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      N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Tightens Ahead of Crucial In-Person Debate

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      Democratic hopefuls sharpened attack lines as they tried to draw contrasts on critical issues like policing and the city’s economic recovery.The leading Democratic candidates vying to become New York City’s next mayor veered sharply into attack mode on Tuesday, as they sought to draw distinctions on how they would address critical issues like crime and the city’s economic recovery.The sparring may be a preview of what is expected to be a pivotal face-to-face debate on Wednesday, less than three weeks before the June 22 primary.After months of campaigning in an environment marked by a pandemic-induced apathy, the available polls and fund-raising numbers suggest that increasingly, four candidates make up the top tier of contenders — though many voters remain undecided.For most of the race, the two top competitors appeared to be Andrew Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president. But two other candidates have seemed to rise recently: Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, and Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, either of whom would be the city’s first female mayor.A breakout moment at Wednesday’s debate could be an important launching pad for candidates who have struggled to achieve broader support, and the matchup appears increasingly likely to be more of a brawl than the first debate, a relatively staid affair punctuated by a few fireworks.With early voting in the primary set to begin on June 12, the mayoral hopefuls on Tuesday seemed to be sharpening their lines of attack for the campaign’s second official debate, but the first to be in person.At an appearance in the Bronx, Mr. Adams, who prides himself on his deep city experience, took direct aim at Mr. Yang, who, until recently, consistently topped limited public polling, though he has no experience in city government or elected office. “Why is he still in this race?” Mr. Adams said, adding that he thought Mr. Yang was “a joke, and it’s not funny anymore.”Across town in Brooklyn, Mr. Yang, who spent months running on a message of renewal and hope and had positioned himself as an above-the-fray front-runner, laced into Mr. Adams in one of his most pointed critiques to date, seeking to cast the race as a choice between a change candidate and those who favor stale, backroom-dealing politics.Andrew Yang attacked one of his leading rivals, Eric Adams, suggesting that he had risen through politics by trading favors.James Estrin/The New York Times“Think about all of the favors that Eric had to trade to get to this point, climbing the ladder over this last number of years, scheming about his run, thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be my big chance,’” Mr. Yang said, speaking at his campaign office in Bensonhurst. “Eric: Your moment has passed.”The broadsides showcased the deepening rivalries and sharply divergent visions for how to lead the city forward, with the crowded field of candidates differing over ideology and the question of what qualifications matter to become mayor.The last debate was defined by public safety more than any other issue, with candidates battling over whether to add more police to the subways, and Ms. Wiley and Mr. Adams tangling over his record on the policing tactic of stop-and-frisk. Amid a spike in shootings, a spate of anti-Asian and anti-Semitic attacks and clear differences between the candidates on issues of police funding and how to reduce violence, matters of crime and justice may take center stage again on Wednesday.Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams, Ms. Garcia and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, are considered to be relative moderates in the liberal field, especially on issues of public safety and dealings with the business community.Ms. Wiley, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have competed with each other to emerge as the left-wing standard-bearer in the race, supporting, by varying amounts, sweeping cuts to the Police Department’s budget and staking out a range of other left-wing positions. The former housing secretary Shaun Donovan has also taken several deeply progressive positions while maintaining close ties to the Democratic Party establishment, but has yet to emerge as a favorite of either the donor class or the activist left.The battle for the left has grown increasingly muddled over the last month or so. Mr. Stringer had gained significant traction with key left-wing leaders and organizations, but an allegation of unwanted sexual advances tied to a 2001 campaign, which he has firmly denied, sapped that momentum, though he remains well-funded and maintains the backing of other vital supporters, including some in the labor movement.Ms. Morales’s campaign has been mired in controversy, with staffers accusing her deputies of union-busting and suggesting that her campaign had fallen short of the progressive values it has purported to uphold.On Tuesday, Ms. Wiley made it clear that she hoped to stake out a position as the left’s best shot at the mayoralty and to court progressive voters left reeling by the upheaval in rival campaigns.“I am the progressive candidate that can win this race,” she said at a campaign appearance in Manhattan.As if to underscore the point, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, an influential progressive group formed by L.G.B.T. activists, said that it was endorsing Ms. Wiley, after rescinding its support for Ms. Morales.Ms. Wiley’s campaign schedule and recent remarks, in many ways, reflected her efforts to build a coalition that includes voters of color across the ideological spectrum, as well as white progressives.She started Tuesday campaigning with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is the state’s highest-ranking House Democrat and could become the first Black House speaker. Ms. Wiley then unveiled a new plan to address New York City’s housing affordability crisis, promising to expand rent subsidies to cover more city residents, convert empty hotels into public housing and extend a moratorium on evictions.The housing crisis has become a major issue in the race: Close to half of the city’s renters are considered rent-burdened, meaning that more than 30 percent of their income goes toward rent.Most Democratic candidates have vowed to build more affordable housing units, and all of them seem to agree that the de Blasio administration has not done enough to address the issue.In her remarks, Ms. Wiley suggested that the mayor, her former boss, had not done enough to reduce the high cost of city living. Throughout her campaign, she has tried to tout her experience in City Hall while distancing herself from Mr. de Blasio..