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      Maya Wiley Has ‘50 Ideas’ and One Goal: To Make History as Mayor

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      Maya Wiley Has ‘50 Ideas’ and One Goal: To Make History as MayorMs. Wiley has unveiled an array of policies to fight inequality as she seeks to become the first woman elected mayor of New York. Can she break out of the pack?Maya Wiley, at a vaccine sign-up in Brooklyn last month, is a civil rights lawyer who has focused her mayoral campaign on addressing inequality and systemic racism.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the fourth in a series of profiles of the major candidates.May 19, 2021If there was a single moment that captured the essence of Maya Wiley’s campaign for New York City mayor, the Women for Maya launch was it.She sat on a folding chair in Central Park at the event earlier this month, at the foot of a statue depicting three historical figures of women’s suffrage. To her immediate right was Representative Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress; to her left was Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon.Since entering the mayor’s race last year, Ms. Wiley had underscored how it was time for a woman — a Black woman — to finally lead New York, someone who understood the concerns of those who struggled even before the pandemic and who are worried that the recovery is leaving them behind.“You will no longer tell us we are not qualified,” Ms. Wiley said, before starting to chant “We lead!” with a crowd of supporters who gathered at the event.Ms. Wiley, 57, offers a mix of experience — she served as a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and led the Civilian Complaint Review Board — and a dose of celebrity: As a prominent analyst for MSNBC, she won the attention of its left-leaning viewership and sparked enthusiasm that she could become the standard-bearer for New York’s progressive left.Her comfort level with the on-the-fly jousting seen on cable news shows seemed to give her an advantage last week in the first official Democratic debate, as she repeatedly challenged Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who is one of the contest’s front-runners.Three days later, she landed a key endorsement from Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the state’s highest-ranking House member. His support is expected to help Ms. Wiley with a key constituency Mr. Adams is also vying for: Black voters, especially from central Brooklyn.Ms. Wiley was endorsed by 1199 S.E.I.U., the city’s largest labor union, which represents health care workers, many of whom are women of color. She speaks often about making sure women are not left behind in the recovery.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIf Ms. Wiley has a path to victory in the June 22 primary, it will also largely be paved by women. She has the support of the city’s largest labor union, Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 200,000 health care workers, many of whom are women of color. And she has the backing of Ms. Velázquez and Representative Yvette Clarke, two powerful congressional leaders in Brooklyn.She hopes to capitalize on the sexual misconduct allegations that were recently lodged against her chief rival for progressive voters in the Democratic primary, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; Ms. Wiley called on Mr. Stringer to withdraw from the race, and she has picked up some of the endorsements he has lost.Her campaign is centered on a series of policy proposals that reflect her progressive values. She wants to cut $1 billion from the police budget and trim at least 2,250 officers. She wants to help poor families pay for child care by offering $5,000 grants to caregivers and building community centers with free child care. And she wants to create a $10 billion Works Progress Administration-style jobs program that funds infrastructure repairs and other projects.But she has yet to fully energize the left-wing of the party that she is trying to win over; she upset some activists by distancing herself from the defund the police slogan; she can also sound at times like her former boss, Mr. de Blasio, whose popularity has fallen sharply in his second and final term.Unlike Mr. Stringer and Mr. Adams, who have said they had always wanted to be mayor, Ms. Wiley readily acknowledges that running for office was never a lifelong ambition. She says she long believed she was more effective, and more natural, at pressuring elected officials from the outside.“I literally never thought I would run for public office, and I mean never,” she said in an interview. “It was not on my bucket list. I’ve been a civil rights lawyer and advocate my whole career, and politics is not appealing. What I wanted to make was change.”She said that her outlook began to shift several years ago, when her teenage daughter came to her almost in tears, worried she would be unable to pay rent in New York City while pursuing a career as a graphic novelist and illustrator. Ms. Wiley said the exchange brought home how increasingly unaffordable the city had become.“That was an emotional gut-punch moment that really stayed with me,” she said.While politics was not necessarily in Ms. Wiley’s blood, a commitment to social justice was.Ms. Wiley worked as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s counsel and served as chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Her father, a prominent civil rights leader, founded the National Welfare Rights Organization.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAt the event in Central Park, Ms. Steinem spoke about working with Ms. Wiley’s father, George Wiley, a prominent civil rights activist, in the 1970s.He founded the National Welfare Rights Organization and paid attention to “women in poverty as the single most important indicator of the country’s welfare when no other male spokesperson was doing that,” Ms. Steinem said.“I’m so sorry that Maya lost him young, but his spirit is in her,” she said.