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      Will New Yorkers Ever Have Another Mayor They Like?

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      Eric Adams — like most of his recent predecessors — hovers around a 50 percent approval rating. It’s hard to govern when only half the city is on your side.In the early 1990s, the historian Melvin Holli set out to solve a problem with a book called “America’s Big City Mayors.” Although governing a place like New York or Philadelphia was one of the most important political jobs in the country, we had no scholarly ranking of mayors, no orderly system of evaluating them as we did for presidents, thanks to the work of midcentury academics. Relying on surveys of biographers, social scientists and experts in urban policy and on an elaborate methodology, Mr. Holli concluded that Fiorello La Guardia was the best mayor in the history of the United States. No other New York mayor appeared on the “best” list; three were included among the worst.New York City is a notoriously difficult place to manage, and measuring success in real time is also complicated. On the face of it, the question of whether the current mayor is popular or not would appear to be a simple one determined by statistics, anecdote and so on, but it is knottier than that. In polling at the end of June, fewer than half of New Yorkers — 46 percent — indicated that they had a favorable opinion of Eric Adams, a decline of four points from his numbers in December.By contrast, Bill de Blasio, whose mayoralty was dominated by conversations about his irresponsible gym habits and deficits of personality, was doing a lot better at the same point in his tenure. Even as the bourgeois creative class and the business elites were coming to reject him as if he were rancid fast food, 18 months in, he was holding at a 58 percent favorability rating, with 81 percent of Black voters expressing a positive view of him.Mr. Adams’s problems occupy a wide space well outside the parameters of charisma. He has been criticized for a lack of vision or signature initiatives analogous to universal pre-K; a cronyist’s approach to staffing; a habit of petty and bizarre distortions of the truth. Some of this was predictable. During the campaign, his evasiveness led to headlines like, “Where Does Eric Adams Really Live?” because it was not obvious, a confusion that he blamed on shoddy paperwork at the hands of a homeless accountant.Last week, we learned that a picture of an old friend, a cop who died in the line of duty 36 years ago, had not in fact been held closely by the mayor in his wallet for decades as he had previously suggested. Rather, it was printed in his office last year by underlings, in response to the death of two police officers in Harlem.These shortcomings justify apprehension and may lead voters to turn toward someone new in 2025. And yet it is also true that New Yorkers hoping for a galvanizing figure, a mayor for all people, might need to adjust their expectations and make do with a mayor for half the people.Our current political landscape makes it too hard for a broad-consensus affection to emerge for anyone — it’s almost impossible to imagine how widely embraced La Guardia was, or even Ed Koch in his first term. Over the past 10 years, most mayoral approval ratings have hovered just above or below 50 percent. Although Michael Bloomberg had an approval rate of 31 percent early in his tenure, he briefly reached 75 percent during his deft handling of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, before slipping down in the years ahead.The 50 percent benchmark is so hard to surpass now, said George Arzt, a longtime political consultant in the city, because the electorate is so fragmented. La Guardia could govern well in part because as a liberal Republican who supported the New Deal he could connect to voters across constituencies. And there were simply fewer constituencies to think about.Lacking the sharp ideological divisions that burden the party today, Northeastern Democrats were unified by a strong labor movement. La Guardia had to forge an alliance with Jews and Protestants, with immigrants from Northern Europe and Southern Europe, but he was not operating in a city of 600 spoken languages. Between 1960 and 2000, the number of Dominican immigrants to the city alone multiplied more than tenfold, reaching 1.1 million.Supporters of Eric Adams — and most people presumably — appreciate that violent crime and hate crimes are trending downward. Shootings have fallen 25 percent year to date. “I don’t think people are looking for vision; I think they’re looking not to get killed,” Alan Fishman, a banker, philanthropist and Adams backer, told me. “What you hear about cronyism and dysfunction, that doesn’t affect people day to day. It’s inside baseball.”What does touch people is the sincerity of the commitment. Whatever you thought of his policies, it was hard to doubt Michael Bloomberg’s devotion to New York. Mr. Adams and Mr. de Blasio have been cast as temperamental opposites, but they share a prominent trait, a deep investment in their own marketing. (This was evident most recently in Mr. de Blasio’s case, with the long, moody interview he and his wife, Chirlane McCray, gave The Times announcing their separation, when the alternative in situations like this is typically an aloof three-line news release.)Mr. de Blasio chased a national profile more or less from the moment he was elected mayor, and he was absent from the city for stretches when he ran for president, remaining in the race even though it had become clear his bid would go nowhere. Eager to engage the high-style factions of New York his predecessor ignored, Mr. Adams has been selling us on his “swagger” since his first week in office. History shows us that it is a very rare for the mayor of New York to move on to higher office. The goal ought to be legacy rather than fame. More

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      New York’s Primary Elections 2023: What to Know

