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      AOC Endorses Maya Wiley for NYC Mayor

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      Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement on Saturday may cement Ms. Wiley as the left-wing standard-bearer in the New York City mayor’s race.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent left-wing leaders in the country, endorsed Maya D. Wiley in the race for New York City mayor on Saturday, urging voters to “come together as a movement.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement represents the most significant development yet in left-wing efforts to shape the June 22 Democratic primary that is almost certain to determine the city’s next mayor.“If we don’t come together as a movement, we will get a New York City built by and for billionaires, and we need a city for and by working people,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said outside City Hall in Manhattan, as Ms. Wiley waited in the background. “So we will vote for Maya No. 1.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer and former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, comes at a moment of extraordinary volatility in the mayor’s race — one week before early voting begins.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has increasingly been seen as the Democratic front-runner in the race, in close competition with Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate. Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, has also demonstrated growing traction. All three candidates are considered relative moderates on issues including policing and their postures toward the business community.Ms. Wiley has generally been considered part of the top tier of candidates, too, but she has not been seen as a front-runner throughout the race. In recent weeks, however, she has landed a growing number of endorsements, especially from the left. On Saturday afternoon, Representative Jamaal Bowman, another left-wing New York Democrat who is close to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, wrote on Twitter that he, too, was supporting Ms. Wiley. But for months, it was Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s decision that had been one of the most consequential open questions in the mayor’s race.Surrogates for various candidates pitched her team. Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, a Wiley backer, encouraged Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to meet with the candidate directly. And Ms. Wiley said that she and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had had conversations over Zoom and by phone.But, like the rest of New York City, Ms. Wiley received almost no advance notice that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez intended to endorse her on Saturday, she said. The congresswoman made the announcement following a scheduled rally with City Council candidates.“I found out right before I came down here,” Ms. Wiley said in a brief interview after the event. “I was extremely excited when she called me and said: ‘You’re my No. 1. Let’s talk about how we do this.’”For months, it was unclear whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 31, would use her platform to influence the mayor’s race. Sparse public polling and interviews with party strategists suggested that a significant number of voters remained undecided, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement most likely cements Ms. Wiley as the liberal standard-bearer in the contest and could signal a new measure of viability around her campaign.The endorsement may also provide a boost to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which, despite significant recent victories at the congressional and state legislative levels in New York, seemed to be at a disadvantage in the mayor’s race as leaders and activists struggled to coalesce around a single candidate.On several issues, but especially on matters of policing, Ms. Wiley has positioned herself to the left of Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Ms. Garcia, and her candidacy will offer an important test of how potent that pitch is among Democratic voters who want to rein in police misconduct but are also concerned about rising violent crime.“I know I’m in a different lane, because I’m in the progressive lane,” Ms. Wiley said. “I think that progressive lane is its own lane now in this race.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did not mention Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams by name, but she blasted the “dark money” shaping the race — both have attracted controversy over donors to their super PACs — and she implicitly warned against candidates who support what she cast as overpolicing. (Ms. Wiley also has independent expenditure support.)“We’ve already tried Giuliani’s New York,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that the city had also tried “Bloomberg’s New York.”“And what that got us was a New York that was harder to afford and a New York that criminalized young people and put them into lifelong carceral cycles,” she said. “It ends now.”.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-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 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:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“These are the stakes,” she continued. “Maya Wiley is the one. She will be a progressive in Gracie Mansion.