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;}But on Tuesday, Mr. Yang suggested in his speech that any time spent in Mr. de Blasio’s administration was a résumé item that should be disqualifying.Mr. Yang’s address, which his team billed as his campaign’s “closing message,” was one of his most significant efforts yet to frame himself as a candidate who could reform what he cast as the city’s broken government.Mr. Yang painted a dark picture of New York City, one in which streets would grow grimier, crime would continue to rise and residents would flee unless he were put in charge. The fault, he said, laid with Mr. de Blasio and the career politicians and government workers who enabled him.“People are questioning whether this is where they want to raise their families,” Mr. Yang said.The speech, which took significant aim at Mr. de Blasio’s administration, marked a striking departure in tone from how Mr. Yang has campaigned for much of the race. For months, he positioned himself as an exuberant political outsider who could restore optimism to a city crushed by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis it wrought.But with recent polls showing Mr. Adams and Ms. Garcia gaining ground, Mr. Yang both implicitly and explicitly laced into his leading rivals. Mr. Yang’s harshest words were for Mr. Adams, whom he cast as an ally of Mr. de Blasio’s who would ensure that politics was “business as usual.” Though he did not mention Ms. Garcia during his speech, Mr. Yang criticized the city agencies where she spent her career as ineffective. He repeatedly took fault with dirty streets and piles of trash, areas that Ms. Garcia oversaw as sanitation commissioner before stepping down last year.When later questioned by a reporter, Mr. Yang said that he thought Ms. Garcia’s experience — which he had previously praised so extensively he vowed to hire her — was a mark against her.“I think Kathryn has done a lot for the city,” he said. “But I think that many New Yorkers want to turn the page from the de Blasio administration.”Eric Phillips, a former spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said he expected to see more attacks on Ms. Garcia in Wednesday’s debate, a reflection of her improving standing in the race following editorial board endorsements from The New York Times and The New York Daily News.Ms. Garcia’s fund-raising for the last reporting period was more than double what she had pulled in during the preceding period, though she lags other top contenders in the money race. “I’m certainly not suggesting she’s going to win, necessarily, but she seems to be the candidate who is actually moving in the polls — at some point, that matters,” he said. But even as the end of the election comes into focus, there is still time for the race to shift, again.“It’s New York City and a lot can happen every day, and does happen every day,” Mr. Phillips said. “When you have a playing field this even, you have this much parity, the race can get jumbled pretty quickly.”Mihir Zaveri and Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting. More

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      New York City's Post-Covid Recovery

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      One year after the terrifying first wave of Covid swept the city, the availability of federal aid has helped buoy New York through the pandemic. It’s likely that the city will even see a budget surplus for 2022.Still, New York has been shaken by the pandemic. Unemployment remains high, especially among low-wage workers in the service industries. Many fears remain: Will companies leave the city, no longer wanting to pay high rents if their workers can telecommute? Will property taxes plummet, decimating the city’s revenues? Will restaurants and theaters and bars reopen to the same packed crowds?Viewed through a lens focused on these problems, the city has not faced this much existential uncertainty since the 1970s. As unemployment skyrocketed during last year’s lockdown and as the number of homicides rose, it seemed quite possible that New York might be headed for a prolonged crisis — similar to the one that brought the city to the edge of bankruptcy in 1975.Today, in the midst of a race to pick a new mayor, New York seems at a turning point. Although the uptick in crime has garnered the most attention from the candidates, this obscures the extent to which a larger set of political questions are at stake in the election. Just as in the 1970s, New York faces a daunting challenge in which the old way of organizing the city’s life no longer seems viable, but it is not clear what the new one will be.But there are lessons to be learned from that earlier time of crisis and transformation — and from the social vision that characterized New York City earlier in the 20th century.For much of the post-World War II period, New York City had an ambitious local government. It ran a free system of higher education (and added new campuses over the 1950s and 1960s), an expansive public health department and more than 20 public hospitals. The city’s leaders embraced the idea that local government could play an important role in building a city open to all.The fiscal crisis of the 1970s brought an end to these politics. As the city fell into an economic recession — one that emerged in part as a result of national trends and policies with origins far beyond the five boroughs — it was no longer able to generate the revenues that it needed to sustain the public sector. Bankruptcy seemed likely.It was averted only when the city government agreed to sharp budget cuts in order to obtain federal aid. Tens of thousands of city workers were laid off, class sizes in schools swelled, public hospitals closed, routine maintenance stopped. The city university began to charge tuition for the first time.Today, New York has been able to avoid a fiscal crisis for reasons that go beyond the availability of federal aid. The city’s economy was in better shape before the pandemic than in the 1970s.But the bigger difference between then and now is political. After the fiscal crisis, many of the city’s political and economic leaders insisted that budgetary health depended on finding more ways to reach out to