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      Primaries were being contested Tuesday for a range of New York City Council seats, district attorneys in the Bronx and Queens, and offices throughout New York State.Several Democratic incumbents in New York saw unusual challenges from more conservative candidates in Tuesday’s primary, with the opponents hoping to benefit from a demographic change, as an influx of immigrants is shifting some districts to the right.Incumbents easily held off primary challenges in Democratic primaries for district attorney in Queens and the Bronx; further north, a Council race in Buffalo was won by a woman whose son was shot in the Tops supermarket racist massacre.In New York City, just over 149,000 people had cast their ballots as of 6 p.m., according to the City Board of Elections. That includes 44,611 votes that were cast during the nine-day early voting period that began June 17 and ended on Sunday — less than a quarter of the early-voting turnout two years ago, when candidates for mayor were competing in the primary.There were contested primaries in New York City Council contests across the boroughs, with the races for a two-year term instead of the usual four years because of redistricting. Every seat on the City Council is up for re-election, but less than half of the 51 Council seats are being contested in primaries, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting, where voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, necessary.Ranked-choice voting will not be used in the races for district attorney.How Ranked-Choice Voting Will Affect the ResultsThe New York City Board of Elections will reveal the first-place vote totals each candidate receives on Tuesday; if one of the candidates in the 13 Council contests where there are three or more contestants draws 50 percent of the vote or more, a winner should be declared.If no candidate hits the 50 percent mark, the board will use the ranked-choice system, but not until July 5. The board usually runs the first ranked-choice calculation seven days after the vote, but because that day falls on the Fourth of July, the tabulation will be delayed a day.If necessary, additional ranked-choice tabulations will be held each week afterward, on July 11 and July 18, said Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the Board of Elections.About 15,000 absentee ballots have already been filed, but additional absentee ballots can be received a week after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by June 27.Under recent changes to state law, voters will also have an opportunity to cure or fix mistakes on their absentee ballots. The tentative last day to receive absentee ballot cures is July 17.Because of the low turnout, Board of Elections officials don’t expect that more than three rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulations will be required.Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group, said ranked-choice voting gave people more options. “We heard some voters in our 2021 exit polling say that because they knew they had the ability to rank, they actually paid more attention to more candidates,” she said.Some Key Races to WatchNew York City District Attorney RacesThe incumbent district attorneys of the Bronx and Queens both fended off challengers to win their respective Democratic primaries, according to The Associated Press.In the Bronx, Darcel Clark defeated Tess Cohen, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, who was the first person to challenge Ms. Clark in a primary. With 65 percent of the votes counted, Ms. Clark led Ms. Cohen by more than 12,000 votes.In Queens, Melinda Katz, rebuffed a challenge from her right, defeating George Grasso, a former Police Department first deputy commissioner who attacked Ms. Katz as being soft on crime. Ms. Katz disputed the accusation by pointing to her focus on retail theft, gang takedowns and gun seizures.The challenge from Mr. Grasso came four years after Ms. Katz narrowly defeated a democratic socialist who wanted to abolish the police and end cash bail. Ms. Katz was leading Mr. Grasso and another opponent, Devian Daniels, by 27,000 votes with 71 percent of the vote counted.Ms. Clark, whose tenure began in 2016, was the first Black woman to be elected district attorney in New York. She grew up in the Bronx, was raised in public housing and went to public schools.She said that her biggest accomplishment as district attorney has been “putting humanity into the criminal justice system.”Central Harlem City Council RaceIn Harlem, three moderate Democrats are running in one of the most competitive races in the city to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out last month.Ms. Jordan faced questions about her belief that the police should be abolished and about her far-left stance on housing development. Her name will remain on the ballot.The three Democrats running to replace her have sought to distance themselves from Ms. Jordan. They are: Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the State Assembly; Yusef Salaam, 49, one of five men exonerated in the rape of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989; and Al Taylor, 65, who is serving his sixth year in the Assembly.All three candidates gathered at Lenox Avenue and West 134th Street on Tuesday afternoon to try to woo voters. Ms. Dickens’s staff used a bullhorn, while Mr. Salaam’s team rang a bell every time a voter said they had ranked him first.Chantel Jackson, an assemblywoman from the Bronx who grew up in Harlem, came out with her nearly 2-year-old son to hand out fliers for Mr. Taylor. Mr. Salaam and Mr. Taylor had cross-endorsed each other, asking voters to rank them first and second. Ms. Dickens was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams.The major issues in the historically Black neighborhood include the loss of Black residents, lack of affordable housing and a saturation of drug treatment centers and social service providers.The candidates have struggled to differentiate themselves. All three say they would have supported a new housing development on West 145th Street that Ms. Jordan initially rejected because it was not affordable enough.Ms. Dickens and Mr. Taylor have contended that their experience would make a difference, while Mr. Salaam, who moved back to the city from Georgia to run for the seat, has argued that it is time for a generational shift.“Knowledge is power,” Ms. Dickens said while campaigning. “If you don’t have the knowledge, working in the system is difficult.”Other City Council RacesIn Lower Manhattan, the incumbent Chris Marte, a progressive Democrat, was leading challengers Susan Lee, a consultant; Ursila Jung, a private investor; and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher. All the challengers emphasized public safety and education and argued that Mr. Marte was too far to the left.In the Bronx, incumbent, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, was leading her opponents who criticized her because she backed the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck, which will bring affordable housing to the area.In southern Brooklyn, three Asian American Democrats are running in a newly formed district.The candidates are Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services; Stanley Ng, a retired computer programmer; and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.In a district that has swung to the right in recent years, the winner of the Democratic primary is expected to face a tough general election challenge from the Republican primary winner.Vito J. LaBella, a conservative Republican and former Police Department officer, is facing Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in that primary.Buffalo Common CouncilIn Buffalo, Zeneta Everhart, a political newcomer whose son was a victim of a racist shooting at a Tops supermarket last May, appeared on track to defeat a well-known progressive, India Walton, in a primary race for a seat on the city’s Common Council.The seat represents Masten, an East Side district where the Tops is located and which is a traditional base of Black political power in Buffalo, New York’s second largest city and a Democratic stronghold.Ms. Everhart, a former television news producer who works for State Senator Timothy Kennedy, testified in front of Congress after the shooting, in which her son, Zaire Goodman, was shot in the neck but survived. Ten other people — all Black — were killed by the gunman, who targeted East Buffalo because of its large Black population.Ms. Walton, a democratic socialist, became a liberal star after she defeated Mayor Byron Brown in a primary in 2021, only to lose the general election that fall after Mr. Brown mounted a write-in campaign.In this campaign, Ms. Walton had criticized Ms. Everhart’s connections to the Democratic establishment, which included endorsements from the county Democratic Committee and Senator Chuck Schumer. But returns on Tuesday showed Ms. Everhart leading with about two-thirds of the vote, with about 85 percent of precincts reporting.Jesse McKinley More

