group Fix Our Senate, said after watching the speech. “He did a great job of laying out the problem, but then stopped short of talking about the actual solution that would be needed to passing legislation to address the problem.”As Mr. Biden spoke in Philadelphia, the group of Texas Democrats had traveled to Washington, where they were trying to delay state lawmakers from taking up restrictive voting measures.Representative Marc Veasey, Democrat of Texas, speaking at a press conference with Democratic members of the Texas Legislature on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesBoth measures would ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting; prohibit election officials from proactively sending absentee ballot applications to voters who had not requested them; add new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; limit the types of assistance that can be provided to voters; and greatly expand the authority and autonomy of partisan poll watchers.In Austin, Republicans vented their anger at the fleeing group, and Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to call “special session after special session after special session” until an election bill passed. The handful of Democratic lawmakers who did not go to Washington were rounded up and ordered onto the Statehouse floor. Shawn Thierry, a Democratic state representative from Houston, posted to Twitter a video of a Statehouse sergeant-at-arms and a state trooper entering her office to order her to be locked in the House chamber.“This is not an issue about Democrats or Republicans,” Vice President Kamala Harris told the Texas lawmakers when she met with them on Tuesday. “This is about Americans and how Americans are experiencing this issue.”James Talarico, 32, the youngest member of the Texas Legislature, said the group of Democrats had gone to Washington, in part, to pressure Mr. Biden to do more.“We can’t listen to more speeches,” Mr. Talarico said. “I’m incredibly proud not only as a Democrat but also an American of what President Biden has accomplished in his first few months in office. But protecting our democracy should have been at the very top of the list, because without it none of these issues matter.”The restrictions in the Texas bills mirror key provisions of a restrictive law passed this year in Georgia, which went even further to assert Republican control over the State Election Board and empower the party to suspend county election officials. In June, the Justice Department sued Georgia over the law, the Biden administration’s first significant move to challenge voter restrictions at the state level.“The 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real,” Mr. Biden said as he listed the details of the Texas bills. “It’s unrelenting, and we are going to challenge it vigorously.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      Eric Adams’s Win Is a ‘Watershed Moment’ for Black Leaders in New York

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      Black candidates are poised to occupy some of New York’s top elected offices, including those of mayor, public advocate and two of the city’s five district attorneys.A cascade of victories for Black candidates in the New York City Democratic primaries — highlighted by Eric Adams’s win in the mayoral race — is redefining the flow of political power in the nation’s largest city.For just the second time in its history, New York City is on track to have a Black mayor. For the first time ever, the Manhattan district attorney is set to be a Black man, after Alvin Bragg won the Democratic nomination. The city’s public advocate, who is Black, cruised to victory in last month’s primary. As many as three of the five city borough presidents may be people of color, and the City Council is poised to be notably diverse.“This is a mission-driven movement,” Mr. Adams said in Harlem last weekend, at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters. “If you don’t sit back and rejoice in this moment, shame on you. Shame on you. One of your own is going to move to become the mayor of the most important city in the most important country on the globe.”If Mr. Adams and Mr. Bragg win their general elections as expected, they will become among the most influential elected Black officials in the state, joining the state attorney general, Letitia James; the State Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins; and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie.Black Democrats also claimed two new congressional wins last year in New York City: Representatives Ritchie Torres, who identifies as Afro-Latino, in the South Bronx; and Jamaal Bowman, who defeated the longtime congressman Eliot Engel, in a district covering parts of the Bronx and Westchester County.Their success was repeated by Black candidates across the highest levels of city government this year, who were often propelled in part by strong support among Black voters.“Twitter has its place in modern-day campaigning — however, if you’re more comfortable online than in a Black church on Sunday morning, that says something about your likelihood of success,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, New York’s highest-ranking House Democrat, who may become the first Black speaker of the House.“Black New Yorkers are under siege by rising crime and intense housing displacement,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Our community is closest to the pain, and therefore Black candidates are uniquely positioned to speak powerfully to the needs of working-class New Yorkers.”Mr. Adams focused his mayoral campaign on combating inequality and promoting public safety.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMr. Adams won on the strength of more moderate, working-class Black and Latino voters, as well as some centrist white voters outside of Manhattan, with assists from labor unions, his own strong fund-raising and super PAC spending. He ran on a message focused on combating inequality and promoting public safety, and he supported a more expansive role for the police than some of his rivals did.Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president who is narrowly leading in his re-election battle, called Mr. Adams’s primary victory and those of other Black candidates a “watershed moment” — one that will help determine whether issues of improving infrastructure, public safety and schools can be achieved equitably in a city shaped by deep racial and socioeconomic disparities.“We had a Black president before we had our second Black mayor, so it’s our time,” Mr. Richards said, recalling the excitement he felt as an elementary school student when David N. Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, was elected more than three decades ago.Other diverse American cities, from Detroit to Kansas City, Mo., have elected more Black mayors than New York City has, while cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta are led by Black women. Los Angeles, like New York, has had just one Black mayor.But the results in New York this summer, especially at the top of the ticket, underscored the central role Black voters play both in city politics and in the national Democratic Party, less than a year after Black Americans played decisive roles in electing President Biden and flipping the Senate to the Democrats. Some have likened Mr. Adams’s coalition, at least in part, to the one that propelled Mr. Biden to the presidency, a comparison both Mr. Adams and the White House chief of staff have embraced.Black voters were also vital to the Democratic efforts to reclaim the Senate, a goal that came down to two victories in Georgia. And in New York, Black voters played a significant role in electing Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2013 (though his coalition also included far more white progressives than Mr. Adams’s did).There was little exit polling available on the New York City mayor’s race, but surveys from other years showed that Black voters were not the majority of the electorate. Still, Black voters are among the most reliable voters in the Democratic Party, and the sparse polling data that was available during the primary showed that Mr. Adams was the overwhelming favorite of those voters — meaning that they packed a more unified electoral punch than other constituencies whose preferences were spread more evenly among several contenders.“The Democratic Party can’t win anything of significance without Black voters,” said Leah Daughtry, a longtime party strategist. “You have, with every passing cycle, an increasing awareness and acceptance that we make a difference.”She suggested that Mr. Adams’s victory — which disappointed the most left-wing forces in the city — may prompt a reassessment of what it means to be “progressive” in New York.“Is it that Black and brown people are not as progressive as some people want to say they are, or does the definition of ‘progressive’ need to be looked at?” said Ms. Daughtry, whose father, the Rev. Dr. Herbert Daughtry, was an early mentor of Mr. Adams’s.Mr. Adams’s relatively moderate message on policing was plainly a significant factor with a substantial number of voters. But his win was driven by dynamics that go well beyond ideology, including a sense among some New Yorkers that Mr. Adams not only felt their pain, but had lived it.The slate of other Black candidates who won their primaries represents considerable generational and political diversity. Jumaane D. Williams, the city’s public advocate and one of New York’s most prominent younger left-wing leaders, stressed that those results show that voters of color “aren’t a monolith.”“Voters of all hues want to be respected for their lived experiences and their traumas,” said Mr. Williams, who easily won his primary last month, and may be considering a run for higher office. “They want to feel safe and have all of the access to as good a life as they can and they want to see this city reopened with justice and equity.”Mr. Torres, who backed Andrew Yang’s mayoral campaign, supported Mr. Adams as his second pick under the city’s ranked-choice voting system. He said the success of ideologically diverse Black contenders was a function of candidate quality, highlighting the deep and growing bench of candidates of color across the city.“That’s the only variable that explains the widely varied ideological results of the 2021 election cycle,” the congressman said. “It speaks to the caliber of the next generation of Black public figures.”Another through line for several of the successful contenders was their ability to connect their personal stories to some of the most searing challenges facing Black New Yorkers. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Bragg speak in strikingly personal terms about the need to combat both police brutality and gun violence that has disproportionately affected neighborhoods with many Black and Latino residents.Mr. Adams has said he was beaten by police as a teenager. He later joined the police force, pushing to combat misconduct from within the system. Mr. Bragg has described a police officer putting a gun to his head when he was a teenager — and he cast himself as the candidate best positioned to tackle criminal justice reform from the powerful prosecutor’s office.“It’s not just having a first Black district attorney in Manhattan, but the experiences that for me have gone along with that,” Mr. Bragg said in an interview, ticking through his own encounters with the law enforcement system. Despite the historic results, racial tensions seeped into some of the contests. Mr. Adams’s allies claimed without evidence that an alliance between Mr. Yang and Kathryn Garcia, who finished second to Mr. Adams by one point, could amount to suppression of Black and Latino voters. And as ballots were being counted for the Queens borough presidency, Mr. Richards wrote on Twitter that his chief rival, Elizabeth Crowley, was “racist.”“Throughout this campaign I faced the dog whistles and microaggressions and I couldn’t talk about it because people would say I was trying to use race to my advantage in the race,” Mr. Richards later said.In a statement posted on Twitter, Ms. Crowley decried “slanderous and untruthful remarks made by one of my opponents” and said she was “proud of the campaign of inclusion and optimism that we ran.”Whatever the result in that race, Mr. Richards and others said that while they were buoyed by Mr. Adams’s victory, his path — he was the first choice of every borough but Manhattan — illustrated stark divides in the city.After a count of absentee ballots, Mr. Adams prevailed over Kathryn Garcia by one percentage point.Kirsten Luce for The New York Times“If you look at the demographic maps from this election it paints a very scary story,” Mr. Richards said, adding, “As diverse as we are, we are still a divided city.”For many Black leaders, Mr. Adams’s election is both a vindication and cause to wonder what might have been.Keith L.T. Wright, the chair of New York County Democrats, worked for Mr. Dinkins when he was the Manhattan borough president. For decades, Mr. Wright has harbored “extreme resentment” that Mr. Dinkins did not win a second term.“Can you imagine if David had two terms? The gentrification problem would not be as serious,” Mr. Wright said. “If he had gotten his hands on the Board of Education we would not have the educational inequality problem we have right now.”Maya Wiley — who would have been the city’s first Black female mayor, but came in third — has said that the diversity of the mayoral field, as well as Mr. Adams’s win, would have implications for shaping perceptions of a suitable leader.“It shows that we have a pipeline of people of color, particularly Black people, who can run and contest effectively in our important executive offices,” she said. “I don’t think this is a one-time phenomenon. This is really about our democratic process opening up.” More

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      The Big Question of the 2022 Midterms: How Will the Suburbs Swing?