‘We had to find a way to live’The sudden death of Ms. Wiley’s father was especially traumatic.Mr. Wiley had taken his two children, Daniel and Maya, sailing off Chesapeake Beach, Md., on a summer day in 1973. The winds and seas were rough, and Mr. Wiley fell from the 23-foot pleasure craft into the Chesapeake Bay.His children threw him a line, but the tides and wind pulled him away, according to an Associated Press account of the episode. Days later, memorial services for Mr. Wiley, 42, were held across the nation.Ms. Wiley often speaks of her father’s death as a formative experience that shaped her and taught her a hard lesson in grief and perseverance. At her campaign kick-off event on the steps of the Brooklyn Museum in October, Ms. Wiley compared her loss to families who had watched a relative die from the coronavirus and could not hold them one last time.“My brother and I — two little kids, 9 and 10 years old — alone on a boat after watching the waves wash away our father, we had to find a way to live,” she said.She described how they found their way to the shore, and how the white beachgoers they encountered did not help them. They went from house to house asking for help until someone called the police.The seeming indifference from the people on the beach stayed with her. The experience, she told Bloomberg Opinion, made her realize that “racism is a deep illness.”Other parts of her biography often come up on the campaign trail. Ms. Wiley’s mother, Wretha, grew up in Abilene, Texas, and came to New York to attend Union Theological Seminary. Her parents met at Syracuse University and moved to the Lower East Side, where Ms. Wiley lived briefly as a baby, before they left for Washington.When she talks about education, Ms. Wiley notes that attending a segregated school as a child informed her thinking on the issue. She led a high-profile school diversity panel that in 2019 called for integrating city schools by eliminating gifted and talented programs.Yet when she is asked about fixing the city’s segregated school system, she has been vague at times, seeming cautious and political. Asked if she was afraid of talking about a combustible issue, Ms. Wiley pushed back.“I’m a kid who went to a segregated Black elementary school when I was young and was two years behind grade level despite the fact that my parents had collectively over eight years of graduate education between them,” she said.“I’m not afraid of third rails,” she added. “I wouldn’t be running for mayor if I was.”After her father’s death, Ms. Wiley moved to a private school where she caught up with her peers. She graduated from Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School. As a young lawyer, she worked as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for two years, as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for three years and at the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a fellowship.The job she held the longest was at the Center for Social Inclusion, a nonprofit she founded after the Sept. 11 attacks as a young mother “sitting in my living room with a baby in a bouncy seat.” She built it into a national organization dedicated to addressing racial inequity, with a $3 million annual budget and 13 employees.“As she came into her own, she opted not to go to a big private law firm, but to commit herself to public service,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who expressed admiration for Ms. Wiley’s dedication to social justice when she could have taken a different path. “She was progressive before the term was fashionable.”Ms. Wiley was in the running to lead the N.A.A.C.P., but withdrew from contention after joining Mr. de Blasio’s administration.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesA rocky experience inside city governmentMs. Wiley had never met Mr. de Blasio when she wrote a piece for The Nation magazine about broadband internet access that caught his attention. He invited her to three long get-to-know-you meetings at City Hall.She had been in the running to lead the N.A.A.C.P., but agreed to join Mr. de Blasio’s administration in 2014 as his chief legal adviser. She was proud to be the first Black woman to hold the job, and joked early on that her main goal was to “keep him out of jail.”Ms. Wiley, even in jest, was somewhat prescient: Mr. de Blasio was investigated for questionable fund-raising practices, leading Ms. Wiley to help craft the administration’s legal response. She also became known for her role in what became known as the “agents of the city” controversy, when she argued unsuccessfully in 2016 that Mr. de Blasio’s emails with outside advisers should be private.Ms. Wiley helped form Mr. de Blasio’s argument that communications with outside advisers should be as immune from public scrutiny as those of any city employee, even though many of the advisers also represented clients with business before the city.John Kaehny, executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany, said the efforts to hide the mayor’s emails were “desperate, doomed and destructive” and undermined Freedom of Information laws and ethics rules.“Agents of the city was a giant blunder by her and de Blasio and hopefully she learned from her mistakes,” he said.Ms. Wiley has gone to great lengths to say that her administration would be more transparent than Mr. de Blasio’s. She says that it was her job to provide the mayor with legal advice and it was his decision whether to follow that advice..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Those emails would have been public if I was the decision maker,” she said at a mayoral forum.Not long after the episode, Ms. Wiley resigned and became chairwoman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the agency that investigates police misconduct.While Ms. Wiley points to her time there as valuable experience in learning how to tackle police reform, groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union say she was too secretive about the disciplinary process and too sluggish in confronting the Police Department. The current chairman, the Rev. Fred Davie, has been more outspoken on issues like repealing 50-a, a law that until recently kept officer disciplinary records secret.Her experience at City Hall and the watchdog agency has enabled Ms. Wiley to argue that she knows city government, but it also ties her to Mr. de Blasio.As counsel to Mr. de Blasio, Ms. Wiley was known for her role in the “agents of the city” battle, when she tried to keep the mayor’s emails with outside advisers private.Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesMs. Wiley, like Mr. de Blasio, has been known to speak about inequality in broad terms. When she described homelessness as a public safety issue during a recent appearance on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC show, Mr. Lehrer shared a response from a listener: “de Blasio 2.0.”Ms. Wiley argues that women should not be judged by the men they worked for. She praised Mr. de Blasio’s achievements like universal prekindergarten and criticized him over his handling of the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014.“Women should not be defined by anything other than their record,” she said. “I’m not running against Bill de Blasio.”A push to ‘reimagine’ New YorkAs protests over police brutality rocked the nation last summer, Ms. Wiley gained attention on MSNBC for her clearheaded explanations of why some activists wanted to defund the police.Her national exposure created excitement when she entered the race, but also the expectation that she would catch fire as the leading progressive candidate. That has not happened for a variety of reasons.“This is a race that has a lot of progressive options,” said Eric Phillips, a former press secretary for Mr. de Blasio. “I think it’s natural that there would be real competition and one candidate wouldn’t automatically own that lane.”Ms. Wiley must prove that she can energize the left-wing of the party and be the most viable candidate to take on the two more moderate front-runners, Andrew Yang, the former presidential hopeful, and Mr. Adams. She is often in third or fourth place in the polls, along with Mr. Stringer.Ms. Wiley would cut $1 billion from the police budget, and hire a police commissioner from outside the department.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesBut the accusations lodged against Mr. Stringer have created some room for momentum: The powerful Working Families Party had named Mr. Stringer as its first choice for mayor, but withdrew the endorsement after the sexual misconduct allegations. The group is now supporting Ms. Wiley and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive and the most left-leaning candidate in the race.Still, Mr. Stringer has a major fund-raising advantage: He has more than $7 million to pour into television ads. Ms. Wiley has about $2.5 million on hand.Mr. Sharpton said he believed that Ms. Wiley could make a “late surge” once more voters start tuning into the race. He is considering endorsing one of several of the candidates trying to become the city’s second Black mayor — Ms. Wiley, Mr. Adams, or Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive — if Mr. Sharpton believes he could help one of them win, according to a person who is familiar with his thinking.To differentiate herself from some of her rivals, Ms. Wiley has been rolling out her “50 Ideas for NYC,” a new plan every day focused on issues like reducing the Black maternal mortality rate. Her most ambitious proposal is called “New Deal New York,” which involves spending $10 billion to help the city recover from the pandemic and to create 100,000 jobs. Her universal community care plan would make 100,000 families eligible for a $5,000 annual grant to care for children and older people. She also wants to hire 2,500 new teachers to lower class sizes.As concerns have grown about violent crime, she released a policing and public safety plan that includes hiring a civilian police commissioner and creating a new commission to decide whether to fire officers accused of misconduct. She was early in urging Mr. de Blasio to fire his police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, after his aggressive response to last year’s protests.Yet she has also distanced herself from the defund slogan, saying the term “means different things to different people.” In contrast, Ms. Morales has embraced the movement and pledged to slash the $6 billion police budget in half — a stance that has endeared her to left-leaning voters, less so to more moderate ones.At the same time, some business and civic leaders fear that Ms. Wiley is too liberal; in a poll of business leaders, Ms. Wiley was near last place with just 3 percent. They also question whether Ms. Wiley has enough experience as a manager to run a sprawling bureaucracy with a $98 billion budget.“Maya is terrific, but business is looking for a manager, not an advocate,” said Kathryn Wylde, the leader of a prominent business group.At the moment, Ms. Wiley is simply looking to connect to as many voters as she can, in person and on social media, where she posts campaign diaries recorded at home.She lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, with her partner, Harlan Mandel, in an elegant house built in the Prairie School architectural style made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. They have two daughters, Naja, 20, and Kai, 17. Ms. Wiley is Christian and Mr. Mandel is Jewish, and they belong to Kolot Chayeinu, a reform congregation in Park Slope.The last woman who came close to being mayor, Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker, said she regretted that she tried to soften her hard-charging personality during her campaign. Her advice for Ms. Wiley was to be herself.“The thing voters hate the most is someone who is not authentic,” Ms. Quinn said. “Maya needs to be exactly who she is.”Who Ms. Wiley is, she said in an interview, is the daughter of civil rights activists who will fight to make the city more fair.“I have been someone committed to racial justice and transformation my entire career,” Ms. Wiley said. “And that means bringing us all back, every single one of us, and not just back to January 2020, but to reimagine this city.” More