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has publicly rebuked Mr. Yang twice during the race: once after he laid out his plan to support a “Green New Deal for public housing,” and again following remarks he made about Israel. She indicated that she might announce “further ranks” before New York City’s ranked-choice voting election, but it would stun many political observers if Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams made her list.Ms. Wiley’s campaign has promoted a number of progressive policy proposals, including cutting $1 billion from the police budget and trimming at least 2,250 officers; helping poor families pay for child care by offering $5,000 grants to caregivers; and giving subsidies to low-income New Yorkers to help pay for rent. She is seeking to build a coalition that includes voters of color from across the ideological spectrum and white progressives.Minutes after the endorsement was announced, Mr. Adams — who, more than any candidate, is running on the issue of public safety, casting it as the “prerequisite” to prosperity — released a statement blasting Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Wiley over the issue of police funding.“Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Maya Wiley want to slash the Police Department budget and shrink the police force at a time when Black and brown babies are being shot in our streets, hate crimes are terrorizing Asian and Jewish communities, and innocent New Yorkers are being stabbed and shot on their way to work,” said Mr. Adams, a former police officer. “They are putting slogans and politics in front of public safety and would endanger the lives of New Yorkers.”In a statement, Ms. Wiley accused Mr. Adams of taking a “reactionary approach to public safety” and said that he was using right-wing talking points.Many left-wing activists and leaders have been divided over how to approach the mayor’s race. Some backed Ms. Wiley; others supported Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, or Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive. But in recent weeks, Mr. Stringer and Ms. Morales have struggled with controversies, and some of their backers have rescinded their endorsements.Mr. Stringer has faced two accusations of making unwanted sexual advances decades ago. He denied wrongdoing in one instance. On Friday, in response to a New York Times report about a second accusation of harassment and unwanted advances, he said that he did not recall the woman making the allegations but that he apologized if he had met her and made her uncomfortable.He has lost a number of high-profile left-wing endorsers, including Mr. Bowman.Ms. Morales’s struggles center on a campaign implosion, as staff members accused the campaign of not living up to its left-wing ideals, senior members departed and battles over a late-stage union drive unfolded.The Working Families Party had initially supported Mr. Stringer as its first choice and then backed Ms. Wiley and Ms. Morales after the first allegation against Mr. Stringer. On Friday, the party endorsed Ms. Wiley alone as its first choice.“We can’t afford to not engage because of what could have been,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday. “We engage in the world that we have. And we do everything we can to make that world better. We have a choice to make New York City better.”Mihir Zaveri and Anne Barnard contributed reporting. More

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      Alvin Bragg for Manhattan D.A.: The Times Endorsement

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      There are few bigger jobs on the New York ballot this year than that of Manhattan district attorney. Cyrus Vance Jr., one of only two men who have held the office since 1975, isn’t seeking re-election. In a borough where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, the winner of the June 22 primary contest is very likely to cruise to victory in November, and there is a crowded field of talented lawyers who are vying to replace him.Whoever wins the job will face a rise in shootings, homicides and other violent crimes to thwart. While warmer days are bringing back block parties and crowded parks in other boroughs, much of Midtown is still eerily empty and dotted with vacant storefronts. And as the pandemic wanes in New York, right now there are few guarantees that the rhythms of normal life will return in a manner that ensures all its residents feel protected and served by the criminal justice system.Then, of course, there is the reality that the system was not serving many New Yorkers well long before coronavirus ever arrived in the city.Manhattan will need a distinctive kind of district attorney: one who knows how to use the levers of the office to drive down the current spike in violence while moving forward with the hard and overdue work of criminal justice reform. The best person for the job is Alvin Bragg.Mr. Bragg is a talented prosecutor with the endorsement of former colleagues across a wide swath of the legal system. He served as first chief deputy at the state attorney general’s office, where he oversaw some 1,200 people and successfully sued the Trump Foundation for illegally using campaign funds — experience that could be invaluable because the next Manhattan district attorney will be left with finishing Mr. Vance’s investigation into the former president’s business