Elections, Mayors

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      N.Y.C. Mayor's Race Takeaways: Who Will 'Vax Daddy' Endorse?

      by

      Candidates vied for the backing of the influential teachers’ union and other players, and one contender made a journey to Minneapolis.New York City’s mayoral contest is indeed beginning to pick up steam.A handful of endorsements were issued, and two more influential ones — from the United Federation of Teachers and the Working Families Party — may soon follow.Candidates also fanned out across the city and beyond. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, appeared with the city’s celebrity-of-the-moment: Huge Ma, the creator of the TurboVax website that makes it easier to schedule a vaccine appointment.Maya Wiley, the former MSNBC analyst and counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, did a sprightly double Dutch jig on a sunny day in the Bronx. And Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, visited Minneapolis to pray for justice outside the courthouse where the former police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial in the killing of George Floyd.Here’s what you need to know about the race:Blue-collar support vs. a ‘change-maker’Maya Wiley, left, was endorsed by Representative Yvette Clarke, a Brooklyn Democrat, who said that Ms. Wiley was the “change-maker this moment calls for.”Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesTwo Democratic members of Congress made mayoral endorsements last week: Tom Suozzi, a moderate who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, and Yvette Clarke from Brooklyn, who has one of the most liberal voting records in Congress.Mr. Suozzi backed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Ms. Clarke supported Ms. Wiley.Mr. Suozzi emphasized Mr. Adams’s focus on “blue-collar workers” and the fact that Mr. Adams “led while others fled” — a reference to Mr. Yang, who spent portions of the pandemic at a second home in the Hudson Valley with his family, leaving his apartment in Manhattan.Ms. Clarke said Ms. Wiley is “the change-maker this moment calls for” and would bring “competence and compassion to City Hall.” She said Ms. Wiley was one of the first top-tier mayoral candidates who “embodies the feminine” — apparently ignoring or discounting past Democratic hopefuls like Ruth Messinger, the first woman to win the party’s mayoral nomination, or Christine Quinn and Bella Abzug, who both lost primary elections for the Democratic nomination, as well as a Republican candidate, Nicole Malliotakis, now a member of Congress.Ms. Clarke later clarified that she did not intend to “diminish or erase” other women running for mayor this year or in past elections.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, received an endorsement from the union that represents public school principals. Mr. Yang received support from Matthew W. Daus, the city’s former taxi commissioner whose role in the current taxi crisis has been scrutinized.Mr. Yang also landed an appearance, but not quite an endorsement, from Mr. Ma, sometimes known as “Vax Daddy,” at a news conference outside a vaccination site in Washington Heights, and said he wanted to hire him in a Yang administration. Mr. Ma said he was not ready to back a candidate quite yet.“The only thing I am ready to endorse is more protected bike lanes,” he said.An unorthodox way to seek an endorsementOne of the last major unclaimed endorsements should be decided this month, and the top four candidates — Mr. Stringer, Ms. Wiley, Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang — made their cases on Wednesday at a forum hosted by the United Federation of Teachers.Of the four, Mr. Yang seemed to be the most willing to diverge from union orthodoxy, seemingly hurting his chances for the endorsement.He was the only candidate to unequivocally say he wanted to retain mayoral control of city schools as is, contrary to union efforts to weaken mayoral control. He was also the only candidate to admit to not reading the union’s five-point plan for reopening schools in September.But Mr. Yang, who has one son in public school and another in private school, said that he no longer entirely blames the union for reopening delays during the pandemic.He said he now understood that Mayor Bill de Blasio was to blame, too, relating a conversation he had with Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president and the forum’s moderator.“You conveyed to me that it’s been a failure of leadership on the part of the mayor and that the teachers need a partner who’s committed to reopening the schools in a responsible way that protects teachers and makes everyone feel safe and secure,” Mr. Yang said. “I agree that the mayor has failed the teachers and public school parents like me.”The comments represented a departure from what he told Politico in March, when he said that “the U.F.T. has been a significant reason why our schools have been slow to open.”They also seemed to offend the current mayor.“I don’t know what Andrew Yang is talking about now,” said Bill Neidhardt, a spokesman for the mayor. “Mayor de Blasio was the only big-city mayor to open up schools.”Campaign trail extends to MinneapolisRaymond J. McGuire visited Minneapolis to attend a prayer service outside the courthouse where the former police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial in the death of George Floyd.Stephen Maturen/Getty ImagesMr. McGuire is a moderate on policing. He served on the New York City Police Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for the Police Department, and has not called for police to be defunded as some of his fellow candidates have.So his decision to travel last week to Minneapolis, where the officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost 10 minutes is on trial for murder and manslaughter, seemed to convey a political message.Mr. McGuire was there with Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after a New York Police Department officer placed him in a chokehold in 2014 on Staten Island; the Rev. Al Sharpton; and a former New York State governor, David Paterson. The group met privately with Mr. Floyd’s family.Mr. Sharpton said that Mr. McGuire called and asked if he could join him in Minneapolis, where he has traveled regularly to support Mr. Floyd’s family. He said Mr. Garner’s death showed New York is not immune from such tragedies.“This is not an isolated issue or a question or whether it could happen here; it did happen here,” Mr. Sharpton said.Mr. Sharpton has yet to endorse in the race for mayor, but said that he viewed Mr. McGuire’s interest in Mr. Floyd’s trial as a good sign. “He was the only one who asked to go, and that speaks for itself,” he said.Candidates for mayor should take note of the Minneapolis police chief’s testimony that his officer had violated departmental rules in Mr. Floyd’s death, Mr. Sharpton said, adding that the next mayor should dismantle the so-called blue wall of silence.Mr. McGuire, who said that the “evidence is incontrovertible” that Mr. Floyd’s death was a criminal act, said that policing in New York could be “fixed with the right leadership.”“We want better policing,” Mr. McGuire said. “You go to the neighborhood, and people aren’t talking about defund.”70 plans in 70 daysShaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, will announce a “70 Plans in 70 Days” campaign, highlighting one idea every day until Primary Day.David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesShaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, is trying to distinguish himself in the crowded field as the policy wonk who has the best proposals to improve the city.Mr. Donovan will announce his “70 Plans in 70 Days” campaign this week and highlight one idea every day until Primary Day.“By June 22, I am confident that every New York City voter will know who the most qualified person is to lead our city through this crisis, and who has the actual plans to get the job done,” Mr. Donovan said.His proposals include equity bonds, a government-funded savings account for every child; 15-minute neighborhoods, where every resident has access to a good school, rapid transit and a beautiful park within 15 minutes of their home; and allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections.Mr. Donovan has a pile of cash to help get the word out: His father, Michael Donovan, has given $2 million to a super PAC for his son.Mr. Donovan has been lagging in the polls, and his campaign took aim at Mr. Yang last week. It joked that Mr. Donovan would not climb atop salt piles when visiting a sanitation facility like Mr. Yang did.One of Mr. Yang’s campaign managers hit back on Twitter: “Will his dad not let him climb on the salt?”Andrew Yang is writing a bookIn February, Mr. Yang made headlines for skipping a forum with Muslim groups on the same day that he spoke on a podcast hosted by Sam Harris, who has made incendiary remarks about Islam.Less noticed at the time: At the conclusion of Mr. Yang’s nearly hourlong appearance on the podcast, he indicated that he was writing a book — one that apparently deals in part with the new system that will be used in the mayoral election, ranked-choice voting.He said on the podcast that the book was slated to come out in the late summer.On Sunday, Mr. Yang’s campaign confirmed that Mr. Yang, already an author, indeed had another book coming, to be published by Random House, and that he finished a draft at the end of last year.“Andrew is solely focused on the mayoral campaign and will not be publishing this book until afterwards,” said Eric Soufer, a spokesman for Mr. Yang. “The book will be about Andrew’s experience in the presidential campaign, along with his vision for decreasing polarization, increasing turnout and improving the health of our democracy.”The book, he said, ends before Mr. Yang’s run for mayor. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      The State of the Mayoral Race in N.Y.C.