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      Philadelphia’s Progressive District Attorney Fends Off Democratic Challenger

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      Larry Krasner, part of a new breed of prosecutors, easily defeated Carlos Vega in Tuesday’s primary in spite of a rise in gun crime.Philadelphia’s district attorney, Larry Krasner, won the Democratic nomination in his re-election campaign on Tuesday, easily fending off a challenge from a former prosecutor who had argued that Mr. Krasner was making the city less safe.Voters were unconvinced by that argument. When The Associated Press called the race late Tuesday night, Mr. Krasner was ahead of his rival, Carlos Vega, by almost 40,000 votes.Throughout his campaign, Mr. Krasner argued that a 40 percent increase in homicides in Philadelphia last year had nothing to do with his progressive policies, pointing to cities with more traditional prosecutors that had experienced similar trends during the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Krasner does not prosecute some low-level offenses, such as drug possession and prostitution, and has sought more lenient sentences than his predecessors.In a speech to supporters on Tuesday night at a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, Mr. Krasner said he had been re-elected because he had kept his promises, and he claimed a mandate from the voters most affected by serious crime.“We in this movement for criminal justice reform just won a big one,” he said.Mr. Krasner’s convincing victory, achieved in spite of a sharp increase in gun crime in Philadelphia over the past two years, may indicate that the appeal of progressive prosecutors will hold steady for voters even as public safety becomes a more pressing issue.Mr. Krasner acknowledged that in his victory remarks.“We hear all this talk about how somehow progressive prosecution can’t survive,” he said. “That’s not what I see. What I see is that traditional prosecution can’t survive.”Mr. Vega acknowledged his loss in a tweet shortly before midnight on Tuesday, saying, “It looks like tonight we did not get the result we wanted, but even in defeat we have grace & we smile.”He thanked his supporters and expressed his own support for the victims of crimes. A spokesman for his campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.As in his first campaign, in which he ran against six other candidates, Mr. Krasner, 60, won significant support from Black voters in the northern and western parts of the city. Those neighborhoods have been the most affected by gun violence, and were places where Mr. Vega, 64, had hoped to make inroads.“Black voters — and not just Black voters — believe that change is necessary and that the direction that Larry Krasner is taking is the right direction,” said State Senator Vincent J. Hughes, who represents several of those neighborhoods. “This is not a close victory. It is an affirmation that we have to go in a different direction in the pursuit of justice.”Enthusiasm for what used to be a low-turnout race remained high. When all the votes are counted, including mail-in ballots, turnout will almost certainly be higher than it was four years ago, when 155,000 people voted in the Democratic primary.Mr. Vega, a longtime homicide prosecutor, was among the first employees whom Mr. Krasner fired after taking over the district attorney’s office in 2018. Mr. Vega argued that the leniency of Mr. Krasner’s policies had led to the increase in crime.Criminologists said there would be no way to prove Mr. Vega’s assertions. David S. Abrams, a professor of law and economics at the University of Pennsylvania who has tracked crime statistics across the country over the past year, said any theory would have to take into account both the rise in homicides and shootings and the overall decline in crime, at least through 2020.“It’s a mystery,” he said. “There are a ton of theories, almost none of which fit all the facts.”Mr. Vega received ample support from the police, whose powerful union poured tens of thousands of dollars into his campaign and tarred Mr. Krasner as soft on crime at every opportunity.Mr. Krasner won office four years ago as part of a new breed of progressive prosecutors. In addition to upholding his campaign pledge not to prosecute low-level crimes, he lowered the number of people in the city’s jail by more than 30 percent.That approach won him approval from voters but also a significant amount of criticism, particularly from former prosecutors and even some of his own employees. Thomas Mandracchia, who worked for Mr. Krasner for about two years, said the district attorney’s insistence on firing so many experienced lawyers had contributed to an office plagued by disorganization. But none of those criticisms appeared to put a dent in Mr. Krasner’s support on Tuesday.In November’s general election, Mr. Krasner will face Charles Peruto Jr., a Republican defense lawyer who has campaigned on a strong message of public safety, saying that it is more important than civil rights. Mr. Peruto has called Mr. Krasner’s tenure “a disgrace” and said he would drop out of the race if Mr. Vega won. More