dealings.Mr. Bragg also served as a federal prosecutor under Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuting public corruption, wage theft and, at one point, a violent money-laundering scheme linked to the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico. Mr. Bharara has endorsed him.Mr. Bragg has worked closely with the police to prosecute complex gun cases and also sued officers over excessive force. He is currently representing Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, in a case against Mayor Bill de Blasio over her son’s 2014 death at the hands of police.The Manhattan district attorney’s office is home to some of the most talented prosecutors in the country and Mr. Bragg has demonstrated he understands what can be accomplished without going to some of the political extremes we’ve heard in this election. Finding common ground among prosecutors, police leadership and the public will be crucial.Even after reforms by Mr. Vance cut the office’s caseload by more than half, nearly 80 percent of the cases prosecuted there in 2019 were misdemeanors, according to data from the office. Mr. Bragg plans to restructure the office to stop using it to criminalize poverty and focus more intensely on prosecuting violent gun crimes, sexual assault cases and corruption. He wants to dissolve the current sex-crimes unit and build a modern unit that centers the experience of survivors. He has promised to expand programs that offer alternatives to incarceration and establish a robust police integrity unit that will report directly to him. He has the management experience to get these reforms done.Mr. Bragg grew up in Harlem and came of age during the crack cocaine epidemic. He would also be Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, a remarkable fact, considering the disproportionate toll that both criminal violence and overcriminalization have taken on Black New Yorkers. The trauma that gun violence continues to inflict on people living in poverty, even as the city remains largely safe, is personal for Mr. Bragg. He says he was just 10 years old when he first had a gun pointed at him — something he experienced several more times, at the hands of police officers and others, while walking through the neighborhood in which he lived.Today, Mr. Bragg is committed to reasonable reforms to improve both policing and prosecutions and will put the work in to see them through to a safer New York. That’s why he went home to Harlem after graduating from Harvard Law School, first as a civil rights attorney, then as a prosecutor.The city’s rise in gun violence may end with the pandemic, or it may not. Either way, Manhattan needs a leader dedicated to keeping the public safe without returning to the overly punitive practices deployed for so many years.Mr. Bragg brings the experience, the nimbleness and the moral compass Manhattan needs. He deserves your vote.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Adams Gets a Major Endorsement: 5 Takeaways From Mayor’s Race

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      Representative Adriano Espaillat, who had backed Scott Stringer, switched to supporting Eric Adams, while Andrew Yang had a rocky week on the campaign trail.With just over four weeks left before the New York mayoral primary — and with in-person early voting set to begin on June 12 — the leading Democratic candidates are racing to distinguish themselves in an election that has so far remained relatively static, according to the limited polling available.The two front-runners, Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, both made news this week, but for different reasons: Mr. Yang, a former presidential hopeful, made a series of gaffes that seemed to highlight one of his critics’ most frequent complaints — that he has parachuted into the mayor’s race with little knowledge of the city and no government experience.Meanwhile, Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, continued to gain steam, picking up a critical endorsement from one of the city’s most powerful Latino politicians and gaining the lead in another public poll.Adams gets second dibs on an influential endorsementIn the messy aftermath of Jean Kim’s sexual harassment allegations against Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller and a leading mayoral candidate, Representative Adriano Espaillat, the most powerful Dominican-American politician in New York City, signed a terse joint statement rescinding his endorsement of Mr. Stringer.A scramble ensued, with several leading candidates courting Mr. Espaillat for his endorsement — a rush that ended Sunday when Mr. Adams traveled to Washington Heights, in the heart of Mr. Espaillat’s district, to receive the congressman’s formal embrace.Mr. Espaillat said he got into politics after witnessing someone shot in the head on a city street. Gun violence is again on the rise in New York City, and Mr. Espaillat said he is endorsing Mr. Adams, a former police captain, because “we don’t want that happening again.”Mr. Espaillat has helped several acolytes win office, including, most recently, his former campaign staffer Oswald Feliz, who won a competitive race for the Bronx City Council seat once occupied by Representative Ritchie Torres.