      by

      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Monday. Weather: Showers are likely both today and this evening. Temperatures will hover in the low 50s this afternoon and dip to the mid-40s tonight. Alternate-side parking: In effect until April 29 (Holy Thursday, Orthodox). Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAs New York City slowly comes back to life amid warmer weather and coronavirus vaccinations, the most consequential contest in at least two decades is heating up.About 10 weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is likely to determine the next mayor, four candidates currently make up the top tier of contenders: Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and the undisputed poll leader; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and a former MSNBC analyst.Still, the race appears fluid enough for someone to break out late, with many undecided voters only now beginning to consider their choices.[Read more about the candidates and how they are looking ahead in the race.]Here are three things to know about the contest:The stakesNew York faces immense challenges on the road to recovery from the pandemic: thousands of deaths, economic devastation, a rise in shootings, and deep racial and socioeconomic inequalities.The next mayor will also be responsible for a 300,000-person city work force.The open questionsIt remains to be seen if voters want someone who represents managerial competence, ambitious ideas, enthusiasm for New York’s comeback — or the best mix of all three.The field includes several candidates of color, including Mr. Yang, who has worked intensely to engage Asian-American voters. Another major question is who will resonate with the largest number of Black voters in the city.Mr. Stringer, Ms. Wiley and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, are all also competing for the city’s most progressive voters.The upcoming monthsCandidates are now ramping up in-person campaigning. Many campaigns expect that the race will fully kick into gear in May, when unions will accelerate in-person pushes and a series of official debates will begin.Several organizations, including the Working Families Party and United Federation of Teachers, are in the midst of endorsement processes, which could help voters narrow down the field.The race still may evolve. Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, is deeply respected by some of those who know City Hall best. Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, and Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, have spent money on television ads and have super PACs aiding them — which could boost their ability to compete.From The TimesIndian Point Is Shutting Down. That Means More Fossil Fuel.This Heroin-Using Professor Wants to Change How We Think About DrugsThey Are Not Alone: U.F.O. Reports Surged in the PandemicWant more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingWith New Yorkers re-emerging as the city reopens, rat complaints surged last month — higher than the same period in 2019 and 2020. [Bloomberg]How one of the last remaining lesbian bars in Manhattan survived the worst months of the pandemic and reopened. [Eater New York]A look at the new network of small free book kiosks across the city that are exclusively stocking authors of color. [Curbed]And finally: From food pantry to ‘mini-Costco’Kaya Laterman writes:As the sun set on a recent Saturday afternoon, Joel Matos fist-bumped and thanked the dozen or so volunteers who were leaving the outdoor food pantry he runs out of a church parking lot on the border of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn.Then Mr. Matos, the founder and director of Holding Hands Ministries, quietly gazed at the pallets of canned goods and produce, and the mound of cardboard boxes that still needed to be cleared. Only five volunteers remained, including him and his wife.There’s plenty of food being distributed to the city’s hungry, about 1.6 million people, according to the Food Bank for New York City, a nonprofit that does much of the distributing. That means that smaller pantries on the receiving end are bursting at the seams with products but struggling without the infrastructure to store and share them.St. John’s Bread and Life, an emergency food service nonprofit in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, for example, has spent about $250,000 to increase capacity.At the height of the pandemic, about 40 percent of the city’s 800 or so soup kitchens and pantries closed permanently, according to Leslie Gordon, the Food Bank’s president. The places that remained open became de facto hubs, expanding their hours and receiving larger and more frequent deliveries, practically becoming “mini-Costcos” overnight, said Mariana Silfa of City Harvest, another nonprofit that distributes goods to locations across New York.Mr. Matos is concerned about mounting costs. “I try not to show how worried I get about the operational side of things,” he said.It’s Monday — help out.Metropolitan Diary: ‘What’s going on?’Dear Diary:It was a mundane Thursday that was melting into all the other look-alike workdays.I went to the bodega to get my morning coffee as usual.“What’s going on?” I asked the guy there.“Nothing,” he said. “But what’s yet to come is incredible.”— Julia LansfordNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.What would you like to see more (or less) of? Email us: nytoday@nytimes.com. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      10 Weeks to the Finish Line: The N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Heats Up