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      Democrats and Republicans are already jockeying for a crucial voting bloc that soured on Donald Trump, tilted to Joe Biden and now holds the key to the second half of the president’s term.PAPILLION, Neb. — Pursuing a bipartisan infrastructure deal and trumpeting a revived economy and progress against the pandemic, President Biden is trying to persuade the nation that Democrats are the party that gets things done. His message is aimed at holding on to a set of voters in next year’s midterms who could determine the fate of his agenda: suburbanites who abandoned former President Donald Trump in droves.More than any other group, those independent-minded voters put Mr. Biden in the White House. Whether they remain in the Democratic coalition is the most urgent question facing the party as it tries to keep its razor-thin advantage in the House and the Senate next year. Mr. Biden made his pitch again on Friday when he signed an executive order intended to protect consumers from the anti-competitive practices of large businesses. But Republicans are also going to war for suburban votes. The party is painting the six-month-old Biden administration as a failure, one that has lost control of the Southwestern border, is presiding over soaring crime rates and rising prices and is on the wrong side of a culture clash over how schools teach the history of racism in America.Whoever wins this messaging battle will have the power to determine the outcome of the rest of Mr. Biden’s term, setting the stage for either two more years of Democrats driving their policies forward or a new period of gridlock in a divided Washington.Both parties are targeting voters like Jay Jackson, a retired career Air Force officer who is now a reservist in the Omaha suburbs. Mr. Jackson had lawn signs last year for Republicans running for Congress, but also for Mr. Biden. He thought that Mr. Trump had failed to empathize with military duty and regularly lied to Americans, and did not deserve re-election.“I’m a classic RINO,” Mr. Jackson said with a laugh, accepting the right’s favorite insult for voters like him: Republicans in Name Only. In a guest column in The Omaha World-Herald, Mr. Jackson, a 39-year-old lawyer, explained his view: “We Republicans need to turn away from Trump and back to our values and the principles of patriotism and conservatism.”Mr. Biden won 54 percent of voters from the country’s suburbs last year, a significant improvement over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and enough to overcome Mr. Trump’s expansion of his own margins in rural and urban areas, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Suburbanites made up 55 percent of the Biden coalition, compared with 48 percent of Clinton voters.Jay Jackson encouraged fellow Republican voters to “turn away from Trump.”Walker Pickering for The New York TimesLia Post voted routinely for Republicans but supported Mr. Biden last year.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesThe authoritative Pew study, which echoed other recent surveys, also showed that Mr. Biden failed to increase his share of the Democratic base from 2016, including among young people and voters of color. It found, however, that his support surged among independents, veterans and married men — voters like Mr. Jackson.But even as Mr. Jackson crossed party lines for Mr. Biden, he supported Representative Don Bacon, a Republican who won re-election in Nebraska’s Second District, which Mr. Biden himself carried. Mr. Jackson said that he was pleased so far with the Biden administration — especially its “putting the accelerator to the floor on Covid” — but that he would very likely vote again for Mr. Bacon.It shows that in 2022, Democrats will need to count on more than the revolt of suburbia against Mr. Trump’s norm-smashing presidency to motivate their voters.The limits of the anti-Trump vote were already glimpsed last year, when half of the 14 House seats that Democrats lost, to their shock, were in suburban or exurban districts. The party also failed to defeat vulnerable Republicans in districts Mr. Biden won, such as Nebraska’s Second.For 2022, Democrats’ congressional finance committee has identified 24 “frontline” incumbents in swing districts, some two-thirds of them in suburban areas.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chair of the Democrats’ election arm, aims to fuse Republican candidates with Mr. Trump’s divisiveness and with the party’s obstruction of gun restrictions, expanding health care access and fighting climate change.“The post-Trump Republican brand is bad politics in the suburbs,” he said in an interview. “They have embraced dangerous conspiracy theories, flat-out white supremacists and a level of harshness and ugliness that is not appealing to suburban voters.”Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who leads the G.O.P. campaign arm, said Republicans would attack Democrats over a set of “incredibly toxic” issues for the suburbs. He listed them as crime, tax increases, border security and the latest flash point of the culture wars, critical race theory — the idea that racism is woven into American institutions, which Republicans have seized on in suburban school districts.Sarpy County is the fastest-growing county in Nebraska, with young newcomers drawn to jobs in tech or in Omaha’s insurance industry, and to the exploding housing market.Walker Pickering for The New York Times“It’s going to be a big issue in 2022,” Mr. Emmer said.He added that while Democrats “seem to be focused on a personality in the past” — Mr. Trump — “we’re focused on issues.”House Democrats also face structural and historical obstacles to retaining their slender nine-seat majority. In the modern era, a president’s party has lost an average of 26 House seats in midterm elections. Redistricting will place nearly all members of the chamber in redrawn seats, with Republicans wielding more power to gerrymander than Democrats.National polling shows Mr. Biden’s job approval consistently above 50 percent. But some recent surveys of swing House districts suggest that the president is less popular on specific issues. A survey in May of 37 competitive House districts by a Democratic group, Future Majority, found that more voters disliked than liked Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, climate policy and foreign affairs. He was especially unpopular over the U.S.-Mexico border and relations with China.But Val Arkoosh, a Democratic official in the Philadelphia suburbs who is running for the Senate in 2022, said that issues that rally Democrats, like voting rights and health care, would still be on the ballot, even if Mr. Trump — who drove furious opponents to the polls last year — is not. “Yes, the former occupant of the White House is gone, but we continue to see a significant amount of obstruction in Washington around issues people here care deeply about,” she said.While suburbs across the country vary demographically and politically, the independent voters of suburban Omaha present a snapshot of the terrain where both parties will be fighting their hardest.Nebraska is one of just two states to award a share of its electoral votes by congressional district. Mr. Biden’s success in carrying the Second District, which includes Omaha and much of its suburbs, went beyond the single electoral vote he picked up. He flipped the district by 8.75 percentage points after Mr. Trump had won it in 2016 — a larger swing than in any individual battleground state.The suburban part of the district is mostly in western Sarpy County south of Omaha. It is the fastest-growing county in Nebraska, with young newcomers drawn to jobs in tech or in Omaha’s insurance industry, and to the exploding housing market.Corbin Delgado, the secretary of his party’s state Latinx Caucus, said his top issue was immigration reform.