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      We Interviewed the N.Y.C. Mayor Candidates. Here’s What We Learned.

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      We asked the eight leading Democrats running for mayor of New York City about the pandemic, policing and where they like to go out to eat. Here’s an overview.We interviewed the leading Democratic candidates running for mayor about the most pressing concerns facing New York City as it recovers from the pandemic.We also asked them about their favorite restaurants and their sports allegiances.Voters are still getting to know the crowded field of candidates ahead of the June 22 primary. They come from unique backgrounds and have differing visions for the city on issues that include policing, transit, climate and education.Here’s a glimpse of what we learned (and you can view the full videos here):1. They are keenly focused on leading the city’s economic recovery.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesAs the end of the pandemic comes into focus, many of the mayoral candidates are centering their pitch around the idea that they can lead New York into a period of greater equity and prosperity than the city experienced before the shutdown.For some of the candidates, that means a focus on small businesses and ensuring that the institutions that make New York so culturally vibrant — restaurants and Broadway, for example — have sufficient support to reopen.“The first thing I would do to help New York City recover from the pandemic is really make sure we are investing in our small businesses and that we are bringing back the things that differentiate us from the rest of the country,” said Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner. “Art, culture, restaurants. When they’re strong, that means offices are strong and that means that tourism comes back.”That view was echoed by several of the contenders. Some also emphasized the importance of reopening the city quickly and safely.“We should get our artists, our musicians, our restaurants, filling our vacant storefronts, filling our public spaces,” said Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, “and make sure every New Yorker and the world knows that we’re alive and fun and the city to be in again.”Or as Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, put it: “The first thing we have to do to help New York City recover is let people know that New York City is open for business.”2. Surprise! No one named Bill de Blasio as the best mayor in their lifetime.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMany New Yorkers will not miss Mayor Bill de Blasio when he leaves office early next year.None of the candidates named him as the best mayor in their lifetime. Instead, many pointed to Michael R. Bloomberg and David N. Dinkins.Ms. Garcia named Mr. Bloomberg, citing “his focus on the data.” Maya Wiley, a former civil rights lawyer, said Mr. Dinkins, who died last year, “was my hero” and cared about all New Yorkers.Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, named both: Mr. Dinkins for bringing the city together as a “gorgeous mosaic,” and Mr. Bloomberg who was “effective at leading and managing the city,” though Mr. McGuire criticized his focus on stop-and-frisk policing.Mr. Yang named Ed Koch, citing “his optimism and spirit,” while Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, cited both Mr. Koch and Mr. Dinkins.3. Only one candidate supports the slogan “defund the police.”Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesDianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, is the only candidate who fully embraced the “defund the police” movement.Ms. Morales described how her children were pepper sprayed by the police at a protest at Barclays Center last summer and how her son was physically assaulted. She suggested that she supports an eventual goal of abolishing the police.“We know that policing does not equal public safety — that communities that are most heavily policed are in fact the most at risk and the most harmed,” she said.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said the term defund was not helpful and could “stop the forward movement we’re looking for.”Mr. Yang said the slogan “unfortunately seems very absolutist,” but he does support channeling more resources to mental-health response teams.Other candidates called for cuts to the police budget and other reforms: Ms. Wiley said the police department should have fewer officers; Mr. Stringer said officers should not handle 911 calls for mental health emergencies.4. Left-wing vs. centrist, insider vs. outsiderTony Cenicola/The New York TimesOn any number of key matters, the candidates were in broad agreement: The city, in their view, does have an important role to play in confronting systemic racism; combating issues including traffic congestion and climate change should be top priorities for the next mayor; the city must reopen quickly and safely, and for some contenders, there are growing concerns around crime.But real differences were also evident, both in terms of management style and ideology. Ms. Morales emerged as the most left-wing candidate in the field, on issues including public safety and “austerity,” warning against it as she sketched out an expansive public infrastructure program. Mr. Stringer and Ms. Wiley often took positions that also aligned them further to the left of other candidates.Mr. Yang, Ms. Garcia, Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire tended toward the more centrist side of the spectrum in discussing policing and economic development.But for many of the candidates, the sharpest contrasts had less to do with politics than with experience. Ms. Garcia, Mr. Donovan and Mr. Stringer in particular are running as résumé candidates, citing their deep experience in government — at the city level for Ms. Garcia and Mr. Stringer and at the federal level for Mr. Donovan.To varying degrees, Mr. Yang, Ms. Wiley, Mr. McGuire and Ms. Morales are seeking to run as less traditional candidates who emphasize their experiences outside of government, while Mr. Adams highlights both his experience in government and his work as a police officer..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The race will test both the city’s ideological mood, and whether voters want a seasoned government insider or someone promising to shake up the system as an outsider.5. Some avoided picking a second-choice candidate.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesNew Yorkers will use ranked-choice voting in the mayoral election for the first time this year, ranking up to five candidates in their order of preference.That could lead to alliances among the candidates, though some were not ready to reveal whom they might rank second.Ms. Wiley named Ms. Morales as her second choice, citing her “real lived experience” as a person of color in New York City.Mr. Yang named Ms. Garcia and described her as a “disciplined operator with great experience,” and said he would like to work with her in his administration — comments that he has made before and that have frustrated Ms. Garcia, who says she wants the top job.“Kathryn, if you’re watching this, Kathryn, let’s team up,” Mr. Yang said laughing.Mr. Adams said he liked several candidates and was talking to them about a pact to rank each other second.“That is a secret,” he said with a smile.6. Three candidates would accept Governor Cuomo’s endorsement.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesGov. Andrew M. Cuomo has faced calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment and his handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic.Still, Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Mr. McGuire said they would accept his endorsement.“I believe strongly in the due process system,” Mr. Adams said, adding that if leaders sidestep that process then “we are on a slippery slope.”Mr. Yang said that the governor’s endorsement would be “positive for New York City” and “a clear signal that the city and state’s interests are aligned.”Ms. Wiley said she was not seeking the governor’s support.“I stand by my request that Governor Cuomo step down and resign because we can’t afford any of our people to doubt the integrity of our public servants,” she said.7. The candidates have bold policies. They also have some restaurant recommendations.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe contenders sketched out extensive, sometimes sharply divergent, policy visions on issues including how to balance economic development with community concerns and the best ways to address educational losses from the pandemic.But they also showed how they would use the bully pulpit of the mayoralty to root for New York City culture, parks and nightlife, ticking through their favorite restaurants, Broadway shows, city green spaces (a Central Park-versus-Prospect Park battle line emerged) and sports teams.From sushi at Amber on the Upper West Side (Mr. Stringer’s favorite) to “a little hole in the wall in Fort Greene” called Dino (Ms. Morales’s choice); pizza at Corner Slice in Hell’s Kitchen for Mr. Yang or a meal at Red Rooster in Harlem for Mr. McGuire, they all appeared eager for a less wonky, but vitally important aspect of the job: cheerleading for the city. More