      by

      With the primary weeks away, candidates are sharpening their attacks, ramping up in-person events and preparing to spend the millions of dollars that they have stockpiled.It was opening day for Coney Island’s famed amusement parks, long shuttered during the pandemic, and Andrew Yang — the 2020 presidential candidate who has shifted his personality-driven campaign to the New York City mayoral race — was in his element.“Coney Island is open for business!” he declared on Friday, pumping his fists as he made his way down a windswept boardwalk. “New York City! Can you feel it?”What it felt like was a campaign event, and Mr. Yang was not the only mayoral candidate to take advantage. Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, mingled along the midway, playing games with his family; Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, rode bumper cars and visited small businesses.New York faces immense challenges on the road to recovery from the pandemic. Thousands of deaths, economic devastation, rising violent crime and deep racial and socioeconomic inequality complicate the city’s path forward at every turn, making the upcoming mayor’s race the most consequential city contest in at least two decades. Now, as the city slowly comes back to life amid warmer weather and coronavirus vaccinations, the race is entering a new, increasingly vigorous phase.After months of conducting virtual fund-raisers and participating in an endless round of online mayoral forums, candidates are sharpening their attacks, ramping up their in-person campaign schedules and preparing to spend the millions of dollars that several contenders have stockpiled but few have spent on public advertising.About 10 weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is likely to determine the next mayor, four candidates currently make up the top tier of contenders, according to available polling and interviews with elected officials and party strategists. There is Mr. Yang, the undisputed poll leader; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Mr. Stringer; and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and a former MSNBC analyst.But the race appears fluid enough for a candidate to break out late like Mr. de Blasio did in 2013, with many undecided voters only now beginning to consider the race, according to interviews with New York Democrats across the city and some polling data.A confluence of factors — focus on vaccination efforts and debates over reopening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s crises in Albany, and political burnout following the presidential campaign — have overshadowed civic discussion on a range of issues that will shape the city’s post-pandemic recovery.The candidates are racing to change that.“You can feel it beginning to really heat up,” said Representative Greg Meeks, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Queens Democrats, saying he believed the race would intensify further as the month goes on.The next mayor, who will assume responsibility for a 300,000-person city work force, will inherit a series of staggering challenges. The race will test whether voters are in the mood for a candidate who exudes managerial competence, one who is a booster for the city, someone with the most boldly ambitious ideas, or the contender who best offers a mix of all three approaches.The arrival of ranked-choice voting in New York City, in which voters can support up to five candidates in order of preference, has added another layer of unpredictability into the contest.Many of the campaigns expect that the race will kick into high gear in May, when more contenders are expected to buy television ads and unions will accelerate in-person pushes. A series of official debates will also begin next month, and some campaigns are starting to think about debate preparations. Mr. Yang knows he is likely to be a focal point of that strategizing.Indeed, a number of Mr. Yang’s opponents are intensifying their attacks on his candidacy.Mr. Stringer has sought to brand Mr. Yang as a politically inexperienced promoter of ill-conceived ideas, like a casino on Governors Island. Mr. Adams has ripped into Mr. Yang for leaving the city during the pandemic. And Ms. Wiley has criticized how Mr. Yang has discussed issues like stimulus spending, while a Wiley campaign aide compared him to a “mini-Trump,” a serious accusation in Democratic politics.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, has a significant war chest and a roster of prominent endorsements.James Estrin/The New York TimesMr. Yang’s advisers — along with an aggressive group of “Yang Gang” supporters active online — have defended him at every turn, arguing that the attacks simply illustrate his standing in the race, and cast him as a proud political outsider with fresh ideas.The field includes several candidates of color, and Mr. Yang, a son of Taiwanese immigrants, has worked intensely to engage Asian-American voters. Another significant question in coming weeks will be which candidate resonates with the largest number of Black voters. Mr. Adams, a Black former police officer and a veteran Brooklyn official, is well positioned to make his case, but he is not alone.Raymond J. McGuire, a Black former Citigroup executive who has campaigned heavily in vote-rich southeast Queens, went to Minneapolis this past week with the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, to attend the trial over George Floyd’s death.And on Friday, Ms. Wiley — a Black woman who already had the backing of the powerful Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union — was endorsed by Representative Yvette Clarke, a Brooklyn Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Dianne Morales, the most progressive candidate in the race, identifies as Afro-Latina and has sparked intense interest among left-wing grass-roots activists.Mr. Stringer, with his significant war chest and roster of prominent endorsements, is competing for the city’s most progressive voters along with Ms. Wiley and Ms. Morales. Left-wing activists, alarmed by the perceived strength of Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams — two more centrist candidates — are strategizing about how to elevate a contender or group of contenders more aligned with their vision.A number of organizations, from the left-wing Working Families Party to the United Federation of Teachers, are in the midst of endorsement processes, which could help voters narrow down their preferred candidates. Decisions may come as soon as this week.There is still time for the race to evolve. Ms. Garcia is deeply respected by some of the people who know City Hall best. Mr. McGuire and Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, have aired television ads and have super PACs aiding them, a dynamic that could boost their ability to compete, though neither has yet caught fire.Mr. McGuire, in particular, was embraced as a favorite of the business community early on — with the fund-raising to prove it — but there are growing signs that other candidates may also be acceptable to the city’s donor class.Mr. Yang has been courting Mr. McGuire’s donors, encouraging them to take something of a portfolio management approach by investing in multiple candidates who are supportive of the business community, according to someone with direct knowledge of the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. The Yang campaign declined to comment.Lupe Todd-Medina, a spokeswoman for Mr. McGuire, suggested there had been such “rumors” before, but pointed to his significant past fund-raising hauls despite that chatter.“Ray is a serious candidate who has built and led the kind of teams New York will need for an inclusive comeback,” she said.In contrast to his energetic but failed presidential bid, which was centered in part on a pitch for universal basic income, Mr. Yang’s mayoral race is defined less by any particular policy platform and more by a political idea. He wants to be the chief cheerleader for the city’s comeback, a message that his team believes cuts a sharp contrast with the current mayoral administration. Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and a former MSNBC analyst, has the backing of the powerful Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.Mark Lennihan/Associated PressFrom the beginning of Mr. Yang’s campaign, he has pursued perhaps the most aggressive in-person schedule of anyone in the race, contracting Covid and a kidney stone along the way. He has commanded attention at ready-made campaign events that other candidates have not matched.When the movies reopened, he and his wife caught a film. He was at Yankee Stadium on opening day, and at Citi Field for the Mets’ home opener. Last week he appeared with Huge Ma — better known online as “TurboVax” — who is beloved by some New Yorkers for his Twitter feed and a website that helps people find vaccine appointments.The question for Mr. Yang is whether that attention translates into votes — and rivals are aware that it could. Mr. Yang has no government experience, he has never voted for mayor and his record of business success is uneven. Many New Yorkers — elected officials, voters and party leaders — have serious questions about his managerial capabilities and the depth of his city knowledge.Some left-wing leaders are beginning to discuss what it would take to stop him. So far, no serious anti-Yang effort from them or from unions supporting other candidates has materialized.Then there is Mr. Adams, who has secured several major union endorsements and has worked to build ties to a range of key constituencies across the city. Mr. Adams, who has long pushed for meaningful policing changes, has been notably outspoken about the rise in shootings, an approach that may resonate with voters who are especially attuned to the spike in violent crime.“I would like to see the actual mayoral candidates begin to talk more about how they’re going to address the gun violence,” said Jumaane D. Williams, the city public advocate, who has not endorsed a contender. “Out of everyone, he may have been talking about it the most. My hope is that we see more and more folks talk about it.”Representative Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat whose district includes a slice of Queens, cited Mr. Adams’s work on both police reform and public safety in explaining why he endorsed him last week.Back at Coney Island, Mr. Yang declared victory after procuring a hot dog from Nathan’s: ketchup and mustard, no relish or sauerkraut.“Delicious,” he proclaimed. As he chewed, the conversation turned to campaign strategy in the weeks ahead.“I feel a little bit bad for the TV watchers of New York City because they’re about to be bombarded by a bunch of political ads,” he laughed. “I think my campaign will, for better or for worse, be part of that.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Many Mayors Cite Covid Burnout as a Reason for Their Exit