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesJen Day won a State Senate race as a Democrat, though many of her voters supported a Republican candidate for Congress.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesFields of corn race up hillsides and yield suddenly to home developments with names like the Mansions at Granite Falls. A vast Amazon distribution center that will employ 1,000 workers is under construction. A sign at another building site promises the “Future Home of Lamb of God Lutheran Church.”Older towns in the county command hilltops, their water towers visible from afar like medieval castles.Last year, Sarpy County, like most places, had higher turnout by both parties and independents compared with 2016. But the surge especially among independents probably accounts for Mr. Biden’s winning 13,000 more votes in the county than Mrs. Clinton did. (Mr. Trump’s votes increased by only about 7,000.)“We have a lot of younger families moving in,” said Charlene Ligon, an Air Force retiree who leads the county Democrats. “They may be conservative, but they’re more centrist, with younger attitudes.”Jen Day, a small-business owner in her 30s, won a State Senate race as a Democrat in November, the first time in memory the party had captured a seat in western Sarpy County.Ms. Day said many of her supporters had also voted for Mr. Bacon, the Republican congressman. “From discussions I’ve had with people in the district, I don’t think they’re pledging allegiance to either party at this point,” she said.Jeff Slobotski, a suburban father of five who changed his registration from Republican to independent, said the Bacon seat was “absolutely winnable” for Democrats in 2022. A Trump supporter in 2016, Mr. Slobotski voted for Mr. Biden last year.Mr. Slobotski, 43, is an executive for a company that brings tech start-ups and arts groups to an emerging neighborhood in the city. He spoke over lunch last week at a downtown Omaha restaurant, the Kitchen Table. The restaurant windows displayed posters for Black Lives Matter and for a young state senator, Tony Vargas, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic nominee to take on Mr. Bacon.Fields of corn race up hillsides and yield suddenly to home developments.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Slobotski voted for Mr. Bacon, he said he would support Mr. Vargas if he ran for the seat. “He’s just a young visionary, somebody with leadership ability, more of a pragmatist,” he said of Mr. Vargas, a former Omaha school board member. The Democrats’ 2020 nominee, Kara Eastman, was considered by many to be too progressive for the District.Later that day, at a restaurant in Papillion, a group of three other 2020 ticket-splitting voters sipped iced coffees as they assessed Washington under unified Democratic control.All three had voted for Mr. Biden, but none supported the drive by many congressional Democrats to blow up the filibuster to pass Mr. Biden’s most ambitious agenda items.These voters preferred a scaled-back infrastructure package that, even if it left major spending on education and climate on the table, could pass with bipartisan support and represent a show of unity. “It’s one of those things that kind of builds relationships to get things going,” said Michael Stark, 30, an independent.The filibuster is “there for a purpose and I am terrified of what would happen if it went away,” said Corbin Delgado, 26, a Democrat who works for a nonprofit group and is the secretary of his party’s state Latinx Caucus. He said his top issue was immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. He voted for Mr. Bacon last year, he said, because the Republican had modified his opposition to some immigration changes after meeting with activists. “I’m a big believer that when a politician actually listens and changes, that should be rewarded,” he said.But he would leap at the chance to vote in 2022 for Mr. Vargas, who represents a district with a large Hispanic population.Lia Post, 54, grew up in a conservative religious family and voted routinely for Republicans. An activist for legalizing medical marijuana, she supported Mr. Biden last year. She said that more than anything else, she was relieved by the absence of perpetual chaos in Washington.“I don’t feel so stressed out all the time,” she said. “I just feel now I have a president that I can just breathe,” she added, and not worry, “‘Oh, God, what’s the next thing?’” More

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      Glass Ceiling Persists for Women in Mayor’s Race

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      Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley placed second and third in the Democratic mayoral primary. Many New Yorkers hoped the glass ceiling would finally be broken.It was a constant refrain for the two leading female candidates running for mayor of New York City: The city has had 109 mayors, and all of them were men. It was finally time for a woman.The two candidates, Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley, had experience in government. They had major endorsements from unions, elected officials and newspaper editorial boards. They raised millions of dollars and gained momentum in the final weeks of the campaign.But Ms. Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, and Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, still fell short, placing second and third in the Democratic primary behind Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president.New York is one of a handful of major cities where voters have yet to elect a woman as mayor, along with Los Angeles, Detroit and Philadelphia. Boston recently got its first female mayor, and women currently run more than 30 of the nation’s 100 largest cities.Ms. Wiley and Ms. Garcia won more than 380,000 first-choice votes between them, or nearly 41 percent of the votes. Ms. Garcia finished just one percentage point behind Mr. Adams under the city’s new ranked-choice voting system.But their loss felt like a missed opportunity for those who believed that New York would at long last elect a woman.“I’m disappointed and sad,” said Christine Quinn, the former City Council speaker who ran for mayor in 2013. “I give a lot of credit to Eric Adams, but I want a woman to be mayor of New York. It is truly, truly disheartening.”Maya Wiley garnered the second highest number of first-place votes, but finished in third place under the ranked-choice voting system.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesThe Democratic primary field was the most diverse ever: Four women were on the ballot including Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Joycelyn Taylor, a businesswoman. A fifth, Loree Sutton, a retired Army brigadier general, dropped out of the race in March. Of 13 candidates on the ballot, only three were white men; if he is elected in November, Mr. Adams will be the city’s second Black mayor.This was the first time New York City used ranked-choice voting in a citywide election, allowing voters to choose up to five candidates in order of preference. In other cities, candidates have often formed alliances to boost their chances.While Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley each ran strong campaigns that embraced the notion that it was time for a woman to lead the nation’s largest city, they did so independently.The two campaigns had discussions about Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley campaigning together and Ms. Garcia wanted to do it, according to a person who was familiar with the discussions.But Ms. Wiley appeared to have reservations on a policy level; Ms. Garcia was more conservative on policing, for instance, and was one of three candidates favored by the union that represents police officers. Ms. Wiley wanted to cut the police budget by $1 billion a year.Observers also suggested Ms. Garcia may have had more to gain from an alliance than Ms. Wiley. Some of Ms. Garcia’s moderate voters, for instance, might not have voted for Ms. Wiley even if the candidates campaigned together.Ms. Garcia instead struck a late alliance with Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and that helped win over some of his supporters.Ms. Wiley said on Wednesday that she did not have any regrets over her decision not to campaign with other candidates.