business, while relinquishing its old emphasis on the needs of poor and working-class New Yorkers. As the investment banker and city leader Felix Rohatyn put it, “Business has to be supported and not just tolerated.”In the late 1970s, this approach to city governance led the city to offer Donald Trump (and the Hyatt Corporation) tax abatements worth hundreds of millions of dollars to redevelop the Commodore Hotel near Grand Central Terminal. More recently, it has justified the billions spent on the Hudson Yards complex.The idea that the city must appeal to the affluent has shaped policy in subtler ways as well. For example, the city’s gifted-and-talented program, with its emphasis on testing 4-year-olds — a program that has disproportionately served children of white and Asian backgrounds — seems designed to keep families who might otherwise go to private schools or the suburbs in the public system. The “stop-and-frisk” police strategy (ruled racially discriminatory by a federal judge in 2013) emphasized the comfort of tourists and well-off New Yorkers over the civil rights of young Black and Hispanic ones.These underlying assumptions about city government are being challenged. The experience of the pandemic has called into question the old consensus that a focus on retaining business and the wealthy should guide city policy.As a result, the State Legislature has raised taxes on millionaires, which has helped make it possible for the city to win funding for schools long promised by Albany. The city also plans to use some of its federal money to increase spending on initiatives that will especially affect people who are working-class, middle-class or poor — like public health and early childhood education.New York’s finances remain perilous; sales taxes and hotel taxes are down, though personal income taxes are up, buoyed by the stock market and also by federal stimulus. The federal funds that have supported recovery will not always be there, raising the question of how programs they fund today will be paid for in the future. The city’s own predictions forecast budget shortfalls in a few years, though these may well disappear if growth resumes. (The Independent Budget Office, a watchdog organization, suggests that the gaps are manageable.)But a new mayor will take charge in a city where the terms of political debate are changing fast, and in which more and more New Yorkers are asking what they can expect from their local government. Out of the pandemic, is it possible to build a more equal New York?These concerns have been percolating through the mayoral race, even as they have been overshadowed by fears of crime, scandal, personality and the age-old question of how to define a bodega. But they will be at the heart of the city’s politics over the next four years.Following the near-bankruptcy of the 1970s, the city turned away from its old traditions of social justice. Today, we might take a different set of lessons from that earlier crisis — this time, from the New Yorkers who slept in fire stations and libraries to keep them open. A city belongs to those who are willing to fight for it, whose lives and whose labor make it run.Kim Phillips-Fein, a historian at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, is the author, most recently, of “Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics” and “Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal.”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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      5 Takeaways from NYC Mayor's Race: Garcia Rises, and Yang Changes His Tune

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      A new survey put Kathryn Garcia in the lead, shaking up the mayoral race with just weeks to go before Primary Day.As the mayoral campaign of Dianne Morales, a progressive champion, continues to disintegrate around her, a moderate has ascended in the polls. Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, continued to gain momentum, and even some negative attention from a rival who once lavished praise on her.The polling in the mayor’s race remains spare and potentially unreliable, but if it is to be believed, three of the front-runners in the race — Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; and now Ms. Garcia — are moderate Democrats, not progressives.That may have something to do with the post-pandemic state of New York City. But it may also have something to do with the progressives’ inability to unify behind a particular candidate.Garcia gets a super PACIt is the new, must-have accessory for any serious New York mayoral candidate, and Ms. Garcia is finally getting one, too — a super PAC.Jon Jones and Ronnie Cho, two veterans of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, are putting together an independent expenditure committee in an effort to inundate New Yorkers with pro-Garcia advertising in the final weeks of the mayoral primary.Their move leaves just one candidate out of the top eight without a super PAC supporting her: Ms. Morales. Recent polling indicates Ms. Garcia has entered the race’s top tier of candidates, alongside Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams, both of whom already have well-funded super PACs behind them. This is the first New York City mayor’s race to see this level of outside spending. The onslaught of barely regulated money comes at the same time that the city is implementing its new, more generous matching funds system, which is designed to reward small-dollar donations from local residents. Critics worry the super PAC spending threatens the efficacy of that public financing system.Mr. Jones and Mr. Cho say they already have financial commitments worth six figures, and are aiming to ultimately raise more than $1 million. They declined to name their donors.“The city is broke and we’ve got big economic, cultural and operational challenges in N.Y.C.,” they said in a joint statement. “It’s not the time for big rhetoric and personalities, undeliverable promises or idealistic dogma. Simply put, we need someone who can get the job done.”Yang goes negative on GarciaFor months, Mr. Yang has parried criticism of his lack of experience in government with a promise to surround himself, once in office, with the most skilled government hands. Consistently, he has named Ms. Garcia among them.“She is a disciplined operator with great experience and I hope that she’s a partner in my administration,” Mr. Yang said in a recent video interview with The New York Times. “Kathryn, if you’re watching this, Kathryn, let’s team up. We’re going to do it, got to do it for the city.”At the time, Ms. Garcia did not seem to pose a threat to Mr. Yang. All it took for him to change his tune were a couple of polls.