      by

      Local officials nationwide are announcing plans to step back from elected office. Many offer the same explanation: Covid burnout.NEWBURYPORT, Mass. — Donna Holaday is the kind of mayor who does not say no to an invitation.She shows up for lesser ribbon cuttings, at Radiant U Esthetics and the Angry Donut. She is there for the dinky parades, three or four blocks to the waterfront and back. Funerals, fund-raisers, National Honor Society inductions, she does them all.Over four terms as mayor of Newburyport, a coastal city of around 17,000, she learned that she could always perk herself up by getting up on a podium, reflecting back the energy of a roomful of people. Not this past year.“There is nothing. Nothing on my calendar. It’s just the way it has been for a year,” said Ms. Holaday, 66. Through the shutdown, she made a point of spending the day in her empty City Hall, if only so people could see the light on in her office.But they were long days she described as “Whac-a-Mole, you take care of one thing and 15 things pop up.” And the calls she fielded were not about normal problems, like trash collection or snow removal, but matters of profound suffering: a loved one forced to die in solitude, or families running out of food.“It was so traumatic, with people calling us crying, distressed,” said Ms. Holaday, who has announced she will not run for a fifth term. “I was sitting in my corner office feeling quite alone, there is no question about it.”Though coronavirus cases are down from their winter peak and several states are well into the reopening process, many mayors are leaving their posts because of burnout.Damian Strohmeyer for The New York TimesIt has been an exhausting season for America’s mayors.Mayors are hands-on officials in the best of times, barraged with criticism and individual pleas for help. Over the last year, they found themselves weighing matters of life or death — devastating local businesses by prolonging shutdowns, canceling gatherings treasured by voters, unable to provide comfort by being there in person.And this spring, many American mayors are explaining their decision to leave office with the same reason: that the pandemic response demanded so much that they could not both campaign and perform their duties; or that the work had become so stressful that their families had recommended that they step away.“They are just spent,” said Katharine Lusk, executive director of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, which carries out an annual survey of mayors. Mayors surveyed last summer expressed deep anxiety about the effects of lost tax revenue on their budgets, as they juggled the pandemic, economic recovery and their core responsibilities.Meanwhile, Ms. Lusk said, the positive aspects of the job were stripped away.“They will tell you it’s the most personal job in politics,” she said. “If you can’t interact with the community, all of the things that sort of fuel mayors — the inputs that build up that reservoir of energy — that aspect of the job has been taken from them.”There is little national data on local elections, so it is impossible to say whether this year’s turnover of mayors is unusual. In Massachusetts, nearly a fifth of the state’s mayors have announced they will not run again, as CommonWealth, a politics journal, reported, but that is not an unusual portion, according to the Massachusetts Municipal Association.Decisions to step down are rarely made for one reason, and the year has increased pressure on leaders on many fronts, including conflicts over policing and racial justice. Among those who have offered an explanation, however, Covid fatigue comes up a lot. Michelle De La Isla, the mayor of Topeka, Kan., told The Topeka Capital-Journal that campaigning would make her workload unmanageable, and there “there was no way I was going to be able to do this at the same time” as heading coronavirus response.Mayor Grover C. Robinson IV, of Pensacola, Fla., said he decided not to run out of frustration with the politicized reaction to health directives, after returning from a vacation and attending yet another contentious meeting. Similar explanations have come from the mayors of Highland, Ill., Pascagoula, Miss., and Seattle, among others.Thomas M. McGee, the mayor of Lynn, Mass., a large, blue-collar city north of Boston, described parts of last year as “a blur,” as the virus raced through crowded neighborhoods that were home to multiple generations of families.Lynn was classified as a high-risk zone for all but two weeks of the past year, and the sense of crisis has never abated, even now that the vaccination drive is underway.“Do you remember the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Thailand? I feel like we’re running on the beach, up to a higher ground, and the tsunami is behind us,” he said. “Are we going to get to higher ground before the pandemic comes rushing back in and surges over us?”Mayor Thomas McGee of Lynn, Mass., is also stepping down. He described parts of last year as a blur and said the sense of crisis never abated.Damian Strohmeyer for The New York TimesMr. McGee, a Democrat, ran for mayor of Lynn, his hometown, in 2016, after 22 years in the State Legislature. But nothing, he said, prepared him for the intensity of being a mayor last year.“After 27 years and this, in some ways, lost year,” he said, “my family was like: ‘You’re stressed. It’s really had a substantial impact on you. And we’ll support you 100 percent whatever you want to do. But we think you should consider making a step back.’”Mr. McGee’s account of the past year is laced with frustration at the federal government, which he said left local officials to cope with a fast-moving public health emergency, while former President Donald J. Trump contradicted basic messaging about safety.“It became apparent, and I’d say it on calls, and while we were making decisions, ‘You know, we’re on our own here,’” he said. “They left a lot of us in the lurch, and we were left to really kind of navigate this on our own.”His frustration was echoed by Joseph A. Curtatone, 54, the mayor of Somerville, Mass., a city of 81,000, who is leaving office after nearly 18 years, amid speculation that he will run for governor.“We’re the first to hear if someone has lost a loved one, we’re the first to hear if someone is being evicted and has no place to live,” he said, joking that his brief moments of relief came when he was allowed to talk about snowstorms.Mayors, Mr. Curtatone said, were forced to coordinate policies on such grave matters as shutdowns and school closings among themselves, putting collective pressure on the state government to follow their lead.“Trump pushed it onto the states, and they pushed it onto the cities and towns,” he said.Nearly two-thirds of big-city mayors are Democrats, many in Republican-controlled states whose leaders were more skeptical of shutdowns and mask mandates.That tension has exacerbated mayors’ “sense of being embattled,” even as coronavirus case numbers decline, said Ms. Lusk, of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities.Jospeh Curtatone, the mayor of Somerville, Mass., is leaving office after four terms.Damian Strohmeyer for The New York Times“I think the cyclicality of the pandemic meant they’ve never been able to let their guard down, they’ve never been out of the woods,” she said.Thomas Bernard, the mayor of North Adams, a city of about 14,000 in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, said he desperately missed ordinary interactions, like reading picture books to schoolchildren.He recalled the holiday season as a difficult time, as he was forced to make decisions that, as he put it, “really strike at the spirit of the community.”“I was the person who stole fun from North Adams for a year,” he said. “It feels that way sometimes. I was making the decisions, like other mayors, that led to the cancellation of the things we all love.”He announced in February that he would not run for re-election — the second time in nearly 40 years that an incumbent mayor will not appear on the ballot — so that he could focus on containing the virus and rebuilding the economy.“I feel behind the curve on the recovery, and adding the campaign, it didn’t feel tenable,” he said. “It didn’t feel like I could bring the best of myself to all three of those things.”Mr. Bernard, who recently turned 50, is unsure what he will do after he steps down.“There will be days, as it gets more toward election season, and I’m not doing a spaghetti dinner, you know, I’m probably going to have a twinge,” he said. “There are going to be days — the last holiday tree-lighting as mayor, the last high school graduation — those are the moments I’m going to feel most emotional about.”“I wear my heart on my sleeve as it is,” he said, “but it’s going to be a complex flood.” More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      ‘Sense of Disappointment’ on the Left as the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Unfolds