“For Eric, the Espaillat endorsement, this is better than mangú,” said Eli Valentin, a political analyst for Univision, referring to the Dominican dish of mashed plantains. “I don’t think there’s anyone else among Latinos that has that influence within the Latino electorate.”The Latino vote is estimated to make up 20 percent of the Democratic primary vote, Mr. Valentin said. The congressman’s backing is expected to matter more than that of many other powerful city politicians, in part because it comes with Mr. Espaillat’s team of loyal supporters who can help get out the vote.“At a time when the machine style of politics has been waning, Mr. Espaillat has built a machine of his own that can move votes,” said John DeSio, who once directed communications for the Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr.Andrew Yang’s plan for city control of the subways has been criticized as lacking detail.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesAndrew Yang’s rough weekMr. Yang has characterized himself as a political outsider, someone who will not be beholden to special interests and who would be open to new ways of getting things done. Although he has been leading in many polls, that outsider image has inspired criticism that he doesn’t know enough about New York to be mayor.That critique came into focus last week when Mr. Yang fumbled or didn’t know the answers to several questions about city government and policy.On Thursday, Julia Marsh, a reporter from The New York Post, asked if he agreed with last year’s repeal of 50-a, a law that shielded the disciplinary records of police officers from public view.“The repeal of 50-a?” Mr. Yang asked.“Do you know what 50-a is?” Ms. Marsh asked.Mr. Yang stumbled over an incorrect response before Edwin Raymond, a New York Police Department lieutenant who is running for the City Council, explained the law.On the same day, Mr. Yang said during a forum on homelessness that it would be “extraordinarily helpful” to “have specific shelters for victims of domestic violence who are often fleeing from an abusive partner and is a distinct population with distinct needs.”The moderator, the NY1 anchor Courtney Gross, quickly pointed out that there are already a number of domestic violence shelters in the city, but that the issue has been capacity.“Oh, no, of course they do exist,” Mr. Yang said.Earlier in the week, Mr. Yang was also criticized for his proposal for the city to take control of the subway and bus system, which some saw as being light on details.Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, said Mr. Yang misspoke when addressing domestic violence shelters and that he had been briefed on the issues around 50-a several times. Mr. Coffey said his candidate understood the issues, but that doesn’t mean he knows “every piece of terminology or the debt limit for the M.T.A.”Mr. Yang’s opponents pounced on the missteps.“Andrew Yang’s ignorance of critical issues facing our city isn’t just insulting — it’s dangerous,” said Mr. Stringer, whose campaign also trolled Mr. Yang with a video of the perceived gaffes.How ranked-choice voting could play outUnder ranked-choice voting, winning the most votes in the first round does not necessarily mean a candidate will win the election — contenders near the top could still triumph if they get more second- and third-choice votes than the first-round winner.That could conceivably happen in next month’s Democratic primary. A new poll by Public Opinion Strategies for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, shows how the winner could be determined in 11 rounds with surprising twists and turns.Ranked-choice voting will allow New Yorkers to rank up to five mayoral candidates in order of preference. The Board of Elections will eliminate the last-place finisher among the candidates. If a voter’s first choice was eliminated, then their second choice vote will be counted. And so on until a winner emerges.In the poll, Mr. Yang received the most votes in the first round, at 22 percent, followed closely by Mr. Adams. But once voters’ ranked choices were tallied, and candidates with less support were cut, Mr. Adams came out on top with 52 percent of votes, compared with 48 percent for Mr. Yang.Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, finished third, picking up support from voters who liked Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive..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-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.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;}Once Ms. Wiley was cut in the 10th round, more of her supporters listed Mr. Adams higher on their ballot than Mr. Yang, helping Mr. Adams come out on top.The poll found other interesting trends. Mr. Yang polls best among men, moderate and younger Democrats and Asian voters. Voters with more education tended to support Ms. Garcia, and more liberal voters tended to back Ms. Wiley. Black, conservative and Brooklyn voters liked Mr. Adams. And Mr. Stringer attracted support from older women.Donovan PAC leads in ad spending. But to what end?For $5.5 million, one could buy a townhouse in Greenwich Village, a five-bedroom mansion in Sag Harbor or a swath of TV advertising for a mayoral candidate now polling in the single digits.New Start N.Y.C., a super PAC supporting Shaun Donovan’s campaign, has spent more on T.V., radio and online advertising than any other entity in the mayor’s race, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm. That is twice as much as the next-highest spender, Mr. Stringer’s campaign.Michael Donovan, the candidate’s father and the primary funder