“She is a disciplined operator with great experience and I hope that she’s a partner in my administration,” Andrew Yang once said of Ms. Garcia.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesLast Tuesday, the Boston-based Emerson College Polling released a survey finding Ms. Garcia leading the field, followed by Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang. That survey came just the day before a poll by Core Decision Analytics finding Ms. Garcia in the top three, trailing Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams.And suddenly, Mr. Yang was singing a different song.“We talk about her experience as the head of the Department of Sanitation,” Mr. Yang said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Wednesday. “Right now, New Yorkers complain to me just about every day about the piles of trash that we’re seeing around us that get higher and higher.” Ms. Garcia left the sanitation department in September, and in her resignation letter she criticized the mayor for cutting the department’s budget. Reached over the weekend, she said she didn’t find the attacks surprising.“They’re looking at the polls and seeing my numbers rise,” Ms. Garcia said in a text message. “Momentum!” she continued, adding a smiling emoji.Asked why Mr. Yang had a change of heart, his senior adviser Eric Soufer said, “Our city needs a change at the top, not a de Blasio third term.”Morales’s staffers wage a protest against herOn Friday morning, the wind at Bryant Park carried the regular scents of grass and food — and palo santo. The newly unionized members of Ms. Morales’s mayoral campaign had gathered near the park’s lawn, crafting signs, practicing chants and burning pieces of the aromatic wood, readying for a march to Ms. Morales’s Manhattan headquarters.The workers moved to unionize last week following the resignation of two high-level staff members, among them the campaign manager, and the termination of six more, including four members involved in union efforts. Following the dismissals, organizers began a work stoppage, calling for the reinstatement of the staff members. The tumult, just weeks before the primary, has caught Ms. Morales in a bind, trying to balance running a mayoral campaign — a stressful, chaotic undertaking under any circumstances — and living up to the progressive ideals that she and her staff have put at the center of her race.Dianne Morales in Manhattan in May. Workers on her staff moved to unionize last week, following the resignation of two high-level staff members.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“It’s a beautiful and messy thing,” Ms. Morales said of the unionization efforts during an interview with NY1 Thursday night, calling it a “reflection” of her “transformative” campaign. It wasn’t enough for her increasingly skeptical staff. The next morning about 40 of her employees gathered on the sidewalk outside her Midtown office. People encouraged each other to mind sidewalk violations, in case a minor infraction gave the campaign leaders inside an excuse to call the police. “I don’t put it past the campaign office that we’re in front of to call the cops,” said Nia Evans, a union organizer. .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;}Ms. Morales’s campaign has embraced cutting the budget of the New York Police Department by $3 billion. In a private video for staff released late this week, Ms. Morales admitted to replicating “the very systemic and structural issues that this campaign has intended to repair.” But the candidate was not swayed by recent events, claiming, “I’m not going anywhere.” Adams wants to crack down on loud dirt bikesThe dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles that constantly speed through the city are loud, but they can also be dangerous — for pedestrians and for the people operating them. They appear regularly during warmer months with seeming impunity.Last week, Mr. Adams announced a plan to crack down on them. “It’s a quality-of-life crisis,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan on Wednesday. As Mr. Adams and Representative Adriano Espaillat gathered with leaders to express concern, a group of roaring bikes whizzed by. The drivers were not wearing helmets as they passed several police vehicles, traveling the wrong way into traffic. Eric Adams greets supporters in the Bronx in May. Last week, Mr. Adams announced a plan to crack down on loud dirt bikes.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesMr. Adams, a former police captain who is running as the public safety candidate, said that many dirt bikes are unlicensed and uninsured, and called on the police to enforce existing traffic laws to stop reckless drivers. He also wants to use speed cameras and red light cameras to ticket drivers, and to expand the hours when speed cameras operate. And he would like to require dealers who sell dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles to confirm that a buyer has a vehicle registration and insurance. Mr. Adams said the vehicles were more than a nuisance. “They are a signal that our city is becoming lawless and unsafe,” he said.Quality-of-life issues take on growing importanceMr. Adams was hardly the only candidate to take on quality-of-life issues in recent days — in fact, the problems are increasingly occupying the spotlight in this year’s mayoral race.Last week, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, released a proposal to reduce noise pollution, in part by banning nonessential helicopter flights and promoting efforts to “curb rampant drag racing and get ATVs off the streets.” The proposal was called “Hear Our Noise Complaints!” — or “H.O.N.C.!”Ms. Garcia promoted a plan for street cleanliness with a focus on “clean curbs and rat-resistant containers.”And Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, offered a plan to combat illegal fireworks.“Illegal firework use is not just a quality-of-life issue, it poses a threat to the safety of New Yorkers and can lead to fires, injuries and deaths,” he said.Like Mr. McGuire, a number of candidates are arguing that quality-of-life issues are linked to public safety — one of the most dominant subjects in the race — making it likely that they will be a growing focus in the final stretch of the race. More

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      Shaun Donovan Has the Résumé and the Money. He Just Needs the Votes.