“We stood as a campaign on principle, and we stood with everyone who met our principles,” she said.Nearly 130,000 of Ms. Wiley’s votes — roughly half of her total support — were reallocated to Ms. Garcia under ranked-choice voting once Ms. Wiley was eliminated; Mr. Adams received nearly 20 percent of Ms. Wiley’s votes. The rest of the ballots were “exhausted” or eliminated in the final round because the voters did not rank either finalist. In the end, Ms. Garcia lost to Mr. Adams by less than 8,500 votes. Ester Fuchs, a political science professor at Columbia University, said it would have been a smart strategy for Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley to endorse each other, despite their differences, to give each a better chance at beating Mr. Adams.“Why did Adams start panicking when Yang and Garcia campaigned for one day together?” she said. “Garcia did get quite a few of Yang’s voters. That’s how ranked-choice voting can work.”The new voting system also could have hurt Ms. Wiley’s chances in a less obvious way: Under the old system, Ms. Wiley — who finished with the second-most number of first-place votes — would have moved on to face Mr. Adams in a head-to-head runoff election.Women are expected to make gains in the City Council, which could have a majority of female members for the first time next year. But the major citywide offices — mayor, comptroller and public advocate — will be occupied by men, and potentially four of the five borough presidents will be men as well.Still, Ms. Wiley said on Wednesday that she and Ms. Garcia had made significant strides for women in the city.“We did shatter the glass ceiling,” she said. “The glass ceiling that said that women could not be top-tier candidates. The glass ceiling that said women would be discounted. The glass ceiling that said we can’t be seen as leaders, and I think we demonstrated that is not true.”Ms. Garcia also referred to the glass ceiling in her concession speech, delivered in front of a women’s suffrage monument in Central Park featuring Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth. Ms. Wiley had held a major event earlier in the campaign in front of the statue, appearing alongside Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon.“This campaign has come closer than any other moment in history to breaking that glass ceiling in selecting New York City’s first female mayor,” Ms. Garcia said. “We cracked the hell out of it, and it’s ready to be broken.”While some voters were excited simply to vote for a woman, many others were focused on ideology or experience, and were drawn to Ms. Garcia’s experience as a manager or Ms. Wiley’s progressive values. Michele Bogart, an art history professor in her 60s who lives in Brooklyn, ranked Ms. Garcia first and left Ms. Wiley off her ballot.“She increasingly struck me as a solid, can-do sort of official,” she said of Ms. Garcia.Catt Small, 31, a designer in Brooklyn, voted for Ms. Wiley first and also ranked Ms. Morales and Ms. Taylor on her ballot. After Mr. Adams won, Ms. Small was rethinking whether she should have ranked Ms. Garcia fifth to try and block him.“I ranked so many women and so many women of color on my ballot,” she said. “I was really hopeful that this was going to be the time.”Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley both faced an array of challenges during the campaign. They had some institutional support, but less than Mr. Adams did. They were also not viewed as seriously early on as Mr. Yang, even though he had less experience than they did, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, which analyzes women’s political participation.Some voters also have reservations about electing women to executive jobs like mayor or president, Ms. Walsh said, and those may have come into play. These voters tend to be more comfortable seeing women in legislative roles.“When they’re trying for that top job where the buck stops, there are still gender stereotypes about who can lead,” she said.Voters might also have believed that a male candidate would be tougher on crime. The city has never had a female police commissioner, for instance, though Mr. Adams says he wants to change that. During the campaign, Mr. Adams focused intensely on public safety — the top issue for many voters — and highlighted his experience as a former police captain. And although Ms. Wiley and Ms. Garcia both surged toward the end of the campaign, the momentum came too late to lift them to victory.Ms. Wiley, for example, won early support from the powerful 1199 SEIU union, but progressive leaders like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse her until June. Ms. Garcia did not register high in the polls until she secured endorsements from The New York Times and the New York Daily News in May.Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley faced less overt sexism during the campaign than Ms. Quinn, who lost to Mr. de Blasio in 2013 and was criticized for being unlikable, dowdy and not feminine enough. Ruth W. Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president, faced similar attacks over her appearance when she was the Democratic nominee for mayor in 1997.One notable difference was that more female reporters were covering the race than in the past and they covered gender with more nuance, Ms. Fuchs said.“Gender did not hurt them for the first time in my lifetime,” Ms. Fuchs said of Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley. “The media did not weaponize gender in this race.”The candidates did call out examples of what they viewed as sexism on the campaign trail. Ms. Garcia grew frustrated when Mr. Yang repeatedly said that he wanted to hire her for his administration; she insisted that she wanted to be the mayor, not work for one. Ms. Wiley argued that she was receiving unfair criticism over her ties to Mr. de Blasio instead of being judged on her own record.Ms. Quinn said she thought both women were held to a higher standard than their male rivals. “They had to be more substantive and more competent than the men to even be considered on par,” she said.And ultimately, she suggested, some New Yorkers may simply not have been comfortable voting for a woman.“I don’t know if voters are even aware of it,” Ms. Quinn said. “I think it is for many voters ingrained in their being from having lived in such a sexist society for their entire lives.”But Ms. Sutton, who endorsed Ms. Garcia after she dropped out of the race, said that while she was sad about the outcome, she was confident that a woman would be elected mayor soon.“She was one percentage point away — it’s heartbreaking yet it’s also exhilarating,” she said. “It should make New York power brokers pay attention.”Michael Gold contributed reporting. More