of the super PAC, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Nor did Brittany Wise, the super PAC’s treasurer. Since February, Michael Donovan has pumped $6.8 million into the super PAC supporting his son. All other contributors to the PAC combined have put in about $100,000.The money has gone toward ads like “Fix the Mess,” which, like Mr. Donovan’s campaign, touts the former federal housing secretary and budget director’s work in the Obama administration.Mr. Donovan has an impressive governmental résumé and working relationships with the most powerful elected officials in the country, according to Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College. But, Mr. Sherrill said, candidates with the best résumés are often not the best campaigners — and all the money in the world can’t necessarily change that.“You can rattle off all kinds of qualifications, but we don’t choose mayor by competitive examination,” Mr. Sherrill said, adding, “High-spending candidates rarely win.”McGuire puts $1 million into campaign as poll numbers lagMr. Donovan is not the only candidate with ample resources to spend but arguably little of substance to show for it, according to the latest fund-raising numbers released by the city’s campaign finance board last week.No one raised more money in the last two months than Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, who brought in $2.4 million from the likes of the hedge fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and Daniel Loeb. Mr. McGuire put his own money where his mouth is, too, pumping $1 million into his campaign on May 6. Mr. McGuire also lent his campaign $2 million this month.Even without that personal donation, he would have raised about as much as the $1.37 million garnered by Mr. Yang, and more than the $878,000 raised by Mr. Adams or the $661,000 that Ms. Garcia raised.The latter three contenders are participating in the city’s matching funds program, which rewards campaigns that raise small donations from New York City residents. It is not yet clear how much in matching funds they will receive this round. Mr. McGuire is not participating in the program and is not subject to its stricter fund-raising limits. His campaign has also spent more than those of his competitors.But he remains toward the back of the pack.In the recent public poll by Public Opinion Strategies, he was the first choice of only 6 percent of potential Democratic primary voters.His spokeswoman, Lupe Todd-Medina, argued that Mr. McGuire does in fact have much to show from that spending: Polls are often inaccurate, she said particularly when polling communities of color. And she noted that Mr. McGuire had no political experience before jumping into the mayor’s race.“In this short period of time, without selling gimmicky tricks to New Yorkers, Ray has created widespread support for his comprehensive plan for the greatest, most inclusive economic comeback this city has ever seen,” Ms. Todd-Medina said. More

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      How Andrew Yang Won Over Orthodox Brooklyn

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      A slew of influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders endorsed Mr. Yang, motivated by one overriding issue: “Yeshivas, yeshivas, yeshivas.”The campaign material began appearing in Yiddish earlier than usual this year, declaring that the best defense that ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York City could have against a hostile world would be to elect Andrew Yang as mayor.One ad, invoking a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, told voters that Mr. Yang was the sort of honest man who is loved by God, not someone “who says one thing with his mouth but means another in his heart.”Another ad cast the choice in existential terms, urging people to vote for Mr. Yang because he alone supports “our right to educate our children according to our fundamentals” and “values our way of life.”With the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary roughly a month away, Mr. Yang, a former 2020 presidential candidate, has been able to push to the top of the contest through a potent mix of celebrity, optimism and tireless outreach, both in person and on social media.As he did in his presidential candidacy, which had support from a broad spectrum of disaffected voters, Mr. Yang has been able to widen his appeal in New York, attracting a significant following from influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders.There are at least 500,000 Orthodox Jews in the New York area, by some estimates, and the endorsement of ultra-Orthodox leaders is highly coveted because the community is seen as a formidable voting bloc, especially in a race that has so far not energized the electorate.The endorsement of ultra-Orthodox leaders is highly coveted because the community is seen as a formidable voting bloc.James Estrin/The New York TimesThe key for Mr. Yang was his early declaration that he intended to take a laissez-faire attitude toward Hasidic yeshivas, the private schools to which almost all ultra-Orthodox families send their sons, as well as toward the schools where they educate their daughters.The yeshiva system has faced intense criticism over the failure of some schools to provide a basic secular education. Some also operated secretly during the pandemic, in violation of public health rules.