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      Shaun Donovan Has the Résumé and the Money. He Just Needs the Votes.In running for mayor of New York, Mr. Donovan is arguing that his leadership experience offers what the city needs in a time of crisis.Mr. Donovan, who often says that he’s running a “campaign of ideas,” is more than halfway through releasing 70 ideas in 70 days.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the sixth in a series of profiles of the major candidates.May 31, 2021Five years ago, a powerful New York-based political strategist was rooting around for someone whom voters could envision as the city’s next mayor, someone with the right type of experience and gravitas to take on the weakened incumbent, Bill de Blasio.The strategist, Bradley Tusk, believed he had found his candidate: Shaun Donovan, a veteran of the Obama administration and a former city commissioner under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Mr. Tusk believed that Mr. Donovan’s credentials would be irresistible to voters, saying then that New Yorkers “want the competency of Bloomberg, but they want something that’s more progressive.”Mr. Donovan recently recalled that moment with some wistfulness. He remembered thinking how he had missed so much time with his two sons because of his work for President Barack Obama, first as housing secretary and then budget director. He decided then that running for mayor would have to wait.Mr. Tusk never found his candidate, and Mr. de Blasio went on to easily capture his second term.Things have since changed significantly. Mr. de Blasio is in his final year as mayor, and Mr. Donovan is one of 15 Democrats and Republicans seeking to replace him. Mr. Tusk’s firm now manages the campaign of Andrew Yang, one of the race’s front-runners.But Mr. Donovan, 55, has not been able to live up to Mr. Tusk’s initial ambition. He remains anchored among the second tier of mayoral contenders, despite the support from a super PAC — funded almost exclusively by his father — that has spent $5.5 million so far, much of it on ads trumpeting Mr. Donovan’s accomplishments.He has tried attacking the record of Mr. de Blasio, decrying what he saw as the mayor’s poor management of everything from city parks to the census and even the food supply, and drawing a contrast to his time in the Bloomberg administration with its aura of efficiency.Voters want change, Mr. Donovan says. “They’re sick of the political status quo in New York, but they also want experience,” he said after a news conference last month at Pelham Parkway Houses in the Bronx, where he criticized Mr. de Blasio’s management of public housing. “New Yorkers don’t want a rookie as mayor.”Yet many of Mr. Donovan’s news conferences, where he lays out detailed plans to end homelessness or address gun violence, are sparsely attended. His broadside attacks on other candidates are mostly ignored. Viewers of the first official televised mayoral debate talked more about the expansive HGTV-ready kitchen in Mr. Donovan’s background than about his proposals.Mr. Donovan entered the race confident that his track record of implementing his ideas about reducing inequality while working for the country’s first Black president would win voters, but instead he has faced criticism that his privileged background left him out of touch with middle-income New Yorkers. He has announced reams of technocratic plans that he considers among the most progressive in the race but has not secured support from the city’s progressive establishment.Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University who advised Mr. Bloomberg during his first campaign for mayor in 2001, said that Mr. Donovan had not taken off because “New Yorkers aren’t electing a résumé, we’re electing a person.”Professor Moss effusively praised Mr. Donovan, saying he was one of the smartest people he knew, a common refrain. Mr. Donovan almost single-handedly put New York “back in the housing business” when he worked for Mr. Bloomberg, he added.“Donovan has everything on paper,” Professor Moss said. “He may be the right candidate at the wrong time.”A ‘look in the mirror moment’Mr. Donovan served as President Barack Obama’s housing secretary and budget director.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesThe realization that he might run for mayor, Mr. Donovan said, came more than four years ago, on the final evening of the Obama administration.He was among roughly 30 of the administration’s longest-tenured officials who gathered on the Truman Balcony of the White House with the president and the first lady, Michelle Obama, reflecting on their past and worrying about the nation’s future with Donald J. Trump as president.“It was a look in the mirror moment,” Mr. Donovan said. “How could this have happened, and what are you going to do about it?”Mr. Donovan grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and attended the prestigious Dalton School. His parents divorced when he was 8 years old, a period that he recalled as difficult for him and his three siblings. He bounced between his parents’ apartments, and “there was lots of feeding ourselves,” Mr. Donovan said.“The profound thing for me was being surrounded by people who were wealthy and not happy and not making a difference in the world,” Mr. Donovan said, recalling how that sense was compounded after he graduated from Harvard University and a friend from Dalton committed suicide.By then, Mr. Donovan had begun interning for the National Coalition for the Homeless. Mr. Donovan said his father, Michael Donovan, who started a business that became one of the largest ad technology companies in the world, encouraged him to follow his heart in choosing a career, telling him that he could do anything “except come work for me.”Mr. Donovan, despite his credentials, has found it difficult to connect with voters, according to limited polling.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Donovan went on to earn master’s degrees in public administration and architecture from Harvard. When he was at graduate school in Harvard, Mr. Donovan learned about the Nehemiah Housing Project, which used a community planning model to build thousands of homes in the neglected Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville and East New York.Bishop Johnny Ray Youngblood, who was then with East Brooklyn Congregations, spearheaded the project. Mr. Donovan read about the effort and sought Bishop Youngblood out.