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      In New York Primaries, Democrats Feel the Heat From the Right

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      The Queens district attorney and several City Council members face more conservative challengers who are criticizing them on issues including public safety.When Melinda Katz ran for Queens district attorney in 2019, her principal opponent in the Democratic primary was a public defender and democratic socialist with a platform of ending cash bail and eventually abolishing the police.With endorsements from progressive prosecutors around the country — as well as from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Tiffany Cabán, a first-time candidate, lost by fewer than 60 votes after painting Ms. Katz as a regressive Democrat.Four years later, the strongest challenge to Ms. Katz is coming from George Grasso, an opponent running to her right who has accused her of being soft on crime.It’s not the only contest in the city where moderate Democrats are facing opponents on the right in primaries on Tuesday. In several City Council races, from the Bronx to southern Brooklyn, moderate Democrats are being challenged over public safety, affordable housing and education by more conservative members of their own party.“It’s really rare that so many challengers in this primary season are running to the right of the incumbent Democrat,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant who is working on the campaign of Stanley Ng, who is running to the right of the front-runner in the 43rd Council District in southern Brooklyn. “Primary challengers to incumbent Democrats are usually running from the left or making a generational argument about it being time for new leadership.”In the Bronx, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, who ran as a progressive in 2021, is facing two such challengers who have criticized her support of a plan to rezone Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck. In Lower Manhattan, Councilman Chris Marte is facing off against opponents who have accused him of wanting to “defund” the police, which he denies.A councilwoman from Queens, Linda Lee, who represents Bayside, faces more conservative challengers. In Harlem, three moderate candidates are running to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out. And in the newly drawn 43rd Council District, the three Asian American Democrats running in the primary listed public safety and education as their top two issues.Marjorie Velázquez, a City Council member from the Bronx, said she is a moderate who is falsely viewed as a socialist.Anna Watts for The New York TimesSome see the trend as partially tied to demographic shifts from immigrants who are more conservative on two issues: public safety, especially after a rash of attacks on Asian Americans during the pandemic, and education, where progressives have backed changes to entry exams for specialized high schools with large Asian American enrollment.Between 2010 and 2020, New York City’s population grew by more than 629,000, according to a report from the CUNY Research Consortium on Communities of Interest. More than half of that increase came from a net growth in the Asian population, including a 43 percent growth in Brooklyn and the Bronx.Asian American voters have shifted to the right in recent elections. In the race for governor last year, majority Asian districts remained Democratic but shifted to the right by 23 points from the 2018 election, according to an analysis by The New York Times.Yiatin Chu, president of the Asian Wave Alliance, said Republican candidates are aligned with views that many Asian immigrants value, which she said Democrats have not engaged well on. Others say that Democrats have left themselves vulnerable by not effectively articulating their positions.“What elected official doesn’t care about public safety?” said Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who represents Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and is likely to face a strong Republican challenge in the general election. “But because we’ve allowed the right to paint us with this broad brush that we all want to abolish law enforcement, now Democrats feel compelled to lead with that.”He is supporting Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services, in the 43rd Council District Democratic primary. She is running against Mr. Ng and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.Sensing a threat from the right, Future NYC, a pro-business super PAC; Labor Strong, a coalition of the city’s most powerful unions; and the New York City District Council of Carpenters are funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertising and on-the-ground support to help several moderate candidates.Future NYC recently pledged to spend approximately $500,000 to support Ms. Velázquez and Ms. Lee, said Jeff Leb, the group’s treasurer.Ms. Velázquez was one of 15 people who left the City Council’s Progressive Caucus in February after it asked members to agree to a statement of principles that included less funding for the police. She was recently endorsed by the conservative Police Benevolent Association. Still, her challengers have criticized Ms. Velázquez as too far left, citing her support of the Bruckner Boulevard rezoning that would bring affordable housing.One of them, Bernadette Ferrara, chairwoman of Bronx Community Board 11, said at a recent debate: “I am not going to let a weak and woke progressive like Marjorie Velázquez destroy a lifetime of work by stuffing the East Bronx with high-density, low-income housing.” Ms. Velázquez said she changed her mind and decided to support the Bruckner Boulevard rezoning, where new buildings will range from three to eight stories, because it would bring jobs and housing for older residents and families. The first Latina to represent her district, she said voters assume that she’s further left than she actually is.“I’ve heard that you’re socialist because you’re like A.O.C., and it’s like, no, I’m not,” Ms. Velázquez said referring to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist. “I am a moderate.”In Manhattan, Mr. Marte, who considers himself a progressive, said he has no plans to leave the Council caucus, and characterized his opponents as being further right than their comments suggested.All three of Mr. Marte’s challengers — Susan Lee, a consultant, Ursila Jung, a private investor, and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher — listed public safety as their top issue in the New York City voting guide.In a debate on NY 1, Susan Lee cited hate crimes against Asian Americans as a top public safety priority.And in the same debate, Ms. Jung defended her position by saying, “You can argue the numbers are going down, but a lot of public safety is perception.”Ms. Chu’s group endorsed George Grasso over Ms. Katz and ranked Susan Lee and Ms. Jung as their first two choices in the race against Mr. Marte. The group did not rank Ms. Chan in Brooklyn’s District 43, choosing Ms. Zhuang and Mr. Ng as their first and second choices. The Asian American winner of the Democratic primary in District 43 could face Vito J. LaBella, a former Police Department officer who is a conservative Republican, in what is expected to be a competitive general election. Mr. LaBella lost a close election for the State Senate by about 200 votes last year. He is running against Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in the Republican primary.Ms. Chu said many in her group are wary of “identity politics” and would not have a problem voting for Mr. LaBella in the general election.In the district attorney race, Ms. Katz has fended off attacks from Mr. Grasso, a former administrative judge and former Police Department first deputy commissioner, about her approach to crime.George Grasso, a primary candidate for Queens district attorney, is running as a more conservative Democratic who has accused his opponent of being soft on crime.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“I think there’s a gnawing sense among people throughout the city, and Queens in particular, that they’re just not feeling as safe as they felt a few years ago, and they’re not seeing the political leadership respond in an assertive way,” Mr. Grasso said in an interview.Ms. Katz has been endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both moderates. During her first term, she said she had focused on gang takedowns, gun seizures and retail theft. She accused her opponent of “cherry picking” crime data and courting Republicans.“His claims,” said Ms. Katz, “are ludicrous.”Emma G. Fitzsimmons More