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      With Violence Rising, Can a Gentler Prosecutor Keep His Seat?

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      PHILADELPHIA — When Larry Krasner was elected Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2017, his story made him one of the most visible of a new wave of progressive prosecutors: A lawyer who had sued the police for civil rights violations 75 times had become a top law enforcement official in one of America’s largest cities.Mr. Krasner promised to stop prosecuting drug possession and prostitution and to hold the police accountable for misconduct. But even as he wrote a triumphal book about his election and starred in a PBS documentary series, homicides and gun violence in Philadelphia were rising to levels not seen since the 1990s.Now Mr. Krasner, 60, is facing a primary challenge from a veteran prosecutor he fired, who is arguing that Mr. Krasner has made the city less safe.Public concern about racism and overincarceration in the criminal justice system during the past decade drove progressive prosecutors like Mr. Krasner, who promote less punitive approaches, into office. But that was after a long period of declining crime. Philadelphia’s Democratic primary on Tuesday poses a test of whether such candidates can continue to win elections when gun violence has risen in cities around the country.The police have seized upon the statistics to promote Mr. Krasner’s opponent, Carlos Vega, 64. Earlier this month, the police union parked a soft-serve ice cream truck outside the district attorney’s office to emphasize that Mr. Krasner had been soft on crime. (In response, Mr. Krasner’s campaign released a statement of support from Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry’s.)The union has given $25,200 to Mr. Vega’s campaign and has encouraged Republican voters to register as Democrats in order to vote Mr. Krasner out. Minutes after the candidates concluded their only televised debate in early May, a car streaked down Spruce Street, its rear window embossed with the message, “All Real Cops Agree. Fire Krasner.”Eight people were wounded by gunfire outside a transit station in Philadelphia in February. The city’s homicides rose 40 percent last year.Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressIn his first election, Mr. Krasner attracted a coalition of young progressives, labor unions and moderate Black voters. His road to victory has not changed. But the math may have: According to the state, more than 6,300 Republicans in Philadelphia County have become Democrats in the aftermath of the presidential election, which could mean an influx of more conservative primary voters. (That said, Mr. Krasner won his first primary by a margin of nearly 28,000 votes while running against six other Democrats.)Opponents hope that the sharp rise in gun crime over the last two years has made Mr. Krasner vulnerable. Overall, violent crime is down in Philadelphia. But between 2019 and 2020, the number of homicides rose from 356 to 499, a 40 percent increase.Mr. Krasner blames the pandemic. Mr. Vega blames Mr. Krasner.“We are arresting people with guns and there are no consequences,” Mr. Vega said. “There is a revolving door.”He said he would take a more aggressive approach toward what he said was a small group of people that were causing the violence, and would prosecute violent crimes more harshly than his opponent.Criminologists said it would be impossible to substantiate the claim that Mr. Krasner’s policies had led to more gun crime. They point out that gun violence rose sharply in many cities last year, regardless of whether their prosecutors were considered progressive.Theories for the rise in gun violence include pandemic-related factors like a halt to social services and a slowdown in the court system. Another possible factor could be a police pullback in the face of increased public scrutiny, said Richard Berk, a professor of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, who cautioned against jumping to conclusions.Mr. Vega, a prosecutor for more than three decades, was fired by Mr. Krasner when he took office.Caroline Gutman for The New York TimesMr. Krasner said the pandemic had offered an opportunity for “a throwback culture” to “claw its way back in.” But he said that the tough-on-crime posturing of previous district attorneys had been “nonsense.”“There’s absolutely no scientific support for the notion that all that ranting and raving about the death penalty ever made anybody even a little bit safer,” he said.Mr. Krasner announced his first run in 2017, weeks after Donald J. Trump’s presidential inauguration. Amanda McIllmurray, a progressive organizer in Philadelphia, said that Mr. Krasner, who had no experience as a prosecutor, was seen as someone who might counter the president’s emphasis on law and order.“He really gave a lot of people hope at a time where we were feeling a lot of despair,” she said.Once in office, Mr. Krasner fired more than two dozen veterans including Mr. Vega, who had been a prosecutor for more than three decades.Mr. Krasner also lowered the number of people in the city’s jail by more than 30 percent, stopped prosecuting some low-level crimes and asked judges for less severe sentences.But even some of his supporters say that he can be tactless and reluctant to accept criticism, and that he has backed away from promises to eliminate cash bail and to stop holding juveniles in adult jails.“We’re at the point now where he’s not open to being challenged on how he can do better from leftists,” said A’Brianna Morgan, a police and prison abolitionist.Mr. Krasner attracted a coalition of young progressives, labor unions and moderate Black voters to win in 2017.Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressMr. Krasner said that he had done a good job getting rid of “dumb, low bails for broke people on nonserious offenses,” but that he was restricted by bail laws on more serious crime, and that he had resolved a vast majority of juvenile cases in juvenile court.And he has cast Mr. Vega as an embodiment of the establishment he sought to upend. He points to Mr. Vega’s role in the retrial of Anthony Wright, a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder and spent 25 years in prison before his conviction was vacated.The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, then led by Seth Williams, mounted a new trial of Mr. Wright, making him the only client of the Innocence Project ever to be retried after DNA evidence indicated his innocence. Mr. Vega was one of the prosecutors in the retrial.Mr. Vega said that it had not been his decision to retry the case but that he thought the witness testimony had been strong enough to do so. (Mr. Wright was found innocent.)Peter Neufeld, a founder of the Innocence Project, said that Mr. Vega’s actions during the retrial had been unethical and that he had misled the public about the extent of his involvement.Mr. Vega is backed by more than a hundred of his fellow ex-prosecutors, including Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia district attorney who later became the mayor of Philadelphia and the governor of Pennsylvania.He is also supported by a number of victims’ family members who feel that Mr. Krasner has been too lenient. Among them is Aleida Garcia, whose son was murdered in 2015. Mr. Vega handled the case until 2018, at which point Mr. Krasner fired him without alerting the family. Though her son’s killer was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Ms. Garcia was frustrated by the way Mr. Krasner’s office handled the case.“The victims don’t have a lot of say,” she said.Supporters of Mr. Vega, who is backed by Ed Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor.Caroline Gutman for The New York TimesMr. Krasner is relying on the coalition that backed him four years ago, including more support from a PAC associated with George Soros, which poured $1.7 million into his first race. He has raised $887,000 since Mr. Vega entered the race. Mr. Vega has raised $734,000. The winner of the Democratic primary will be heavily favored in the November general election against the Republican candidate, Charles Peruto Jr., a defense lawyer who says that public safety is more important than civil rights. Mr. Peruto has said he will drop out of the race if Mr. Vega wins the primary.A test for Mr. Vega will be if he can cut into Mr. Krasner’s support in neighborhoods where the gun violence is taking place, including the northern and western parts of the city. State Senator Vincent J. Hughes, whose district includes several neighborhoods experiencing violence, said he expected his constituents to continue to support Mr. Krasner and oppose the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, or F.O.P.“They see Larry Krasner as not being afraid of the F.O.P., not being afraid to work toward justice in the truest sense of the word,” he said.Mr. Krasner said he knew that he could not claim a perfect record. He described sidewalk encounters in which voters referred to him as “trying to be fair,” saying that the phrasing initially puzzled him.“I could not figure out why the hell they were saying ‘trying,’” he said. “But when I heard it time and time again, I finally came to the conclusion that the reason they’re saying that is they don’t expect you to be perfect. They know you’re going to mess it up some of the time. They just can’t even believe you’re trying.” More

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      Maya Wiley Lands Major Endorsement From Rep. Hakeem Jeffries