“He was bright-eyed and bushy tailed,” said Bishop Youngblood, who recalled sending Mr. Donovan to California for training as a community organizer and saw his follow-through as proof that Mr. Donovan “was more serious than I thought he was.”Bishop Youngblood connected Mr. Donovan with the Community Preservation Corporation, an affordable housing developer in New York. Mr. Donovan eventually landed a job with the Clinton administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he designed a program that helped to preserve moderate- and low-income units across the country.In 2004, he became Mr. Bloomberg’s housing commissioner and worked to reduce homelessness by giving housing vouchers to people being released from Rikers Island. Homelessness declined while Mr. Donovan was in charge of housing.Housing advocates credit Mr. Donovan with fighting the earliest wave of private equity firms who were buying multifamily properties and forcing out rent-stabilized tenants; they said he effectively worked with tenant groups to identify at-risk buildings and preserve their affordability.In 2008, Mr. Donovan helped launch the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, which is dedicated to helping people avoid foreclosure and to promote homeownership, an idea that Mr. Donovan believes put him on Mr. Obama’s radar.In 2004, Mr. Donovan joined the mayoral administration of Michael Bloomberg, serving as his housing commissioner.Richard Perry/The New York TimesCraig Gurian of the Anti-Discrimination Center, a fair-housing group that is suing the city to end community preference in affordable housing lotteries, claiming it reinforces segregation, said Mr. Donovan missed opportunities as the city’s housing chief to address the problem. Later, when he joined the Obama administration, Mr. Donovan failed to vigorously enforce a similar suit against Westchester County, Mr. Gurian said.“He’s a very smart guy. He knows about housing and he’s had the power to do stuff, yet he didn’t,” Mr. Gurian said. “It just doesn’t jibe with his current persona in the mayoral race.”Mr. Donovan served as Mr. Obama’s budget director, led the response to Hurricane Sandy and was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he helped reduce veteran homelessness by almost 40 percent and negotiated the $25 billion settlement with mortgage servicers after the foreclosure crisis.Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as United States attorney general under Mr. Obama, said Mr. Donovan had an “expansive view” of his positions in his quest to help Americans. “He’s a guy who hasn’t forgotten why he wanted to be involved in government,” Mr. Holder said in an interview.Mr. Donovan also created the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program, which allows private developers to renovate and manage public housing units. Tenants have worried that the program might lead to displacement, an idea Mr. Donovan rejects.Afua Atta-Mensah, executive director of Community Voices Heard Power, said that many residents found Mr. Donovan to be “smart, honest and open” when he defended the rental assistance program during a meeting with mayoral candidates but that he failed to see the gap between “doing a massive plan from D.C.” and “lived experience.”.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;}The group endorsed Maya Wiley, Mr. de Blasio’s former counsel, for mayor, and ranked Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, as its second choice.A perception of privilegeMr. Donovan is fond of saying that he’s running a “campaign of ideas” and is in the midst of unveiling 70 ideas in 70 days (Day 36: strengthening the regional food system; Day 42: fast-tracking felony gun cases).Mr. Donovan’s campaign news conferences have typically been sparsely attended.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesHis campaign mailed a 200-page book of ideas to the homes of journalists covering the race for mayor and to elected officials and other candidates. There are proposals for everything from how to alleviate public health disparities to how to fix the New York Jets, a parody plan he unveiled on April Fools’ Day. The more left-leaning of those ideas, he said, differentiated him from the more moderate candidates in the field.If elected, he has promised to provide poor children with bonds to eliminate the racial wealth gap; create 15-minute neighborhoods where a good school, fresh food, transit, a park and health care are within a short walk; remove the New York Police Department from city schools; and cut $3 billion from the police and corrections budget by the end of his first term and spend the money on underserved neighborhoods.Closing the racial wealth gap has been identified as one of the best ways to address systemic racial inequality in America. Under Mr. Donovan’s equity bonds proposal, every child born in New York City would receive an annual payment of $2,000, which would go into an account that would be accessible when they turn 18, and could have $50,000 waiting to pay for college or start a business when they turn 18. Mr. Donovan proposes using a combination of private, city and federal money to fund the costly effort.Cutting money from both the police and corrections budget shows a willingness to dive below the surface on a nuanced issue such as defund the police and look for creative solutions, Mr. Donovan said.On a recent visit to the Bronx that included a stop at the Futa Islamic Center for Friday evening prayer services, Mr. Donovan talked about the redevelopment of the South Bronx. The neighborhood was not far from Charlotte Street, the burned-out stretch of vacant lots and rubble near Boston Road visited by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. It is now filled with suburban style homes with lawns, a fabled tale of urban renewal.Mr. Donovan, at the Futa Islamic Center in the South Bronx, not far from where he held his official mayoral campaign launch.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesA few blocks in the opposite direction was Via Verde, a mixed-income 222-unit development dedicated to healthy living where Mr. Donovan formally announced his campaign. As Mr. Bloomberg’s housing commissioner, he helped bring the building into existence by launching an architectural design contest for affordable housing.Mr. Donovan recalled visiting the Bronx as an impressionable 11-year-old, watching from the Yankee Stadium stands as Reggie Jackson hit home runs in three consecutive at-bats to help the Yankees win the 1977 World Series. He went from being elated and hugging strangers to seeing burned-out buildings after leaving the game, he remembered.