      by

      Even as New York has veered toward the left, two more-moderate candidates, Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, lead the mayoral race.Over the last year, New York politics have appeared to lurch ever leftward. First came the primary victories last summer in a series of House and state legislative races, then the legalization of recreational marijuana, and just this week, a state budget agreement that would raise taxes on the wealthy and create a $2.1 billion fund to aid undocumented workers.But in the New York City mayor’s race, the two candidates who have most consistently shown strength are among the most moderate in the field.The sustained polling leads of Andrew Yang followed often by Eric Adams have made some left-wing activists and leaders increasingly alarmed about the trajectory of the race, leaving them divided over how to use their considerable influence to shape its outcome before the June 22 primary.“From my perspective on the left in New York, there’s definitely a little sense of disappointment around how the race is shaping up right now,” said Matthew Miles Goodrich, who is involved with the Sunrise Movement, an organization of young climate activists. “There seems to be a mismatch between who is leading in the New York City mayoral race and the tenor of the times that we’re supposed to be living in.”The mayoral field still reflects the leftward shift of many Democrats in the city, with many voters just beginning to tune into the race. Scott M. Stringer and Maya Wiley, two of the most progressive candidates in the race, are generally discussed as part of the field’s top tier, with the expected resources to be competitive through the end, and perhaps to break out in a meaningful way. Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, has undeniably captured real grass-roots energy.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, is one of the most left-wing candidates in New York’s mayoral race.David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesBut for now, no one doubts that Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, and Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, are in especially strong positions, with Mr. Yang in particular consistently topping polls.That emerged as a significant concern at a private meeting on Wednesday of representatives from several prominent left-wing organizations, including Our City, Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise and other groups, according to two people familiar with the meeting. A consensus emerged that the left needed to mobilize urgently around the city elections, according to one of those people.Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang embrace progressive positions on a wide range of issues, and their allies say that they are well within the mainstream of the Democratic Party — far more so, they argue, than some left-wing activists are. And on Friday afternoon, as he campaigned in Coney Island, Mr. Yang heaped praise on the new state budget as well as marijuana legalization.But it is also true that they are relatively friendly toward the business and real estate communities. And on the spectrum of mayoral candidates, they are also more moderate on policing matters, even as they promote criminal justice reform. (Indeed, Mr. Adams, a Black former police officer who says he has experienced police brutality himself, spent much of his career urging changes in the system, but he is also a onetime Republican who speaks often about the constructive role he believes policing can play in promoting public safety.)Those stances are sharply at odds with the anti-real estate, anti-corporate and “defund the police” rhetoric that has animated the left-wing New York scene in recent years — and in particular after the killing of George Floyd last May — but that has largely been untested in a citywide race.As more voters tune in, the contest will offer the clearest picture yet of the political mood of a large, racially diverse city on issues surrounding economic recovery, a rise in violent crime and deep inequality that the coronavirus pandemic has only worsened.Across the city, younger left-wing activists have been part of a coalition that has shaped legislative and House races. But that contingent has not been determinative in statewide races for governor or, at a national level, in the presidential campaign, where moderate Black voters and other older, more centrist voters played a decisive role in giving President Biden the nomination.Even as some activists worry about the state of the mayor’s race, many are struggling to coalesce behind one of three candidates most consistently mentioned as progressive contenders: Mr. Stringer, the well-funded city comptroller who boasts a raft of endorsements from left-wing lawmakers; Ms. Morales, who is perhaps the most left-wing candidate in the race; and Ms. Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst and counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who on Friday was endorsed by Representative Yvette Clarke, a Brooklyn Democrat.Maya Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst and counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, was endorsed on Friday by Representative Yvette Clarke of New York, a Brooklyn Democrat.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters“The progressive community in New York is divided,” said Mr. Goodrich, who favors Mr. Stringer. “No one has emerged as the clear, viable progressive hero, progressive champion. That’s made it tough for anyone to break out.”The race for city comptroller offers a sharp contrast: Some of the nation’s most prominent progressives, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have lined up behind City Councilman Brad Lander. They have not yet engaged in the mayor’s race, and it is not clear that they will.To many on the left wing of the New York political spectrum, the victory of either Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams would represent a loss for a movement that has gathered strength since Ms. Ocasio-Cortez toppled Representative Joseph Crowley, the Queens County Democratic leader, in the 2018 primary.Certainly, there is still plenty of time for the most liberal voters in New York to unite around a candidate or slate of candidates; under the city’s new ranked-choice system, voters rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If a candidate garners more than 50 percent of the vote, that candidate wins. If not, the last-place candidate falls out of the race, and the voters who made that candidate their first choice get their second-choice votes counted instead. The runoff continues until there is a winner.A number of lawmakers and other Democrats have offered ranked-choice endorsements — especially of Mr. Stringer and Ms. Morales — and organizations that are currently weighing endorsement decisions could make the same call or support a slate of candidates.Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, is perhaps the most leftward leaning Democrat among the leading mayoral candidates.Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York TimesThe Working Families Party is in the process of deciding its endorsement, which could be influential and come as soon as next week. Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams are among the candidates participating in that process along with other more left-wing contenders, according to some familiar with the conversations.Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams each claim to be the most attuned to New Yorkers’ concerns around the economy, reopening the city and the balance of public safety and police reform.Mr. Adams has also cast himself as a business-friendly candidate who sees no need to demonize real estate. “I am real estate,” Mr. Adams, who owns a multifamily property in Brooklyn, has said. Mr. Adams also previously led an organization that advocated criminal justice reforms within the New York Police Department.“It seems like he’s happy to tinker around the edges and continue to play the inside game with the N.Y.P.D., and I just don’t think that that has been effective,” said Charles Khan, the organizing director for the Strong Economy for All Coalition.Mr. Adams’s team argues that substantively, on issues from housing to taxes, he has many of the same goals as the most deeply progressive activists. The difference, the team says, is a matter of tone. Advisers also argue that he has done more than any other candidate to personally press for police reform.“Eric is not new to this, he has been in the fight for police reform for over 30 years and has the know-how to reform the N.Y.P.D. the right way and keep New York City safe,” said Madia Coleman, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams. “No one in this race has fought harder or delivered more for people of color than Eric Adams.”Mr. Yang, for his part, has floated the idea of giving tax incentives to corporations and individuals who return to the office five days a week and has suggested he feels the needs of businesses in his “bones.” He has also been a proponent of having more police patrolling the subways and, like Mr. Adams, is comfortable emphasizing the role he sees for the police in public safety“We’re proud to be leading among progressive voters,” Sasha Neha Ahuja, a campaign manager, said in reference to internal polling. “Clearly Andrew’s message of cash relief, job creation and rebuilding a safe and vibrant city is resonating deeply within the base and across the city.”Mr. Yang is also being advised by Tusk Strategies, which has emerged as an issue for some progressives. The consultancy has worked closely with Uber and the Police Benevolent Association, the union that endorsed President Donald J. Trump for re-election.A spokesman for Tusk said the consultancy hasn’t worked for either organization in over a year.“As an advocate and as a Black man, why the hell would I want to trust Andrew Yang after that?” said Stanley Fritz, the state political director for Citizen Action of New York.It is unclear how the talk among progressives about mounting a campaign to stymie the rise of two well-funded candidates will manifest itself. So far, it has been just talk.“I do think there is an effort congealing to not only push back on Yang but to push back on Eric Adams as well,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, which is supporting Mr. Stringer. “Both of them are not really aligned with the progressive movement.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Could Andrew Yang Really Be New York’s Next Mayor?