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      Once Scorned, Far Right Secures Foothold in Spanish Cities

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      Local alliances between the center-right Popular Party and the far-right Vox may foreshadow a broader coalition agreement at the national level.Spain’s far right took office in a string of Spanish cities and in a powerful region over the weekend by forging coalition agreements with the moderate right, in a move that may foreshadow a broader alliance to govern the country after next month’s general elections.The agreements came about three weeks after the center-right Popular Party crushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing coalition in regional and local elections. To secure control of dozens of cities, the Popular Party struck coalition deals with the far-right Vox, which also performed well, embracing part of the party’s nationalist, anti-migrant agenda.Both parties will now govern together in some 25 cities of more than 30,000 residents, including five regional capitals, giving Vox, a party once considered anathema by most voters, crucial political leverage. They have also teamed up to run the wealthy Valencia region, which accounts for 10 percent of Spain’s population.“It’s something completely new, both in terms of extent and depth,” Sandra León, a political analyst at Carlos III University in Madrid, said of the alliances. “It opens up a new path, a new period in the right-wing bloc.”The growing popularity of Vox, which is already the third-largest political force in the Spanish Parliament, has coincided with the rise of the far right in Europe, at a time when the continent is grappling with fierce identity debates, the economic fallout of a pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.Hard-right forces already govern Italy, and on Friday, Finland’s main conservative party announced a new coalition government with a nationalist party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s normalization strategy is steadily bearing fruit.The leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, bottom right, in Parliament in Madrid in March.Chema Moya/EPA, via ShutterstockSantiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, has made it clear that he intends to make the most of his party’s gains locally. “We are and we will be extending our hand to build an alternative,” he wrote on Twitter this week, just as Vox and the Popular Party were locked in negotiations over regional governments.While municipal councils had to be formed by Saturday, regional governments have more time, and new agreements between Vox and the Popular Party could be reached in the next few days in regions such as Extremadura, in the west, and Murcia, in the east.Ms. León, the political analyst, said the local coalition agreements would help Vox, a party created only a decade ago, gain experience in running cities and provide it with resources to consolidate its organizational base. But she added that the most important outcome of the agreements is that they “have paved the way” for an alliance at the national level.Most polls show the Popular Party, also known by its initials PP, winning most votes in the early general elections that Mr. Sánchez has called for next month. But it would require an alliance with Vox to be able to form a government, a possibility that Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, has not ruled out.“Such clear pacts have been concluded between Vox and the PP” at the local level, Ms. León said, that “we already know they will ally” after the national elections.The prospect of the far right gaining national power has come as a shock in a country where nationalist forces had long been sidelined because of the shadow of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, which ended only in the 1970s.Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain at the White House in May. He called for a snap election next month following gains by the opposition.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn particular, the alliance between the Popular Party and Vox to govern the Valencia region has raised concerns about a rollback of civil rights.The coalition agreement in Valencia promises to “preserve the quality of education by removing ideology from the classroom,” in an apparent allusion to contents on gender equality that form part of the curriculum and which Vox has long criticized. The agreement also makes no mention of climate change, a phenomenon that some Vox leaders have denied is linked to human activity.Ms. León said that the agreement showed that the Popular Party “is willing to compromise on some issues on which it has different views from Vox” in order to govern.The left was quick to use the Valencia agreement as proof that a Popular Party governing in alliance with Vox would be a step backward.“There is something much more dangerous than Vox, and that is a PP that assumes the postulates and policies of Vox,” Mr. Sánchez said in an interview with El País on Sunday. “And this is what we are seeing: the negation of political, social and scientific consensus.”Under pressure, the Popular Party has tried to distance itself from the most controversial positions of the far-right party. After a top Vox leader in Valencia said on Friday that “gender violence does not exist” — an issue that parties from across the political spectrum have long acknowledged and combated — Mr. Feijóo rushed to denounce his remarks.“Gender violence exists,” Mr. Feijóo wrote on Twitter. “We will not take a step back in the fight against this scourge. We will not give up our principles, no matter the cost.” More

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      Eric Adams’s Criticism of Biden Angers Aides and Reveals Democratic Rift