“People thought the American city was dying,” Mr. Donovan said. “And this was Exhibit A,” he added in reference to the South Bronx.Many political observers agree that Mr. Donovan has the credentials of a top mayoral candidate, but still has not been able to connect with voters.He is a native New Yorker but does not always sound like one. In an interview with The New York Times editorial board, he suggested that the median price for a home in Brooklyn was $100,000. The correct answer is actually nine times that amount; Mr. Donovan, who, with his wife, Liza Gilbert, paid $2.3 million in 2019 for their home in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, later said he had misunderstood the question.The mistake drew derision on social media, and fed the perception that Mr. Donovan was out of touch with the concerns of working-class New Yorkers in one of the most unequal cities in the country.That perception has also been fueled by the $6.8 million that his father, Michael Donovan, has contributed to New Start N.Y.C., a super PAC supporting his son’s campaign.Mr. Donovan said that several other candidates in the race have PACs and added that unlike some other donors, his father was not seeking anything in return for his contributions. “I don’t think New Yorkers are concerned that my dad’s intentions are to lobby me for more time with the grandchildren,” he said, while still acknowledging that his father’s support reinforced the notion that he had advantages that other candidates lacked.On the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Mr. Donovan was arrested with a small group of protesters at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMr. Donovan, aware that his privilege had become a liability with some voters, has been trying to address that concern in the last weeks of the campaign.On the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, he was arrested with a small group of protesters who blocked the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in an act of civil disobedience. Mr. Donovan, wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, talked about how he has not had to worry about his 19- and 21-year-old sons facing discriminatory policing.“I am grateful,” he said, “but I am also angry.”Jack Begg More

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      Key Question in NYC Mayoral Race: Who Will Get Latino New Yorkers’ Votes?

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      Hispanic voters, who may account for a fifth of turnout, are considered to be up for grabs.Eric Adams was not Representative Adriano Espaillat’s original choice to become New York City’s next mayor, but now that he had landed the coveted endorsement, Mr. Adams was in a forgiving mood.It was more of a come-to-Eric moment than a come-to-Jesus moment, but he credited divine intervention with winning over Mr. Espaillat, the first Dominican-American to serve in Congress.“Today, all of that praying, all of those candles that I’ve burned, all of those incense that I put in place, all of those Hail Marys that I called up,” Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, thundered earlier this month. “Finally, Jesus Christ looked down on me and brought me Congressman Espaillat!”Less than one month before the Democratic primary that will almost certainly determine the city’s next mayor, the battle for Latino voters and endorsers is accelerating, and the fight for that diverse constituency is emerging as one of the most crucial and uncertain elements of the race to lead New York.All the leading Democratic mayoral candidates sense opportunity. In the race’s final weeks, they are pressing their cases through advertising, Spanish-language phone banks and Latino affinity groups, deployment of surrogates and rallies in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods across the city.Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, and Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, went up with Spanish-language advertising last week. Others, including Mr. Adams and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller who lost Mr. Espaillat’s initial endorsement, had already released ads in Spanish.The next major Democratic debate, set for Wednesday night, is being co-hosted by Univision 41 Nueva York and the Hispanic Federation, among other sponsors, and may further focus the candidates’ attention on those voters.“When we look back at the winner of this primary, what put them over the top, even with ranked-choice voting, is their ability to connect late with Hispanic voters,” said Bruce Gyory, a veteran Democratic strategist who has closely studied the New York City electorate. “That’s what June is going to be about: Who finds a message that resonates, and who backs it up with resources?”In 2013, the last mayoral primary in New York City without an incumbent in the race, Hispanic voters made up 18 percent of the electorate, according to exit polls, and supported the eventual winner, Mayor Bill de Blasio, making up a vital part of his coalition. Those voters are expected to make up around 20 percent of the electorate again this year, Democratic consultants say, and strategists and lawmakers describe them as motivated by issues including economic opportunity; affordability and support for small businesses; education; public safety; and public health.“We know that Latinos, more than many other groups, were directly impacted in a very negative way” by the pandemic, said Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, a New York Democrat who was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and is supporting Maya D. Wiley in the mayoral race. “So people want to know, what are you going to do to address those inequities that were exposed during Covid-19?”The so-called Latino vote in New York is diverse generationally and geographically, culturally and ideologically. Indeed the political spectrum runs the gamut from young, left-wing Latino New Yorkers typified by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and up-and-coming lawmakers from parts of Queens, to culturally conservative voters across the city who voted for former President Donald J. Trump in surprising numbers last fall.New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods strongly favored President Biden — but virtually every predominantly Latino precinct shifted significantly to the right compared with the 2016 election results, including heavily Dominican neighborhoods in Manhattan and the Bronx, and in Corona, Queens, where there is a large Latino population.But without a front-running Hispanic candidate in the race, the political demographic is considered to be mostly up for grabs.