      by

      Andrew Yang rolled up for opening day at Yankee Stadium on April 1 with the crackling force field of celebrity surrounding him. A bank of photographers and videographers walked backward before him. A small entourage of aides trailed behind. Fans, lined up for New York’s first professional baseball game with live spectators since Covid shut down the city, called out, “There’s the next mayor of New York!” and “Good luck!” People milled around to have their photos taken with him. Yang bumped elbows and gave high fives; it was the most casual human contact I’d seen in a year.When I asked Yang supporters why they want him to be mayor, I heard, over and over, variations on the words “change” and “energy.” “He’s young, he’s energetic, he’s a new face,” said Laivi Freundlich, a businessman and synagogue cantor from Brooklyn. “I’m tired of the old guard.” Some associated Yang, in an undefined way, with technological dynamism. “It’s a feeling,” said Thomas Dixon, a 61-year-old from the Bronx, about how Yang would “bring about necessary changes. Because like the country, New York City needs to move into the 21st century.”With about 10 weeks until New York’s mayoral primaries, both public and private polling show Yang ahead in a crowded field, though up to half of voters remain undecided. In a survey released by Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics in March, Yang was the top choice of 16 percent of respondents, followed by 10 percent for Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. (Everyone else was in the single digits.) The Yang campaign’s private polling shows him with 25 percent of the vote and Adams with 15 percent.The essence of Yang’s campaign is this: He wants to make New York fun again. He has a hip-hop theme track by MC Jin and a platform plank calling for to-go cocktails — a pandemic accommodation for struggling bars and restaurants — to become a regular fixture of city life. He’s constantly out and about, cheerleading each facet of New York’s post-Covid rebirth. He was there the first day movie theaters reopened, taking his wife, Evelyn, to see Eddie Huang’s coming-of-age basketball drama, “Boogie.” But for a kidney stone that landed him in the hospital, he and Evelyn would have gone to an off-Broadway concert on April 2, the day indoor shows restarted.The day after that hospitalization, Yang was doing the finger-snapping dance from “West Side Story” down Brooklyn’s Vanderbilt Avenue. Several blocks were closed to traffic to make room for open-air bars and cafes, another pandemic-era policy that Yang wants to make permanent. The gentrified brunch crowd responded to the candidate much like the baseball fans at Yankee Stadium: People shouted, “There’s Andrew Yang!” and “Yang Gang!” and posed for grinning photos.His campaign will soon unveil a new slogan, “Hope Is on the Way.” It is planning a series of events to make up for milestones people lost during Covid, like a prom for high school graduates and maybe even a group wedding at city hall, where Andrew and Evelyn got married, for those who had to postpone their nuptials.On Thursday, I had an al fresco dinner with Andrew and Evelyn Yang at a Mediterranean restaurant near their Hell’s Kitchen apartment. He argued that there’s a serious purpose behind his campaign’s celebratory vibe. “We need to get tourists back, we need to get commuters back, we need to get the jobs back online in order for the economy to come back,” he said, adding, “I just want New York City to work again. And in order for New York City to work, people need to feel safe having fun.”Photographs by Adam Pape for The New York Times On one level, the idea of Yang as the mayor of New York City — surely one of the most complicated administrative jobs in the country — seems absurd. He has no government experience and has been so detached from city politics that he never before voted in a New York mayoral election. Before he ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, he founded a midsize nonprofit, Venture for America, that set out to create 100,000 jobs. Vox reported that as of 2019, it had created fewer than 4,000. Nothing in his background indicates a special aptitude for running a gargantuan urban bureaucracy at a moment of harrowing crisis.Yet in a traumatized city, people are responding to his ebullience. Yang, said Chris Coffey, his campaign’s co-manager, is “giving people hope after a year of death and sadness and Zooms and unhappiness.” You don’t have to agree with Yang’s politics to see how powerful this is.About those politics: They’re pretty conservative, at least by the standard of a New York Democratic primary. Yang is pro-charter schools and has criticized the 190,000-member United Federation of Teachers for the slow pace of school reopenings. He’s slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio for not instituting a hiring freeze and is hesitant to raise taxes on the rich. Yang wants to offer tax breaks to companies that bring their employees back to the office, which those who like the flexibility of remote work might resent.A number of his plans depend on corporate partnerships. “There’s a lot of potential and pent-up energy among companies and leaders in New York who want a mayor they can work with, who want a mayor who’s not going to beat up businesses big and small because they’re businesses,” he told me.It’s hard to tell whether Yang is leading because of his pro-business centrism, or in spite of it. Many backers I spoke to view him as progressive, particularly those who associate him with the call for a universal basic income, which animated his presidential campaign. Some supporters don’t think of him in ideological terms at all. Others expressed not so much a desire for a right turn in citywide politics as doubt that the left has all the answers.