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      Mr. Jeffries, New York’s top House Democrat, said he intended to engage in significant efforts on Ms. Wiley’s behalf, including making campaign appearances with her.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the state’s highest-ranking House Democrat, is throwing his support to Maya D. Wiley in the race for mayor of New York City, a significant endorsement at a critical juncture in the race.The decision by Mr. Jeffries, who is the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, comes at an inflection point both for Ms. Wiley and in the volatile race more broadly, nearly five weeks before the June 22 primary that is likely to decide the next mayor.“This is a change election, and Maya Wiley is a change candidate,” Mr. Jeffries, who could become the first Black House speaker, said in an interview on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, is fresh off an assertive debate performance in which she repeatedly sought to put Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, on the defensive. Mr. Adams and Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, have generally been regarded as the two leading contenders, with Ms. Wiley trailing in the sparse public polling available.Still, she has acquired a number of notable endorsements, including the backing of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. An endorsement from Mr. Jeffries, coupled with her debate performance and the start of her advertising campaign, may bolster her efforts to introduce herself to voters and to gain steam in the final weeks before the primary.“Maya’s life experiences, if she can get out and tell that story, will be particularly compelling,” Mr. Jeffries said. “An African-American woman who lost her father at a very young age but rallied back from that adversity to follow in her father’s footsteps as a civil rights champion is a quintessential change candidate.”Mr. Jeffries is expected to appear with Ms. Wiley on Sunday at Restoration Plaza in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. He said he intended to engage in significant efforts on her behalf, with hopes to campaign with Ms. Wiley as well as with Representatives Yvette Clarke and Nydia Velázquez, who have also endorsed her candidacy. Notably, those three lawmakers, who all represent slices of Brooklyn, did not side with Mr. Adams, a fellow elected official and a veteran of the borough’s politics. Their endorsements of Ms. Wiley may be seen as blows to Mr. Adams as he seeks to consolidate his own support. Mr. Adams and Mr. Jeffries have found themselves on opposing sides of a number of political battles over the years.Asked about some of those dynamics, Mr. Jeffries said that “my respect and relationship with Eric Adams at the present moment is a strong one, and I wish him the very best.”Ms. Wiley, one of the more left-leaning candidates in the race, said she had heard from Mr. Jeffries on Friday night, adding that he, along with Ms. Clarke and Ms. Velázquez, were “leaders whose constituents trust them, respect them, and they move votes.”“To have Hakeem Jeffries standing up with me saying, ‘This is my candidate,’ is hugely impactful in a critically important part of this city to win for anyone who wants to be mayor of New York City,” she added.In the June primary, New Yorkers will be able to rank up to five mayoral candidates, and Mr. Jeffries indicated that he might reveal other rankings of his choices for mayor but said he had not yet reached a decision on how he would proceed.In the interview, he sketched out a detailed map of what he saw as Ms. Wiley’s path to victory, though certainly, with a crowded field of candidates, there is significant competition for every major political constituency in New York.“I expect that Eric Adams and Maya Wiley will perform the best in the communities of central Brooklyn, as well as in other traditionally African-American neighborhoods throughout the city of New York,” Mr. Jeffries said, going on to note Ms. Wiley’s potential in “both traditionally African-American communities” and parts of the city that are home to many white liberals, mentioning neighborhoods like Chelsea, in Manhattan, and progressive Brooklyn enclaves. “That’s a pretty powerful electoral pathway, if the campaign can continue to put it together over the next few weeks,” he said.Some rival Democrats have feared the prospect of a late surge from Ms. Wiley, and the coming weeks will test her ability to execute on that possibility.“Every day I will be out to speak, and we will be making sure that our message is getting out both on television and on radio,” she said. “People are starting to turn their attention to this race in earnest and we’re going to make sure they know who I am and what I stand for and what I’m going to do.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Jeffries said that at a policy level, he was drawn to Ms. Wiley’s promises to lead an equitable economic recovery coming out of the pandemic. Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer, speaks often of “reimagining” New York, a city marked by significant racial and economic inequality.“Those communities who have been hurt the most in terms of an economic crisis have often been helped the least,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Those communities that have been hurt the least have often been helped the most. It seems to me that Maya Wiley is the person to make sure that this time will be different.”In recent weeks, issues of violent crime have moved to the forefront of the mayor’s race, amid a significant spike in shootings and a number of high-profile attacks in the subways. Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have been especially direct about the role they believe the police can play in restoring calm, even as they also support combating police misconduct.Ms. Wiley released a plan to combat gun violence months ago. But she has also supported reallocating $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s funding “to fund investments in alternatives to policing,” her campaign said. And she has resisted the idea of adding more police officers to patrol the subways, breaking with the two perceived front-runners during the debate on that issue as she emphasized the importance instead of empowering mental health professionals.The next mayor, Mr. Jeffries said, must strike “the right balance between promoting public safety and promoting fairness and justice in policing.”“It seems to me that Maya Wiley gets that we have to do both,” he said. Mr. Jeffries said he had reached his decision after extensive conversations with candidates, others in the New York congressional delegation and constituents.His mother did not wait to see where her son would land, telling Ms. Wiley weeks ago that she was on board, NY1 reported.“My mom totally got out ahead of me on that one,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Far be it from me to break publicly from my mom.” More

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      A.O.C. Had a Catchy Logo. Now Progressives Everywhere Are Copying It.

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      The slanted text in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo, and its break from the traditional red, white and blue color palette, has formed a new graphical language for progressivism. Imitators abound.In her three years in the national spotlight, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become the undisputed face of unabashed progressivism. But there is another hidden-in-plain-sight legacy of her 2018 primary victory: Her campaign logo and poster have reshaped the visual branding of the left. More

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      N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates on the Issues

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      Naik Path (left), 33
      Self-employed from Rego Park

      “Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.”

      “Empower law enforcement for people’s safety because there’s a lot of shooting, a lot of stabbing, subway crime, hate crimes — it’s spiking.” More

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      Candidates Clash Over Future of New York in First Mayoral Debate