“We shouldn’t interfere with their religious and parental choice as long as the outcomes are good,” he told The Forward, a Jewish publication, in February.That approach has helped him undercut rivals, particularly the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, a former state senator who has a long working relationship with the Orthodox community.In the 2013 Democratic mayoral primary, Hasidic groups in Borough Park, Brooklyn, backed Bill de Blasio, who had once represented the area in the City Council.But in the last two presidential elections, neighborhoods with large ultra-Orthodox populations were islands of deep red in overwhelmingly blue Brooklyn. Some precincts in Borough Park voted for President Donald J. Trump by more than 90 percent in 2020.It remains to be seen how much influence Hasidic leaders will have in the Democratic primary; most ultra-Orthodox Jews support the Republican Party, according to a study published last week by the Pew Research Center, and the 2020 presidential election results in Orthodox Brooklyn seem to bear that out.Nonetheless, for Hasidic leaders, the decision to endorse a newcomer like Mr. Yang over a known quantity like Mr. Adams highlights their anxiety after a yearslong series of calamitous events: a devastating pandemic, a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes and a long history of clashes with secular authorities over issues like social distancing, measles outbreaks and high school curriculums.Mr. Yang comes to city politics without the baggage of those past clashes. Capitalizing on that blank slate, he has won over allies with well-honed rhetoric on religious freedom, a sophisticated messaging campaign in Yiddish media and a willingness to adopt the hands-off approach favored by Hasidic leaders.“The most burning issue is yeshivas,” said Alexander Rapaport, a community leader who has organized voter registration drives in Borough Park in the run-up to the primary. “It’s not like something else is issue No. 2. Everything else is issue No. 25. The first 24 issues are yeshivas, yeshivas, yeshivas.”Alexander Rapaport, a community leader in Borough Park, said that for many voters, where candidates stood on yeshivas was a defining issue. Kevin Hagen for The New York TimesIn past elections, debates over yeshivas often centered on the allocation of public funds to the religious schools, which receive millions of federal, state and city dollars through education and child care programs.But the political conversation changed after a 2015 legal complaint filed by yeshiva graduates who said they had been given little secular education. That complaint led the city to open an inquiry that found that 26 of 28 yeshivas that were investigated were not meeting a legal requirement to provide education “substantially equivalent” to that provided in city public schools.No action was taken, but it prompted a citywide dialogue that cut to the heart of the yeshiva’s role in Hasidic society and profoundly insulted many in the community. There are more than 50,000 students in Hasidic schools in New York City, according to a 2017 report by Young Advocates for Fair Education, an ultra-Orthodox advocacy group.“The perceived threat to the autonomy of the yeshivas is greater now than it ever has been in part because there are critics from within the community publicizing what they see as the problems with the yeshiva system in a way that hasn’t happened before,” said Nathaniel Deutsch, a professor at University of California, Santa Cruz.Mr. Yang’s approach to the community was on full display at a recent event in Midwood, Brooklyn, where he received the endorsement of two local politicians, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein and Councilman Kalman Yeger.Standing before a crowd of reporters, Mr. Yang vowed to fight anti-Semitism and told Hasidic voters they were part of the “beautiful mosaic” of New York City.But when asked by The New York Times about yeshivas, Mr. Yang stood quietly behind Mr. Eichenstein and Mr. Yeger as they heatedly defended the schools, attacked “so-called advocates” for reform and decried the city investigation.Mr. Yang appeared bewildered by their anger — at one point, Mr. Yeger accused members of the City Council of being “OK with our kids getting blown up” — and sought to calm tensions with a joke about the “high-value add” they made to his campaign.He then took the microphone and criticized the city for allowing investigators “to check for infractions of various kinds” in yeshivas. He said he would take a different approach as mayor..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-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.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;}“To the extent that there are issues in individual schools, I think we have to come together with the community and say ‘Look, like, is there something we can do to help?’” Mr. Yang said.“When there are issues, the approach should be one of correction and collegiality rather than contentiousness and adversarialness,” he added. “Which, unfortunately I think, has been the dynamic that the city has engendered for far too long.”Mr. Yang has expressed a willingness to adopt a hands-off approach to yeshivas, winning over many Hasidic leaders.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMr. Adams has also praised yeshivas, saying he was “genuinely impressed” by one of the schools investigated by the city when he visited in March. But he has stressed that they must meet city standards and seemed to favor intervention when they do not.