“I think he’s progressive, but I also think he’s kind of pragmatic, so I think that’s probably what draws me to him,” said Maya Deshmukh, a dentist who’s also an actress and a comedian, after she posed for a photo with Yang outside an upscale Vanderbilt Avenue ice cream shop. “He’s Asian-American; I’m Indian, so I like someone who’s going to be in our corner.”I asked Deshmukh what she wanted from post-pandemic New York, and she said she wanted it to be more small-business-friendly, and safer. “Manhattan, there is some level of unsafeness that I feel, and I hope that that can change in a way that’s not going to continue to put Black and brown people in jail.”Some left-wing Asian activists hate Yang’s plan to combat a spike in anti-Asian hate crimes by increasing funding for the New York Police Department’s Asian Hate Crime Task Force, but there’s no sign that most ordinary Asian-Americans voters do. His campaign’s polling shows him winning 49 percent of the Asian vote, with the other candidates in the single digits.It’s not just Asian-American voters who seem excited about the idea of an Asian-American mayor. Cynthia Cotto, a 58-year-old Black woman who works at Catholic Charities, told me she decided to back Yang after video emerged in late March of an Asian man being beaten unconscious on a subway. Supporting Yang “says that we’ve got faith” that not everyone is racist, she said. “That’s why I want him to win.” But that wasn’t the only reason. “He needs a chance,” she said. “He’s young. We need young blood.”Yang makes a point of ignoring progressive social media, where he’s frequently derided as either a neoliberal menace or a clueless tourist. “One of the big numbers that informs me is that approximately 11 percent of New York City Democratic voters get their news from Twitter,” he said, referring to a figure from his campaign’s internal polling. “If you pay attention to social media you’re going to get a particular look at New Yorkers that is going to be representative of frankly a relatively small percentage of New York voters.”Still, other candidates hope that once they’re able to contrast Yang’s positions and experience to their own, his support will erode. “What we’re seeing is more about what names are recognizable, but the vast majority of folks are still saying, ‘I’m trying to make up my mind, I’m trying to get on top of this,’” said the mayoral candidate Maya Wiley, a former counsel to de Blasio. “What folks are looking for is not someone who shoots from the hip, but someone who actually has deep plans and policies.”Wiley’s spokeswoman, Julia Savel, has been harsher. “Our city deserves a serious leader, not a mini-Trump who thinks our city is a fun plaything in between podcasts,” she said recently.There’s much that’s unfair about the Trump analogy — Yang is no buffoonish demagogue — but there are also real parallels. He’s a charismatic novice with good branding dominating in a fragmented field of experienced political figures. Yang throws out screwball ideas — like putting a casino on park-filled Governors Island, which would be illegal — to see what sticks. He makes gaffes, but they haven’t dragged him down. He has a self-perpetuating way of sucking up all the media oxygen: to write about the Yang phenomenon, as I am here, is to contribute to it.Photographs by Adam Pape for The New York TimesThose opposed to Yang are waiting for something or someone to stop him, though it’s not clear who or what that will be. The political consultant Jerry Skurnik said of Yang’s lead, “It’s lasted longer than I thought it would, so it might be real.”The operative word is might. It’s still very early in the race. Ten weeks before the 2013 mayoral primary, it looked like the top candidates were Anthony Weiner and Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker. This year will be New York City’s first time using ranked choice voting in such a primary, and no one knows quite what that’s going to mean. It could help Yang because he’s so well known, leading supporters of other candidates to pick him as their second or third choice. Or it could hurt him by consolidating the votes of constituencies Yang has alienated.John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is skeptical that the Yang boom will last. His “gut feeling,” he said, is that the energy around Yang is mostly based on the press appreciating “how he’s interacting with people when they see him, and not much beyond that.” Mollenkopf argues that mayoral primaries are hard to poll, since only a fraction of Democrats — around 20 percent in 2013 — vote in them.And he believes that celebrity and excitement don’t win Democratic primary elections in New York City. What does? “Having an organic relationship to the constituencies that follow city politics and depend on city politics,” he said, particularly “the various unions that represent people who are directly or indirectly dependent on government money, contracts, support for nonprofit organizations and so on.”In Mollenkopf’s analysis, the city’s politics, unlike the country’s, are still mediated by a thick web of institutional relationships. Yang agrees that this has been true in the past. He just thinks that this time will be different.“The more the electorate expands, the better it is for someone like me,” he said. “And I think the electorate will expand this time. And this is knowing full well that just about any time a candidate makes the case that the electorate will expand and that’s how they’re going to win, they lose.” He’s convinced that “there are a lot of folks who have not been plugged into New York City politics who are actually going to vote this time.”Not long after Yang said this, a young man walking by the restaurant did a double take, eyes widening. He pointed at Yang: “I am so excited for you to be the mayor, man!”Luke Hawkins, a 36-year-old actor and dancer, described discovering Yang on the Joe Rogan podcast. “I wish he were the president,” he said. “I can’t stand pandering politicians. Just the fact that there’s no BS, he’s just completely genuine.” Hawkins said he leans left but doesn’t like what he calls the “woke stuff” and viewed Yang as a “problem-solver.”So, I asked, would he definitely vote in the primary? “I frickin’ hate politics,” he said. “But I will vote for him.” Then he asked, “When is the primary?” It’s June 22. The future of New York City may hinge on how many voters like him remember.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Oh Se-hoon Wins Seoul Mayoral Election