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      Candidates for City Council Reflect a Diverse Shift in Leadership

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      The Council, which is poised to have a majority of women and one of its highest numbers of L.G.B.T.Q. New Yorkers, will be one of the most progressive in the city’s history, with a diversity that mirrors the city it represents.New York City, a global immigration hub, has never had a person of South Asian descent on the City Council. No openly gay Black woman has ever sat among its 51 lawmakers, even as the city has become a beacon for L.G.B.T.Q. people of color. And though women made gains in politics nationwide in the 21st century, their numbers on the City Council actually dropped over the last two decades.But now, with the Council facing significant turnover because of term limits and retirements, New York’s legislative body is poised to be one of the most progressive in the city’s history, with a diversity that mirrors the city it represents.“Across the board, you were seeing a group of candidates that more clearly reflected the people that needed to be represented,” said Tiffany Cabán, a queer Latina and progressive candidate who won her Council primary in Queens. “That’s really huge, and I think that drove a lot of the success.”With some outstanding ballots left to be counted, the Board of Elections released new results for primary elections on Tuesday that paint a clearer picture of the incoming Council. While a number of incumbents won their primary races and are expected to win re-election in November, they are joined by dozens of new faces.They include more than two dozen women, who will be positioned to take a majority of the Council’s seats, for the first time ever. There are several activists from working-class backgrounds, several L.G.B.T.Q. people of color and at least six foreign-born New Yorkers.Many — though not all — of the victors are backed by progressive political groups and lawmakers who hope they can push the city’s policies further to the left.But in trying to advance its agenda, the next Council will have to contend with the considerable powers of the mayor in New York City government. Eric Adams, who won the Democratic primary and is heavily favored in the general election, ran as a business-friendly centrist who rebuffed key progressive policy ideas as out of touch with average New Yorkers.The Council will also be inexperienced, which may give the politically seasoned mayor an upper hand, political experts have said. Fewer than 20 Council members will be incumbents or lawmakers returning to seats they previously held. And four of those won special elections earlier this year and have yet to serve a full term.The current Council speaker, Corey Johnson, is among those leaving office. His replacement, who will play a key role in setting the Council’s agenda and negotiating with the mayor, is not guaranteed to be a progressive.“Honestly, that’s the biggest factor as to whether we are able to execute the things that we campaign on,” Ms. Cabán said. “Will we have a speaker that is going to prioritize that agenda?”The ranked-choice results released on Tuesday are not yet official; there are still affidavit votes to be counted, as well as 880 defective absentee ballots that voters can still resolve within the next week. In races where margins are tight, those votes could shift the outcome, and The Associated Press has not yet called three Democratic City Council primaries.The victors in Democratic primaries will also all have to compete in the general election. But in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one, most of them will be heavily favored.In those races where Democrats are heavily favored in November, 26 of the likely future Council members are women. Three more women are leading in races that have not yet been called. Only 14 women currently serve on the Council.One of the closest contests is in a primary in Harlem, where Kristin Richardson Jordan, a poet and teacher, came from a 525-vote deficit in first-choice votes and ended up 100 votes ahead of the incumbent, Bill Perkins, after a ranked-choice tabulation was run.In a district in Queens where Democrats are hoping to flip the borough’s sole Republican seat on the Council, women are likely to be on both sides of the ballot. Felicia Singh, a former teacher backed by the Working Families Party, was just 440 votes ahead of her opponent, Michael Scala, in the most recent tally. The winner of that primary will face off against Joann Ariola, the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party.If Ms. Singh and Ms. Jordan were to win, they would join more than 20 women of color who are expected to take seats in the next City Council.“It’s not just women,” Sandy Nurse, a carpenter and community organizer who beat an incumbent to win her primary in Brooklyn, pointed out. “There are cross-cutting identities. You’ve got a lot of different identities with a lot of diverse experiences, and that’s significant.”“You’ve got a lot of different identities with a lot of diverse experiences, and that’s significant,” said Sandy Nurse, a City Council candidate in Brooklyn.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesShahana Hanif, a former City Council employee who won her primary in Brooklyn, is expected to be the first Muslim woman elected to the Council in its history. Ms. Hanif, who is Bangladeshi-American, will also be one of the first members of South Asian descent, along with Shekar Krishnan, who won his primary in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst, in Queens.Mr. Krishnan, a civil rights lawyer, said the lack of diversity on the Council was part of what motivated him to run, especially after seeing the pandemic devastate his neighborhood.“Communities like mine, we’ve never had representation in our City Council,” Mr. Krishnan said. “And what means is the voices of our South Asian communities aren’t being heard.”Crystal Hudson, who also won a competitive race in Brooklyn, also said her identity had played a role in her candidacy. She and Ms. Jordan could be the first out gay Black women on the City Council.Ms. Hudson said that as someone who sat at the intersection of several marginalized groups, she saw how the neediest New Yorkers often get left behind.“Every issue is an L.G.B.T.Q. issue. Every issue is a woman’s issue. Every issue is a Black and brown issue,” Ms. Hudson said. “For those of us who live on the margins, we can fully understand and appreciate the value of policy changes that actually impact our day-to-day lives.”She is one of a number of L.G.B.T.Q. candidates expected to take a seat on the City Council next year. They include Ms. Cabán; Chi Ossé, a 23-year-old who won a primary in Brooklyn and would be the youngest person on the new Council; Lynn Schulman, who won a primary in Queens; and Erik Bottcher, who won a decisive victory in Manhattan.Ms. Hudson is also part of the incoming wave of progressive Council members. Of 30 candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party, 14 were on track to win. A number of other candidates, like Ms. Hudson, have adopted progressive policy planks and received endorsements from left-leaning organizations and elected officials.Progressives also scored a victory in the comptroller’s race, where Brad Lander, a City Council member from Brooklyn, was projected to win.At the same time, several races exposed the challenges facing the city’s political left, in which progressive candidates often ran against each other. Ms. Hudson’s chief opponent, Michael Hollingsworth, ran even further to her left and was one of six candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.The six candidates faced significant opposition, including from Common Sense NYC, a pro-business super PAC backed in part by real estate money that purchased ads attacking four of the D.S.A.’s contenders. (The PAC also backed a dozen other candidates who appear to have won their primaries.)Of the six people on the D.S.A. slate, only two appeared headed to victory — Ms. Cabán and Alexa Avilés, both of whom were also backed by the Working Families Party. Ms. Cabán said that she thought the D.S.A. slate was nevertheless successful in setting the agenda in those races.“We build and build and build on all of our organizing efforts,” she said. More