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      The New York mayor has loudly blamed President Biden for an influx of migrants, amplifying concerns many Democrats share but irritating Mr. Biden’s aides and weakening his political position.The Democratic Party is following a standard strategy as President Biden seeks re-election: Do not criticize him publicly under any circumstances, lest it help Donald J. Trump or one of his acolytes take back the White House for Republicans.The one Democrat who appears to have missed the memo is Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.Mr. Adams has taken nearly every opportunity in recent weeks to publicly blame Mr. Biden or his administration for the influx of migrants to New York from border states, many of them on buses dispatched by Republican governors.His eagerness to point a finger at the White House has infuriated top Biden aides, who note the issue’s global complexity. At the same time, the mayor is using his platform to amplify concerns many Democrats share but will not articulate publicly because they don’t want to hurt the president.The recent schism comes as Republicans make Mr. Biden’s immigration policy central to their efforts to dislodge him in 2024. After many Democratic candidates last year successfully used abortion rights against their Republican opponents, Mr. Biden’s nascent campaign would prefer that his allies stay on message — something Mr. Adams has shown scant willingness to do, despite once calling himself “the Biden of Brooklyn.”Migrants in California waiting to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. New York and other major cities have had an influx of migrants from the southern border.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesOfficials in New York and Washington insist that the ideologically aligned president and mayor have no personal animus toward each other. But as Mr. Adams has struggled to manage the waves of migrants being sent to New York, he has been more vocal than other mayors in the same situation — and more willing to blame Mr. Biden.Mr. Adams said on Wednesday that it was “baffling” that Washington officials “are not understanding what this is doing to New York City.” He expressed similar sentiments last month, saying, “The president and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.”Mr. Adams and his allies say the White House has ignored many of their entreaties, including their request that the federal government give more asylum seekers access to work permits and develop a plan to more broadly distribute migrants across the nation.“We have reached out to the White House on a number of occasions and stated clearly the things we need,” Mr. Adams said Wednesday. “Allow people to work, which I believe that’s one of the No. 1 things we can do. Allow people to work. And do a decompression strategy at the border. We got 108,000 cities and towns and villages. Why aren’t we spreading this out throughout the entire country?”Since becoming mayor 17 months ago on a platform of taming disorder on city streets, Mr. Adams has repeatedly broken ranks with the Democratic Party. Last year, his language on crime mirrored attacks by New York Republicans as they helped flip the House and mounted a strong challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul.Now, some Democrats worry that Mr. Adams’s messaging on migrants will again undercut Mr. Biden, placing the president at odds with a high-profile ally and seeming to strengthen the arguments of Republican governors like Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida that he is weak on border security.“Abbott and DeSantis and whoever are getting what they want: They got everybody at each other’s throats,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime Adams ally who has tried to serve as a middleman between the mayor and the White House. “On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a 12 in frustration, and sometimes in frustration it can come off as more adversarial than you would like.”Some Democrats worry that Mr. Adams’s messaging on migrants will be a useful tool for Republicans to weaken Mr. Biden.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Biden’s aides and allies in Washington — a half dozen of whom spoke about their private discussions on the condition of anonymity — are clearly irritated with the mayor. In their view, Mr. Adams is a grandstanding opportunist, aiming to win headlines for himself without regard to the broader political implications for the president and his re-election.Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said in a statement that “Mayor Adams has and always will put the interest of New Yorkers first and foremost, and that’s why we’ve been asking for support for a year.” He added, “We desperately need federal and state support more than ever to quickly manage this crisis.”Last year, some White House officials were annoyed when Mr. Adams released a public letter asking for more monkeypox vaccines and calling the White House’s approach “piecemeal” after it had already told Mr. Adams privately that he would receive the vaccine shipments he had requested.When Mr. Abbott began busing migrants to New York from Texas border towns, Mr. Adams and his team asked the White House for federal support to house migrants, expedite their work permits and move some of them to cruise ships in the city’s harbor. The administration would often reply that many of the mayor’s requests required congressional action — which was unlikely, given the gridlock at the Capitol.On multiple occasions, White House officials told the mayor’s staff that they hoped to continue talking about the issues privately and emphasized the need to move forward as a partnership. Instead, Mr. Adams continued to criticize the administration in public.“He should be looking at Republicans who are purposely causing chaos for their political benefit and refusing to take any action to fix the issue,” said Pili Tobar, a former Biden administration deputy communications director who dealt with immigration.Mr. Biden introduced legislation that would overhaul the immigration system, increasing funding for border security and providing citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Republicans have uniformly opposed the proposals, and they have gone nowhere.The mayor has his own calculations to make. While New York City has long prided itself on being a haven for migrants, more than 67,000 have traveled there in the past year. The city is also unique among major American cities in its legal requirement to shelter people with nowhere to live. Already facing record homelessness, the city is now housing roughly 42,400 migrants. It has run out of room at its shelters and has begun scouting alternative locations.New York has sent migrants upstate while continuing to pay for their housing and services, temporarily housed migrants in public school gyms and floated ideas like putting tents in Central Park. The Adams administration even asked an owner of the mostly vacant Flatiron Building if there was room there. (He said no.)Homeland Security officials in the Biden administration also privately expressed concerns last year about how cities would handle the influx of migrants from Texas and Florida.Last summer, those officials acknowledged that New York City and Washington were already struggling, even with additional volunteers, to process hundreds of migrants bused to their cities, according to internal emails reviewed by The New York Times.More than 67,000 migrants have come to New York City in the past year.Juan Arredondo for The New York TimesThe Homeland Security Department was considering a plan in which the federal government would coordinate with local officials to fly migrants to cities, rather than releasing them along the border, and leave Mr. Abbott to continue orchestrating the surprise drop-offs.Supporters of such government-funded flights believed they would alleviate overcrowding at the border and allow federal officials to finish the processing of migrants once they landed. But some thought there were not enough federal resources to complete the plan.The administration instead moved ahead with an “Interior Cities Awareness Campaign,” in which the government would educate city leaders on migrants’ rights and immigration processing — but would leave municipalities to handle the drop-offs of migrants. The Biden administration has made $350 million in federal grants available to local governments grappling with the arrival of migrants; New York received $30 million.The Adams administration says that, beyond the organizational difficulties, the migrants’ arrival will blow a $4.3 billion hole in the city budget, which was already threatened by the decline of the commercial real estate market.Frank Carone, Mr. Adams’s former chief of staff, who is expected to lead the mayor’s re-election campaign, said it was “entirely appropriate for colleagues” to disagree on how to handle immigration.“I would contrast that to what goes on in an oligarch state, like in Russia or China or North Korea, where I doubt very much you’re going to see dissent from Putin’s allies,” Mr. Carone said. “The president and his team realize they’re in a humanitarian crisis. And he’s doing the best he can. Unfortunately, it is falling squarely on the shoulders of New York City.”What makes Mr. Adams’s approach so politically noteworthy — and appealing to Republicans — is that, while he is hardly the only Democrat to argue that Mr. Biden is not properly handling immigration, he is the rare one to do so repeatedly in front of television cameras.Mr. Adams’s repeated criticism of the White House has raised his national profile — no small concern for a man whose three predecessors ran for president. His potshots appear regularly on Fox News and in other conservative news outlets, with a clear message: Even the mayor of liberal New York City has had it with Mr. Biden.The mayor’s outspokenness has earned him the enmity of officials in the White House. Last week he was conspicuously absent from the Biden campaign’s list of surrogates, which included the mayors of Cincinnati; Richmond, Va.; and Madison, Wis.How much political benefit Mr. Adams can gain by attacking Mr. Biden is another question.Representative Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, said the mayor’s “sentiment is understandable and his grievance against the federal government strikes me as legitimate.”He added: “Do I wish he were more careful in his word choice? Sure.” More