      by

      Conservative opposition candidates won two mayoral races that were seen as a referendum on President Moon Jae-in and a bellwether for next year’s presidential contest.SEOUL — In his last year in office, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea has seen his approval ratings in a tailspin. His trademark North Korea diplomacy remains in tatters. Citizens are fuming over his ​repeatedly ​botched attempts to arrest soaring housing prices.And on Wednesday, voters in South Korea’s two biggest cities dealt another crushing blow to the beleaguered leader.Mr. Moon’s Democratic Party lost the mayoral elections in Seoul and Busan to the conservative opposition, the People Power Party. Critics are calling the results of the two by-elections a referendum on Mr. Moon and his government.“The people vented their anger at the Moon government through these elections,” said Kim Chong-in, head of the People Power Party, referring to large margins by which its candidates won.​South Korea’s Constitution limits Mr. Moon to a single five-year term. But he had hoped that a candidate backed by his party would succeed him in the presidential election next March and continue his progressive legacy, including a policy of engagement toward North Korea.Wednesday’s mayoral elections showed that the Democratic Party faces steep challenges as voters once loyal to Mr. Moon — especially those in their 20s and 30s — abandon it in droves.Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party candidate, won the race in Seoul, the capital city ​of 10 million people. He routed Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party candidate and a former member of Mr. Moon’s cabinet, by more than 18 percentage points, according to voting results announced by the National Election Commission.The Seoul mayor is considered South Korea’s second-most powerful elected official after the president.In Busan, on the southeastern tip of the ​Korean Peninsula, Park Heong-joon, another candidate affiliated with the opposition party, ​​beat his Democratic Party rival by another large margin, according to the commission.A polling station on Wednesday in Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, which also held a by-election for mayor.Yonhap/EPA, via ShutterstockThe by-election in Seoul was called after Park Won-soon, the former mayor, died by suicide last year following accusations of sexual harassment. The former mayor of Busan, Oh Keo-don, stepped down ​last year ​amid accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple female ​subordinates.The former mayors were both members of ​Mr. Moon’s Democratic Party and the president’s close allies. Their downfall ​weakened the moral standing of Mr. Moon’s progressive camp, which ​has cast itself as a ​clean, ​transparent​ and equality-minded alternative to ​its conservative opponents. Mr. Moon’s two immediate predecessors — Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak — were both conservatives and are now in prison following convictions on corruption charges.Mr. Moon was elected ​in 2017, ​filling the power vacuum created by Ms. Park’s impeachment. As a former human rights lawyer, he enthralled the nation by promising a “fair and just” society. He ​vehemently criticized an entrenched ​culture of privilege and corruption ​that he said had taken root while conservatives were in power, ​and vowed to create a level playing field for young voters who have grown weary of dwindling job opportunities and an ever-expanding income gap.Mr. Moon spent much of his first two years in power struggling to quell escalating tension between North Korea and the United States, successfully mediating diplomacy between the two countries. He shifted more of his attention to domestic issues after the two summit meetings between North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Donald J. Trump failed to produce a deal on nuclear disarmament or the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.But things quickly turned sour on the home front ​as well.In 2019, huge outdoor rallies erupted ​over accusations of forgery and preferential treatment in college and internship applications​ surrounding the daughter of Cho Kuk, Mr. Moon’s former justice minister and one of his closest allies.The scandal flew in the face of Mr. Moon’s election promise of creating “a world without privilege,” and prompted outrage against the “gold-spoon” children of the elite, who ​glided into top-flight universities and cushy jobs while their “dirt-spoon” peers struggled to make ends meet in South Korea’s hobbled economy.President Moon Jae-in and his wife, Kim Jung-sook, casting early votes in Seoul on Friday.Choe Jae-Koo/Yonhap, via Associated Press​South Koreans expressed their growing cynicism over what they considered the hypocritical practices of Mr. Moon’s progressive allies with a popular saying: naeronambul. It roughly translates to, “If they do it, it’s a romance; if others do it, they call it an extramarital affair.”​Nonetheless, the Democratic Party won by a landslide in parliamentary elections last year as Mr. Moon leveraged his surging popularity around South Korea’s largely successful battle against the coronavirus. But Mr. Moon’s virus campaign has lost its luster.In recent months, South Koreans have grown frustrated with prolonged social-distancing restrictions, a distressed economy and the government’s failure to provide vaccines fast enough. On Wednesday, the government reported 668 new coronavirus infections, the highest one-day increase in three months.Mr. Moon’s most devastating setback came last month when officials at the Korea Land and Housing Corporation — the state developer — were accused of using privileged insider information to cash in on government housing development programs. Kim Sang-jo, Mr. Moon’s chief economic policy adviser, stepped down last month when it was revealed that his family had significantly raised the rent on an apartment in Seoul just days before the government imposed a cap on rent increases.“People had hoped that even if they were incompetent, the Moon government would at least be ethically superior to their conservative rivals,” said Ahn Byong-jin, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. “What we see in the election results is the people’s long-accumulated discontent over the ‘naeronambul’ behavior of the Moon government exploding. Moon has now become a lame duck president.”The real-estate scandal dominated the campaign leading up to Wednesday’s election. Opposition candidates called Mr. Moon’s government a “den of thieves.” Mr. Moon’s Democratic Party called Mr. Oh, the new mayor in Seoul, an incorrigible “liar.” Mr. Oh resigned as Seoul mayor in 2011 after his campaign to end free lunches for all schoolchildren failed to win enough support.Pre-election surveys this month showed that voters who planned to vote for Mr. Oh would do so not because they considered him morally superior to his Democratic Party rival. Instead, it was because they wanted to “pass judgment on the Moon Jae-in government.”Posters showing candidates for mayor of Seoul.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      St. Louis Elects Tashaura Jones Its First Black Female Mayor

      by

      Tishaura Jones, the city’s treasurer, promised on Tuesday night not to stay silent on racial injustices and vowed to bring “fresh air” to the city.Tishaura Jones became the first Black woman elected mayor of St. Louis on Tuesday and later this month will begin leading a city racked with a high homicide rate, disturbances at the city jail and challenges related to the pandemic.Ms. Jones, the city’s treasurer, received about 52 percent of the vote over her opponent Alderwoman Cara Spencer’s nearly 48 percent, according to unofficial results posted to the city’s website. Ms. Jones will be sworn in on April 20.Ms. Jones, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.Ms. Spencer, also a Democrat, conceded on Tuesday night and later congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter, saying, “You have my support in making St. Louis the great city we know it can be.”This was the first mayoral election under the city’s new election-law overhaul, known as Proposition D. It requires candidates to run without partisan labels, and the two candidates with the most votes in a primary in March would face each other in a general runoff election the next month.In her victory speech, Ms. Jones reminded supporters of her campaign promises. “St. Louis, this is an opportunity for us to rise,” she said. “We are done ignoring the racism that has held our city and our region back.”Ms. Jones pledged that she would not stay silent when she saw racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or religious intolerance, adding, “I will not stay silent when I spot any injustice.”Transformational change would not be immediate, she said. “It will require a little patience, a little hard work, determination and the understanding that decades of problems would not be solved within days of solutions.”Ms. Jones, a graduate of Hampton University, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has spent the last 20 years as a public servant. In 2002, she was appointed as Democratic committeewoman of the Eighth Ward in the city of St. Louis, she served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, and she has served as the city’s treasurer since 2013, according to her campaign website. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. Louis in 2017.Ms. Jones will replace Lyda Krewson, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, who said last fall she would not seek a second term in office.Ms. Krewson congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter. “I am rooting for your success,” she said. “My administration and I are prepared to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”When Ms. Jones takes office, she will face a list of challenges, including a rise in violence. Last year, the city saw its highest homicide rate in 50 years with 262 murders, five fewer than the record set in 1993. There have been 46 homicides so far this year, according to the St. Louis Police Department.The city’s jail has also seen a growing number of disturbances in recent months, and on Sunday, inmates broke windows, set a fire and threw items onto the street below. A similar episode took place in February.Ms. Jones campaigned on improving the city’s response to the pandemic and pursuing policies to improve its public health infrastructure. Mobile and stationary vaccination clinics would also be established under her lead. St. Louis has about 36 positive cases per day on average, and about 14 percent of all St. Louis residents have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times databaseAs the city is promised more than $500 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, Ms. Jones also pledged relief for small businesses and those in need of rental and mortgage assistance.“It’s time for St. Louis to thrive,” Ms. Jones said Tuesday night. “It’s time to bring a breath of fresh air to our neighborhoods.” More