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      The eight Democrats competing to win the June 22 primary presented divergent views on how to lead the city in a sometimes acerbic debate.The two leading candidates in the New York City mayor’s race battled to protect their advantages in a hard-hitting Democratic debate on Thursday evening while their six rivals grasped for breakout moments, sought to redefine the stakes of the contest and put forth their own visions for the struggling city.The contenders clashed over government experience, ideology and public safety in confrontations that sometimes devolved into acrid personal attacks.They sketched out their plans on an array of city issues, taking divergent stances on policing, education and managing the city’s economic revival. Policing emerged as the most-talked about problem, with proposals ranging from reimagining plainclothes units to expanding the use of mental health professionals in traditional law enforcement situations.Andrew Yang, one of the front-runners, was the target of an onslaught of criticism, which he sought to defuse by reaching for areas of common ground rather than engaging with equal force. But the sharpest direct clashes were between the other leading candidate, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.Ms. Wiley sought to cast Mr. Adams as a conservative former Republican who embraced stop-and-frisk policing tactics, while Mr. Adams dismissed her criticisms as ill-informed.“Every time you raise that question, it really just shows your failure of understanding law enforcement,” Mr. Adams said after she questioned how he could be trusted to “keep us safe from police misconduct.” Mr. Adams argued that he was a “leading voice against the abuse of stop-and-frisk.”Ms. Wiley shot back that “having chaired the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, I certainly understand misconduct.”The debate arrived less than six weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is virtually certain to determine the next mayor. The contest is shaping up to be the most significant city election in decades, one that will determine how and whether New York will recover from the economic devastation of the pandemic as the city also confronts staggering challenges concerning inequality, gun violence and education.Yet the race remains volatile and muddled, complicated by sparse public polling, a distracted electorate and the first use in a New York mayoral election of ranked-choice voting, a system that will allow voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference.Spectrum News NY1 & the NYC Campaign Finance BoardSpectrum News NY1 & the NYC Campaign Finance BoardFor months, Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, has been portrayed by his rivals as a New York political newcomer who lacks the gravitas and knowledge of city intricacies to lead at a moment of crisis. In a reflection of his standing in the race, a number of his rivals sought to put him on the defensive over the extent of his political experience; his leadership record at Venture for America, his nonprofit; and implicitly, over his close ties to a consulting firm run by Bradley Tusk, his campaign strategist.When Mr. Yang was pressed on why he has never voted for mayor in the city that he hopes to lead, he described his deep connections to the city as a parent and noted that he is like many New Yorkers who have not always engaged at the local level.But when he noted his political activity elsewhere — in helping Democrats win two Georgia Senate runoffs, for instance — Mr. Adams ripped his efforts to claim credit as “disrespectful and appalling to Stacey Abrams and those Black women who organized on the ground.” Mr. Yang, who held elaborate mock debates in recent days, was bracing for a pummeling, his allies said. The candidate, who is running on a message of sunny optimism about the future of the city, struck a conciliatory note under pressure, emphasizing areas of agreement as his rivals pressed him.The debate, co-hosted by Spectrum News NY1 and the first of three official Democratic debates, represented the biggest test yet of Mr. Yang’s ability to sustain scrutiny from his front-runner’s perch.In a reflection of his perceived strength in the race, Mr. Adams, a former police officer who is well-funded and has shown strength in some limited polling, was targeted by the other candidates nearly as much as Mr. Yang. Mr. Adams has placed public safety at the center of his campaign pitch, declaring it the “prerequisite” to prosperity and progress. It is a message that he has pressed with new zeal in recent weeks, amid a spike in gun violence, including a shooting last Saturday in Times Square.Mr. Adams identifies as a progressive, has a record of pushing for changes from within the police force and says he was a victim of police brutality. He also briefly switched parties and became a Republican in the 1990s, and his opponents publicly signaled an eagerness to lace into his record ahead of the debate.“Eric, you were a self-described conservative Republican when Rudy Giuliani was mayor,” Ms. Wiley said. When Mr. Adams objected to the characterization, her campaign blasted out an excerpt from a 1999 New York Daily News article.The debate unfolded as issues of crime and gun violence have become central to the mayor’s race. Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, rushed to Times Square after the shooting to issue stern denunciations of rising violence. Several other contenders have highlighted plans around policing or gun violence this week, including Ms. Wiley; Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; and the former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan.In a sign of just how vital the question of public safety has become in the race, it was the first policy topic raised in the debate. Many of the contenders emphasized their interest in both reducing violent crime and combating police misconduct and bias.A year after the rise of the “defund the police” movement amid an outcry over racial injustice, Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams are both plainly betting that the electorate is in a more moderate mood when it comes to public safety, even as they also call for changes to ensure police accountability. Mr. Yang proactively declared that “defund the police is the wrong approach,” while Mr. Adams said that “there’s no one on this Zoom that has a greater depth of knowledge around public safety than I do.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}A number of candidates of color discussed the issue in part through the lens of their personal experiences, whether it was Mr. McGuire describing himself as a “6-4, 200-pound Black man” who wants to have “the police protect me and not profile me,” or Ms. Wiley, who spoke of her racial identity as she called for reallocating $1 billion in New York Police Department funding “to create trauma-informed care in our schools.”“I have been Black all my life,” Ms. Wiley said. “And that means I know two things: I know what it is like to fear crime, and I know what it’s like to fear police violence, and we have to stop having this conversation, making it a false choice.”The first clear contrast of the debate emerged over the question of support for adding more police to the subways. Ms. Wiley, Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, did not raise their hands when asked for a show of support, emphasizing that their focus would instead be on empowering more mental health professionals.The debate, like many earlier mayoral forums, was held virtually — the candidates appeared by video from their homes and other locations around the city — which made it harder to smoothly land clear standout moments and more challenging to jump in given the cacophony of several people talking over each other on camera.Throughout months of virtual forums, the candidates became familiar with each other — their policy platforms and their well-traveled lines — and developed a measure of collegiality over Zoom, with few moments of obvious tension. On Thursday, the format was similar but the stakes far higher, the audience larger and the contrasts notably sharper.In addition to the criticisms aimed at Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan clashed over Mr. McGuire’s tenure on Wall Street, and Mr. Stringer took an implicit shot at Mr. Donovan, who has been bolstered by a super PAC funded in part by his father.“Don’t get me involved in your daddy problems,” Mr. Stringer said.For Mr. Stringer, the debate was his most high-profile appearance following an accusation of unwanted sexual advances that has upended his campaign. Mr. Stringer has strongly denied the allegations from Jean Kim, an unpaid campaign worker on his 2001 race for public advocate, but the claims cost him the support of some of his most prominent progressive supporters, though he retains backing from key labor endorsers. He emphasized again during the debate that he rejected the allegations.Mr. Donovan, a veteran of the Obama administration, went after both of the leading candidates. He ripped into Mr. Adams for remarks he has made about carrying a gun, and used his extensive government and political experience to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Yang.“This is the most consequential election of our lifetimes,” Mr. Donovan said. “This is not time for a rookie.”Mr. Yang was the only one of the eight who did not favor requiring citywide composting, saying his reservations were tied to implementation citywide. He sought to explain his objection with his trademark enthusiasm.“I love composting,” he said.“Just not enough,” Mr. Donovan replied. More