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      Trounced, Conservatives Feel Voters’ Wrath in English Heartlands

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      Defections in the once solidly Conservative southern “blue wall” drove large losses in recent municipal elections.LITTLEWICK GREEN, England — Aged 22 and not long out of college, George Blundell never expected to win when he ran in municipal elections against a Conservative Party bigwig in a region long loyal to the Tories. But for a young, enthusiastic, former politics student it still seemed worth a shot.“I was like, ‘Well, what’s stopping me’? It’s not something you get to do every day, is it?” recalled Mr. Blundell, a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats, as he sipped a beer outside the village pub where he once washed dishes as a summer job.To his surprise, Mr. Blundell is now a councilor representing the area around Littlewick Green, having defeated the powerful incumbent in perhaps the biggest upset from local elections that have sent shock waves through Britain’s governing Conservative Party.Unhappy about Brexit and aghast at the economic chaos unleashed during Liz Truss’s brief leadership last year, traditional Conservative voters are deserting the party in key English heartlands, contributing to the loss of more than 1,000 municipality seats in voting this month.With a general election expected next year, that is alarming for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has earned solid marks as a problem solver and seems to have stanched the party’s bleeding from the Ms. Truss fiasco, but whose party nevertheless lags far behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.In these affluent areas within reach of London — called the “blue wall” after the campaign color of the Conservatives — the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, rather than Labour, made big gains in this month’s local elections. But when the next general election comes, the defection of voters from the Conservative Party could deprive Mr. Sunak of a parliamentary majority and propel Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, into Downing Street.The village pub at Littlewick Green, near Maidenhead.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesIt could also sweep from Parliament prominent Conservatives — like the chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, and the senior cabinet minister, Michael Gove — who hold seats in Conservative southern heartlands, as does the former prime minister, Theresa May, the member of Parliament for Maidenhead.According to Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, they have only themselves to blame because many moderate Conservatives feel their party has abandoned them, rather than the other way around.“Their Conservative Party was about stable government and low taxes, and looking after the City of London,” he said, referring to the financial district to which many voters here commute. “This Conservative government has delivered none of that.”“Rishi Sunak turning up and saying ‘Don’t worry, I know we spent five years burning down the house, but someone who is not an arsonist is in charge now,’” Professor Ford said. “Well, it’s not enough.”Certainly, it proved insufficient in Littlewick Green which, with its village pub, cricket field and pavilion flying British flags, is an unlikely spot for a political insurrection.Yet, so successful was Mr. Blundell that, when he joined a crowd of around 200 people celebrating the coronation of King Charles III, they greeted their newly-elected representative with spontaneous applause.Mr. Blundell, who works as a training adviser for an education firm, said he blushed so hard that “I basically turned into a human tomato.” He added: “I’ve known them all for a long time, and I want to do well by them and help them out — even if it’s the smallest things.”Mr. Blundell prevailed in Littlewick Green, despite its tony image as a place having a cricket field, a village pub, and a pavilion flying British flags.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesIn this quintessential corner of “blue wall” Britain, Mr. Blundell lives with his siblings (he is a triplet) and mother, a vicar, in a house that was once used as a set by the makers of “Midsomer Murders,” a TV detective show featuring gory crimes in scenic English villages.Mr. Blundell attributes his victory to a combination of national politics, local factors and the complacency of local Conservatives. The night of the count was “spectacular,” he added.Simon Werner, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Windsor and Maidenhead, thinks the success can be repeated in a general election. “The ‘blue wall’ is crumbling,” he said. “We’ve proved we can do it on a local basis and now we have to step up and do it at the general election next year.”In part, the events here represent the aftershocks of the polarizing leadership of Boris Johnson, who won a landslide general election victory in 2019 with the support of voters in deindustrialized areas in the north and middle of England. But Mr. Johnson’s bombastic, pro-Brexit rhetoric, disdain for the business sector and focus on regenerating the north of England never endeared him to moderate Conservatives in the south.Most stuck with the Tories in 2019 because Labour was then led by the left-winger, Jeremy Corbyn. But with the more centrist Mr. Starmer now firmly in charge, the prospect of a Labour government is no longer so scary for many traditional Tories, liberating them to abandon the Conservatives.Professor Ford added, the Tories had caricatured and pilloried their own supporters for years, with some Conservative politicians characterizing such voters as a privileged elite.“If you tell people often enough that they are not welcome, eventually they will get the message,” said Professor Ford.Even some Conservative lawmakers admit they are worried by the appeal of the Liberal Democrats to these voters.“Those traditional moderate Conservatives for whom the world works very well — who were happy to be in the European Union because it worked for them — yes, I am concerned to attract them back from the Liberal Democrats,” said Steve Baker, a government minister and lawmaker who represents Wycombe, close to Windsor and Maidenhead.Mr. Blundell chats with his mother in Littlewick Green.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesThere are demographic factors at play as well, as younger voters relocate from London, a Labour stronghold, forced out by high property prices.But local issues are important, too. At Maidenhead Golf Club, which was established in 1896, there is anger that the Conservative-controlled municipality facilitated plans to construct around 1,800 houses on the 132 acres of land the club rents — threatening to make the club homeless.Merv Foulds, a former club treasurer and lifelong Conservative voter, said that on election day he decided not to join his wife at their polling station, adding: “If I had I would not have voted Tory.”Both locally and nationally the Conservatives are seen as untrustworthy, he said, while Mr. Sunak has yet to prove persuasive.“Sometimes, when he speaks, you just get the feeling he is speaking down to you,” said Mr. Foulds, an accountant. “At least with Boris you felt that he was talking to you — even though he might have been talking drivel, and maybe lying through his back teeth as well.”In Woodlands Park, a less affluent district of Windsor and Maidenhead, Barbara Hatfield a cleaner, said she had voted for several parties in recent elections but was worried about hikes in food prices and angry about development in the town center.A house decorated with a Union Jack in Littlewick Green.Olivia Harris for The New York Times“Maidenhead is terrible, it looks like Beirut,” she said of the town, where there has been construction work, adding that she was unsure how she would vote in a general election.Another uncommitted voter is Mr. Blundell’s mother, Tina Molyneux, who ministers at local churches as well as being head of discipleship and social justice in the diocese of Oxford. She has her own theory of why her son was victorious.“Everybody was saying ‘There’s got to be a change,’” she said. “There was something to do with youth and a fresh approach.”Rev. Molyneux said she had previously voted for Mrs. May, whom she still respects, but will not support her at the general election because the Conservatives have “gone to the right.” More