“We have to ensure that these yeshivas — those that are failing, which is not all the yeshivas, but those that are failing — we have to ensure that they meet the minimum standards,” he recently told The New York Times.The endorsements for Mr. Yang have been notable for how early they arrived. Hasidic leaders tend to wait until polls have established a favorite so they can try to back the winner, said David M. Pollock, the public policy director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.But the fact that ultra-Orthodox voters have voted as a bloc in the past does not mean they are a monolith, Mr. Pollock said.That has been especially clear at the local level. Even in 2013, when Mr. de Blasio won the Borough Park neighborhood, he did so only by a slight margin over William C. Thompson Jr., who beat him in other neighborhoods with large ultra-Orthodox populations.“The dynamic is not that there is one bloc vote, but that there are multiple political players who can deliver votes wholesale,” Mr. Pollock said. That can be especially potent in an election with ranked-choice voting, which this mayoral race is using for the first time.“If you’re not going to endorse someone as your No. 1, you can say, ‘You’ll be our No. 2,’” Mr. Pollock said. “That’s not bad if you can sway 6,000 votes.”Mr. Yang has sought to appeal to Hasidic voters on issues besides education, including support for the right of parents to choose a circumcision ritual, metzitzah b’peh, which is used by a minority of Hasidic mohels and has transmitted herpes to babies, and support for Israel in its conflict with Hamas.But yeshivas have become the dominant issue in part because they play a larger role in Hasidic society than schools do in the secular world, Professor Deutsch said.They employ many Hasidic people, act as a social network that connects people with jobs and marriage prospects and are a primary medium through which the community’s history, values and Yiddish language are passed on to new generations, he said.They are also an important lever of power for community leaders, who can threaten to bar a child from yeshiva to enforce standards of behavior on their parents, such as a prohibition on renting property to gentrifiers, Dr. Deutch said.Indeed, Yoel Greenfeld, a young man leaving prayers at a 24-hour synagogue in Borough Park, said he would vote for Mr. Yang in the general election because Hasidic leaders endorsed him. But he cannot vote in the primary because he is a registered Republican.“I’ll vote for Yang because the community here wants Yang, and when people say that they mean the leaders want Yang,” Mr. Greenfeld said. “My opinion is nothing compared to theirs. But personally, I want a Republican.” 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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      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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      Andrew Yang's Endorsement from Rep. Grace Meng Shows Momentum With Key Voting Bloc

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      The former presidential candidate won a major endorsement in the New York City mayor’s race from Rep. Grace Meng, a top Asian-American leader in Queens.When Andrew Yang ran for president last year, the surprising staying power of his candidacy was powered by a fiercely loyal, politically diverse group of supporters often referred to as the “Yang Gang.”He also enthusiastically embraced his Taiwanese-American background, drawing support from Asian-American voters, even as he occasionally fed stereotypical tropes like describing himself as “an Asian man who likes math.”Now, Mr. Yang is running for mayor of New York City, and his appeal to that constituency may be critical in the June 22 Democratic primary. Asian-Americans have generally accounted for 6 to 10 percent of voters in previous elections, and a large turnout could have an outsize impact on a race where voter interest has been lagging.On Monday, Mr. Yang received a major boost with an endorsement from Representative Grace Meng, the highest-ranking Asian-American elected official in New York, as he seeks to solidify support among Asian-American leaders.Ms. Meng, the city’s first Asian-American member of Congress, said she decided to back Mr. Yang after she kept hearing from her constituents in Queens who were genuinely excited by him.“They really feel like he’s someone who gives them hope,” she said in an interview.Standing outside a school in Flushing, Queens, with Ms. Meng, who is also Taiwanese-American, Mr. Yang said that Asian-Americans were often considered an afterthought in the life of the city. He said that he was glad that people were inspired by his campaign, but he also wants to focus on the nuts and bolts of improving their lives.Representative Grace Meng, center, said she endorsed Andrew Yang in part because her constituents in Queens said that he was “someone who gives them hope.”Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMr. Yang, a former nonprofit executive, already has endorsements from key leaders in the community, including Ron Kim, a prominent Korean-American assemblyman in Queens, and Margaret Chin, a city councilwoman from Hong Kong who represents Lower Manhattan.Asian-American voters represent an important constituency, with strongholds in Flushing and in Chinatowns in Manhattan and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. But they are hardly a monolithic group: There is great diversity among Chinese and Indian voters and along generational lines, with older voters skewing more conservative.