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      The Gavin Newsom Recall Is a Farce

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      After a slow start, California ranks 10th in the nation for coronavirus vaccinations. It’s down to about three cases per 100,000 residents. Its economy is booming. According to Bloomberg, the state “has no peers among developed economies for expanding G.D.P., creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds.” State coffers are flush: The governor’s office estimates a $76 billion budget surplus. The Legislative Analyst’s Office puts it at $38 billion. (The difference turns on the definition of the word “surplus.”) More

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      Eric Adams, Once a Political Outsider, Conquers the Inside Game

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      Mr. Adams won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City by portraying himself as a working-class politician who understood the concerns of average New Yorkers.The morning after winning the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, Eric L. Adams on Wednesday asserted that he had won a mandate to address the urgent struggles of America’s urban working class.As he appeared at a parade celebrating essential workers and toured morning television news shows, Mr. Adams, a former police captain who would be the city’s second Black mayor, sought to cement his image as a man who understands what it is to fear both gun violence and police misconduct. It was one thing to theorize about solving problems of injustice and inequality, he suggested. It was another to experience them as a working-class person of color in New York.“Finally one of your own is going to understand,” Mr. Adams said to a throng of health care workers at a parade.If Mr. Adams sounded, in that moment, like a political outsider, it is because for many years, he was more iconoclast than institutionalist.Mr. Adams was the rebel police officer who agitated against police misconduct from within the force, eventually rising to captain. He was the borough president who attracted more attention for quirky stunts — displaying drowned rats at a news conference to draw attention to a vermin problem, for instance — than for his record on land use policy. And he was the Brooklyn mayoral candidate who lost out on first-place endorsements from prominent Brooklyn-area members of the New York congressional delegation.But in other ways, Mr. Adams emerged in the mayoral contest as something of an establishment figure, earning the support of leading labor unions, locking down key party officials including two fellow borough presidents, and building an old-school Democratic coalition that attracted working-class Black, Latino and some moderate white voters.He was among the most message-disciplined candidates in the race, repeatedly declaring that public safety was the “prerequisite” to prosperity, a pitch that became increasingly resonant amid a spike in violent crime. And he used his personal story of overcoming poverty and police violence to emerge as a credible messenger on urgent issues of safety, justice and inequality.“We don’t live in theory,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader who has known Mr. Adams for decades, pointing to the rise in shootings in cities across the country. “This is not an ivory tower exercise and that’s what worked for Eric.”Despite all of that institutional support and his ultimate victory, Mr. Adams defeated his nearest rival, Kathryn Garcia, by just one percentage point, according to the latest tally of ballots on Tuesday. Ms. Garcia conceded to Mr. Adams on Wednesday, as did the third-place finisher, Maya Wiley, the most left-leaning candidate in the field among the top tier of contenders.He still faces a general election campaign against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, but is expected to win easily because of the city’s overwhelming Democratic tilt — allowing him to already talk of an early transition as he moves toward assembling a government, and to contemplate the significant policy and political challenges that await.Mr. Adams’s victory was, in some ways, a repudiation of the most left-wing forces in the city, even as deeply progressive candidates scored other victories elsewhere on the ballot.A year after the rise of a powerful defund-the-police movement in New York, Mr. Adams won on a message that put public safety at the center of his platform, and he explicitly called for more police in certain scenarios: He supported adding more police to patrol the subways, for example, and backs reconstituting a reformed plainclothes anti-crime squad, even as he has been a vocal critic, for decades, of police abuse.He ran as a business-friendly candidate who did not demonize real estate; on the contrary, Mr. Adams, who owns property himself, once declared, “I am real estate.” And he is supportive of charter schools in some circumstances.But he is not especially ideological and on some social safety net issues, he has taken a much more liberal approach. For instance, he supports an ambitious expansion of the earned-income tax credit.Mr. Adams faces skepticism from the left over his politics, but as he assumes the nomination, he also faces doubts from some Democrats across the ideological spectrum over questions of transparency and ethics.In 2010, when he was a state senator and the chairman of the Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee, a state inspector general report suggested that Mr. Adams had given the “appearance of impropriety” by getting close to a group seeking a casino contract at Aqueduct Racetrack.A review of his fund-raising practices by The New York Times earlier this year showed that he has pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws, though he has not been formally accused of wrongdoing. And the last month of the campaign saw controversies over transparency issues play out concerning his tax and real estate disclosures and even questions of residency, culminating in an extraordinary moment in which Mr. Adams offered journalists a tour of the apartment where he said he lived.Mr. Adams’s formative years in the public eye were spent in the Police Department, where he helped found an organization called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. His efforts inspired some and rankled other colleagues on the force who describe a career trajectory that was more complex than Mr. Adams sometimes suggests.But to this day, some voters remember Mr. Adams from those efforts, which helped him dispatch arguments from opponents that he was overly inclined to embrace policing as an answer to the city’s challenges.