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      Cherelle Parker Wins Democratic Mayoral Primary in Philadelphia

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      If she wins the general election in November, she will be the first woman to lead the city.After a crowded primary, Cherelle Parker, a former state representative and City Council member who campaigned on hiring more police, won the Democratic nomination for Philadelphia mayor on Tuesday night, emerging decisively from a field of contenders who had vied to be seen as the rescuer of a struggling and disheartened city.If she wins in November, which is all but assured in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than seven to one, Ms. Parker will become the city’s 100th mayor, and the first woman to hold the job.Of the five mayoral hopefuls who led the polls in the final stretch, Ms. Parker, 50, was the only Black candidate, in a city that is over 40 percent Black. She drew support from prominent Democratic politicians and trade unions, and throughout the majority Black neighborhoods of north and west Philadelphia. Some compared her to Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, noting her willingness to buck the party’s progressives with pledges to hire hundreds of police officers and bring back what she has called constitutional stop-and-frisk.But she said that many of her proposed solutions had roots in Philadelphia’s “middle neighborhoods” — working and middle-class areas that have been struggling in recent years to hold off decline.“They know it’s not Cherelle engaging in what I call ‘I know what’s best for you people’ policymaking, but it’s come from the ground up,” Ms. Parker said on Tuesday morning at a polling place in her home base of northwest Philadelphia.Solutions should come from the community, she said, “not people thinking they’re coming in to save poor people, people who never walked in their shoes or lived in a neighborhood with high rates of violence and poverty. I’ve lived that.”Ms. Parker did not attend her own victory party on Tuesday. Her campaign told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she had emergency dental surgery last week, and issued a statement saying that she had required immediate medical attention at the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening for a “recent dental issue.” Her Republican opponent in the November general election is David Oh, a former City Council member.If Ms. Parker wins in November, she would be taking the reins of a city facing a host of problems, chief among them a surge in gun violence that has left hundreds dead year after year. Philadelphians routinely described crime as the city’s No. 1 problem, but the list of issues runs long, including crumbling school facilities, blighted housing stock, an opioid epidemic and a municipal staffing shortage.The punishing list of challenges had exhausted the current mayor, Jim Kenney, a Democrat whose second term was consumed with Covid-19, citywide protests and a soaring murder rate, and who spoke openly of his eagerness to be done with the job.The primary to replace Mr. Kenney was congested from the start and remained so into its final days. Up to the last polls, no front-runner had emerged and five of the candidates seemed to have a roughly equal shot at winning, each representing different constituencies and different parts of town.The candidates at the finish line included Rebecca Rhynhart, a former city controller with a technocratic pitch who was endorsed by multiple past mayors; Helen Gym, a former councilwoman endorsed by Bernie Sanders and a range of other high-profile progressives; Alan Domb, who made millions in real estate and served two terms on the City Council; and Jeff Brown, a grocery store magnate and a newcomer to electoral politics.The early days of the race were dominated by TV ads supporting Mr. Brown and Mr. Domb, but other campaigns soon joined the fray and in the final weeks the ad war grew increasingly combative. SuperPACs spent millions on behalf of various candidates and eventually became an issue themselves, when the Philadelphia Board of Ethics accused Mr. Brown, who led in early polls of the race, of illegally coordinating with a SuperPAC.But for all the money and the negative campaigning, no candidate seemed to rise above the crowded field for Philadelphians who were busy with their daily lives.“People have option fatigue,” said State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat, who on Tuesday was chatting with candidates and local politicos as they packed into a traditional Election Day lunch at South restaurant and jazz club.In the last polls before the election, large numbers of voters remained undecided, but many of them seemed to break in the end for Ms. Parker, whose win was more substantial than many were expecting.The victory of a moderate like Ms. Parker in Philadelphia stood in contrast to some races elsewhere around the state. In Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh lies, progressives racked up one primary win after another on Tuesday, with candidates from the left flank of the Democratic Party winning the nominations for a range of top offices, including county executive and district attorney.Democrats also held onto their slim control of the Pennsylvania House on Tuesday, as Heather Boyd won a special election in southeast Delaware County. Top Democrats, including President Biden and Gov. Josh Shapiro, had made a push in the race, framing it as crucial to protecting reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.In a separate special election, Republicans held a safe state House seat in north-central Pennsylvania when Michael Stender, a school board member and a firefighter, won his race.Neil Vigdor More