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, was endorsed by a group of Asian-American leaders last week in Sunset Park and also has support from Peter Koo, a city councilman from Queens who grew up in Hong Kong.More than 700 people from the Asian-American community signed a letter opposing Mr. Yang, saying that he was too pro-police and perpetuated racist stereotypes, and that “representation alone is simply not enough.”Many of those who signed are involved in progressive politics, including a candidate for City Council who wants to cut the police budget in half and another who is a Democratic-Socialist.John Liu, a state senator who was a leading candidate for mayor in 2013, is considering endorsing Mr. Yang, but had not ruled out backing Mr. Adams or Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. Liu said that he likes many of Mr. Yang’s plans for the city and that Ms. Meng’s endorsement was significant.“Grace is a visible and influential leader, especially in this particular moment that we’re in with the Asian-American community feeling under siege and unprotected and underrepresented,” Mr. Liu said.Mr. Adams had been banking on support from the Asian-American community and continues to make the argument that voters can rely on him because he has been their friend for many years.“Before Yang, I was the Chinese candidate,” Mr. Adams recently told The New York Times.Mr. Yang has focused attention on violent attacks on Asian-Americans in New York and across the nation and has spoken about the discrimination he faced growing up. Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist who is not working for anyone in the race, said Mr. Yang could try to boost Asian-American turnout in the primary to more than 10 percent. He compared his situation to Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, who was Italian-American and Jewish and who won in 1933 with those voters’ support at a time when Italians and Jews together represented a third of New York’s population.“His prospects depend upon that being the fact, just as it did for La Guardia among Italian voters in 1933,” he said.The League of Asian Americans of New York, an organization that has hosted forums in recent months with some mayoral candidates, has not yet made an endorsement. Many of the group’s members are Chinese-Americans who became politically engaged in recent years in order to oppose the elimination of admissions tests for New York’s specialized public high schools..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;}David Lee, a leading member of the organization, said that the two most important issues for the group were public safety and education.Mr. Lee, a retired financial analyst and registered Republican, said that he liked Mr. Yang’s personality and approachability, and believed it was important to have an Asian-American mayor. But Mr. Adams was much stronger in supporting specialized testing and law enforcement, Mr. Lee said, noting that Asian-American shop owners have raised concerns about enforcement for shoplifting and violent crimes.“He’s a former police officer. That really says it all,” Mr. Lee said.Mr. Adams has hammered Mr. Yang for his decision to leave New York City during the pandemic and for not being a native New Yorker — Mr. Yang grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., and Westchester County, and has lived in the city for more than two decades since attending Columbia Law School.His wife, Evelyn, grew up in Flushing and attended public school there. Her father owned a small business, and her mother worked as an insurance and real estate broker before becoming a stay-at-home mother. Her first job, the campaign noted, was at a bagel shop in Bayside, Queens.Andrew Yang did not grow up in New York City, but his wife, Evelyn, left, did.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMr. Yang said on Monday that he had a “special connection” to voters in Queens because of his wife’s roots, and it was like a “second home” to him.In downtown Flushing on Monday, reaction to Mr. Yang and the mayor’s race ranged from optimism to indifference, even as large posters of the candidate were visible, including outside the busy New World Mall food court.Takla Tashi Lama, 42, who works in the jewelry business and was waiting in line at the Queens Public Library to be vaccinated, said he planned to vote for Mr. Yang.“He’s very hard working and sincere,” he said, adding that he hoped Mr. Yang brought transparency to City Hall.Benjamin Chin, 30, who was working at a vaccine site at the Queens Public Library, identified himself as a proud member of the “Yang Gang.” He said that one important issue for him was keeping the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test to make sure that Asian-American students have a path to a good education. (Mr. Yang said he wants to keep the test, but to also consider other criteria as part of the admissions process to the elite high schools.)But most of all, Mr. Chin liked that Mr. Yang was an outsider.“I’m very much in favor of not having a politician in office,” he said. “I don’t trust politicians.”Nicole Hong contributed reporting. More

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