“My admiration for him really started when he was a policeman talking about police brutality, and a captain talking about police officers not fulfilling their oath,” said Charles B. Rangel, the former New York congressman, who endorsed Mr. Adams.As an outspoken police officer, Mr. Adams had his share of controversies, too, aligning himself at various times with Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has repeatedly promoted anti-Semitism, and the ex-boxer Mike Tyson after his 1992 rape conviction. Mr. Adams lost a 1994 congressional run, and he was also a registered Republican for a period of time in the 1990s.In 2006, he was elected to the State Senate as a Democrat, part of a wave of Central Brooklyn politicians who came up from outside the party, and in 2013, won an election to be Brooklyn borough president. Mr. Adams, who became an evangelist for veganism after he says he reversed his diabetes by reforming his diet and exercise routines, became known for preparing vegan meals at Borough Hall, and he developed a reputation as a splashy New York character prone to making unexpected remarks and appearances. There was the gruesome rat-related news conference, for instance, or Mr. Adams’s announcement that he, as a former law enforcement officer, would begin bringing a gun to houses of worship after a massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue. “In order to get a message across in New York City, first you have to get people’s attention,” said Evan Thies, an Adams spokesman. “People might look at the spectacle of dead rats at a press conference and be turned off by that, but they’re paying attention, and they’re paying attention to a critical health issue to lower-income people. Why was it on the news? Because Eric forced people to look at something they didn’t want to look at.”There is no question that Mr. Adams has an idiosyncratic streak. But his decades in public life suggest that the likely next mayor of the nation’s largest city also has shrewd instincts and an ability to navigate a politically eclectic set of relationships.Mr. Sharpton noted that Mr. Adams was “literally a founding member” of the National Action Network, Mr. Sharpton’s organization.“At the same time, he was a policeman, able to be friendly with more conservative elements that were not supportive of me,” Mr. Sharpton continued. “He has a way of working with people who don’t work with each other.”In his current role, Mr. Adams has been an enthusiastic promoter of his borough, building deep relationships there with diverse constituencies including Black voters and Orthodox Jewish leaders.But Representative Nydia Velázquez, who backed two of Mr. Adams’s rivals under the city’s ranked-choice voting system, noted that he was not the first choice of the members of Congress who represent much of Brooklyn (though Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking House member in the New York delegation, backed Mr. Adams as his second choice).“He will have a honeymoon with voters, but then people want to know how his administration — what does it mean for them, the ascension of Eric Adams to City Hall?” said Ms. Velázquez, who said she hoped Mr. Adams could have a “more productive” relationship with the delegation moving forward. “That will be measured by the agenda he will be able to tackle.”Mr. Adams’s team is especially focused on ways to use newly available state and federal resources to combat gun violence, and his campaign plans to offer more details on dealing with violence tied to handguns in coming weeks.Mr. Adams said on “Good Day New York” that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made it easier to fight crime with his recent emergency declaration concerning gun violence.“We have to look at the feeders of crime,” he said. “My team is going to sit down and look at the common denominators of those who are committing crimes. If you don’t start targeting what’s feeding crime then we are going to throw good money into a bad scenario.”Mr. Adams said he would go after gang violence in the city, but that he also wants to help crisis management teams and youth organizations trying to prevent violence.He is aware of the skepticism he faces from some on the left. Mr. Adams reached for conciliatory notes on Wednesday, urging New Yorkers to “get over the philosophical differences we have.”“Let’s decide that we must live in a safe city where we educate our children and make sure everyone has an opportunity to prosper in this great city,” he added.Plus, he said, the ride could be fun.“You all would be bored if those other candidates were mayor,” he said. “You guys are going to have so much fun over the next four years.”Almost as to offer proof, Mr. Adams ended his day by fulfilling a rather unorthodox campaign promise he had made to a group of young New Yorkers: He had his left ear pierced. More

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      Kathryn Garcia Concedes in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

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      Ms. Garcia moved up to second place after the latest ranked-choice tally, but still fell one percentage point behind Eric Adams.Kathryn Garcia, a former New York City sanitation commissioner who staged a late charge in the city’s Democratic primary, conceded on Wednesday to Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, after a count of absentee ballots left her trailing him by just 8,400 votes.The location of her concession speech, at the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park, was freighted with meaning.“For 400 years, no woman has held the top seat at City Hall,” said Ms. Garcia, who in Tuesday’s tally lost by one percentage point. “This campaign has come closer than any other moment in history to breaking that glass ceiling in selecting New York City’s first female mayor. We cracked the hell out of it, and it’s ready to be broken, but we have not cracked that glass ceiling.”Ms. Garcia ran on her reputation for managerial competence, offering herself as a counterweight to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who developed a reputation as a sometimes hapless administrator. Her candidacy gained momentum after she was endorsed by The New York Times and The Daily News; a late alliance with a rival candidate, Andrew Yang, likely helped her draw second-place votes from his supporters.Her concession speech contrasted sharply with the sheer ebullience accompanying Mr. Adams’s Wednesday tour of the morning shows.A plainly thrilled Mr. Adams sought to cast himself as the new voice of working-class Democrats in America, a class of voters he suggested had been neglected by the party elite for far too long.Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in New York City, and as the Democratic nominee, Mr. Adams will be an overwhelming favorite against the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, in the November general election.Mr. Adams spent almost no time on Wednesday morning addressing the November election. When asked about Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, Mr. Adams swiftly dismissed him as a single-issue candidate focused on subway crime in a city facing a multitude of complicated issues.Instead, he directed his attention to what his win over 12 other Democratic candidates for mayor might portend for his party.“It’s extremely exciting right now that just an everyday blue-collar worker, I like to say, is going to potentially become the mayor of the City of New York,” Mr. Adams said on CNN.Mr. Adams repeated his argument that Democrats like him are too often ignored by a political party that focuses too much on the ideological debates that drive the conversation on Twitter.“There’s a permanent group of people that are living in systemic poverty,” he said on CBS. “You and I, we go to the restaurant, we eat well, we take our Uber, but that’s not the reality for America and New York. And so when we turn this city around, we’re going to end those inequalities.” More