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      With Local Elections in Much of the U.K., Here’s What’s at Stake

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      Municipalities across England will face voters, including in areas that could sway the next national election. Here’s a guide to the ballots and how to interpret them.Votes will be cast across England on Thursday in local elections that will be a test of the popularity of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has stabilized Britain’s politics but whose government remains unpopular in the face of surging inflation, sluggish economic growth and labor unrest.These votes will not affect the national Parliament that gives Mr. Sunak his power: Members of Parliament face the public every five years or so in a general election. The date is flexible but one isn’t expected until next year.But Thursday’s voting could offer important clues about whether Mr. Sunak, whose Conservative Party trails the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls, can turn things around.At stake are seats for around 8,000 representatives in lower tiers of government: municipalities that control services like garbage collection and construction permitting and raise taxes, within strict constraints, on residential property.It’s not an infallible guide to national sentiment. Turnout will be far lower than at a general election and parochial issues like planned housing developments could sway some races.Still, this may be the largest public vote between now and the next general election, and it’s fought across most of the areas likely to determine the next British government, with national issues often prominent in campaigning.What’s the state of play nationally?Recent surveys show Mr. Sunak cutting into Labour’s lead, though it remains in double digits. So he retains hopes of snatching an unlikely fifth consecutive general election victory for the Conservatives.Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader, needs a decent result to sustain his hopes of becoming the next prime minister. Despite moving his party close to power, he has failed to excite voters.The Labour leader Keir Starmer on the eve of local elections in Gillingham, England, on Tuesday.Gareth Fuller, via Associated PressThe local elections will indicate how Labour’s polling lead and Mr. Sunak’s polling progress translate into real votes.Who’s voting and where?The elections on Thursday take place across much — but not all — of England. Scotland and Wales aren’t voting, and Northern Ireland has local elections on May 18.Up for grabs are seats for representatives in 230 municipalities. The last time these seats were contested was in 2019, when Parliament was gridlocked over Brexit and the two main parties were about equally unpopular. Many big cities are voting (London excepted) but so are more rural areas.Both main parties hold a lot of these seats, but the Conservatives are defending the most — around 3,500 — and polling suggests they will lose plenty.How many is the key question: The parties traditionally seek to massage expectations. Greg Hands, the chair of the Conservatives, has talked of estimates that his party could lose 1,000 seats — a high number that some analysts think he inflated in an effort to portray lower losses as a triumph.Which are the results to watch?Some the most closely watched votes will be in so-called red wall areas in northern England and the Midlands. These deindustrialized regions used to be heartlands of the Labour Party. Mr. Sunak’s predecessor but one, Boris Johnson, fought a pro-Brexit general election campaign in late 2019 that won many of them for the Conservatives.With support dwindling both for the Conservatives and for Brexit, Labour hopes to regain some former strongholds, for example in northeastern England in areas like Middlesborough and Hartlepool.In the south, analysts will watch how the Conservatives perform in their traditional strongholds, prosperous towns like Windsor and Maidenhead, now sometimes known as blue wall areas. Here, Mr. Johnson alienated anti-Brexit Conservative voters, allowing independent candidates and a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, to make gains. Mr. Sunak hopes his more technocratic style has arrested that slide.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London in April. The local elections will indicate how Labour’s polling lead and Mr. Sunak’s polling progress translate into real votes.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockSome results should emerge overnight — the northern city of Sunderland, for instance, prides itself on having all its votes counted just hours after the polls close, at 10 p.m. local time — but many places start counting the next day. There won’t be a reliable picture of votes across England until later on Friday.What’s the likely impact on British politics?Earlier this year, when Mr. Sunak’s leadership looked shaky, these elections seemed like a potential trigger for a leadership crisis and a comeback opportunity for Mr. Johnson, whose own fall was accelerated by local election losses last year.Since then, Mr. Sunak has struck a post-Brexit deal with the European Union on Northern Ireland, and stabilized the economy after upheavals under Liz Truss, Mr. Johnson’s short-lived successor. By contrast, Mr. Johnson is embroiled in an inquiry into whether he lied to Parliament about lockdown-busting parties during the pandemic.So Mr. Sunak’s position looks secure for now. But a bad result could demoralize party workers, shake confidence in his prospects, embolden his critics and confirm expectations that he will postpone calling a general election until late next year (it must take place by January 2025). A better-than-expected result for the Conservatives would strengthen Mr. Sunak and increase pressure on Mr. Starmer.If the Conservatives do suffer, the prime minister has one big thing going for him: timing. On Saturday, all the British media’s attention will shift to the pomp and pageantry of the coronation of King Charles III. More