“You have so many candidates running for mayor, and only one is really a Latina,” said the longtime political strategist, Luis A. Miranda Jr. He was referencing Dianne Morales, a left-wing candidate who identifies as Afro-Latina. (Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, is white, though her ex-husband is of Puerto Rican descent and she has referenced the fact that her children are half Puerto Rican.)“You really need validators from our community that are telling you, ‘So-and-so is good for the Latino community, so-and-so is good for the neighborhood you live in,’” Mr. Miranda said. (Neither Mr. Miranda nor his son, the actor and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, has endorsed a candidate in the race.)Mr. Adams may have the most significant institutional support in the field, reflecting his background as a veteran city politician with extensive relationships. He promises to be a “blue-collar” mayor who connects in working-class communities and prioritizes public safety.Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, stars in ads for Mr. Adams and is supporting him, as is Fernando Ferrer, the 2005 Democratic mayoral nominee who built a formidable coalition of Black and Latino voters in his unsuccessful bid.“I saw him in the South Bronx on a street corner where I used to shine shoes,” Mr. Ferrer said of Mr. Adams. “He’s comfortable. And you have to be comfortable with people.”Still, Mr. Adams has not always smoothly navigated his outreach over the years. In 1993, for instance, his remarks criticizing the Puerto Rican-born comptroller candidate, Herman Badillo, for not marrying a Hispanic woman became such a point of controversy that Mr. Badillo highlighted the issue in an advertising campaign.Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate who pledges to be an anti-poverty mayor, has also made a major push for Latino voters.He has been endorsed by a number of prominent younger Latino leaders, from City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, a left-wing Mexican-American who dropped out of the mayoral contest, to Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, who identifies as Afro-Latino. Mr. Yang spent Thursday in the Bronx, home to the city’s largest Latino population, laying out his public safety vision.“We know the Latino base is the one everyone is going after,” said Assemblyman Kenny Burgos, a 26-year-old Hispanic Yang supporter who represents the Bronx. “The youth vote, so to speak, is going to be something heavily in effect here.”Then there is Ms. Garcia, who has risen in some recent polls. Last Saturday afternoon, she was at a lively outdoor food market in the Bronx, greeting voters and discussing the biggest issues she hears from Hispanic New Yorkers.“Where’s the economy, do they feel safe, and are you educating the kids? Those are at the top of mind, and housing affordability, you hear it over and over again,” Ms. Garcia said. “They care about boots on the ground. They care about you showing up.”In a ranked-choice election in which voters may back up to five candidates in order of preference, Ms. Garcia’s surname may help her stand out, Mr. Miranda said..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;}“The city in which we live, it’s pretty tribal,” he said. “They’ll gravitate to a Spanish name because they’ll believe that person will be Latino.”There is limited public polling available on the mayor’s race overall, much less on Hispanic voters specifically. But a new survey out Wednesday from Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics found Mr. Yang virtually tied with Mr. Adams among Hispanic voters, when including voters who leaned in their directions, with roughly a quarter of those voters undecided. Ms. Morales, a former nonprofit executive, came in third place among Hispanic voters in that poll.Ms. Morales is unlikely to connect with older Latino voters who are leery of calls to defund the police, but she had recently shown promise as a standard-bearer for young, deeply progressive voters from a range of ethnic backgrounds.Dianne Morales, a left-wing candidate who identifies as Afro-Latina, may alienate some older Latino voters because of her calls to defund the police.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“We might see maybe a little bit of a wild card in this election because young people are so energized by her campaign,” Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas of Queens said in an interview last week. “She’s been very intentional about bringing young people into the conversation.”Later in the week, internal turmoil from the Morales campaign spilled into public view, and it is not yet clear how a late-stage campaign shake-up nearly three weeks before the primary will affect that standing.Ms. González-Rojas, however, said on Wednesday that she stood by her remarks. She has also said that she had pitched Ms. Morales’s candidacy to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s team.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is among the most powerful potential endorsers still remaining on the sidelines of the mayoral race. Ms. Velázquez, who has recorded radio ads on behalf of Ms. Wiley, has spoken with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez directly about the contest, encouraging her to meet with Ms. Wiley, she said.Other candidates are also ramping up their Latino engagement. Ms. Wiley released an agenda aimed at Latino communities last week. In his new ad, Mr. Donovan narrates in Spanish, and he visited a major Latino church in Queens this weekend. Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, has Spanish-language radio ads and the support of, among others, Assemblyman Robert J. Rodriguez of East Harlem. Mr. Stringer, for his part, has long seen opportunities to cement his standing with Latino voters in the final weeks of the race. He lost Mr. Espaillat’s backing, among others, following an accusation that he made unwanted sexual advances during a 2001 campaign, which he has denied.But even lawmakers who retracted their endorsements say that Mr. Stringer remains well known in some of their neighborhoods.He is planning a rally aimed at Latino voters in Washington Heights, where he grew up, on June 12. His stepfather, Carlos Cuevas, is Puerto Rican and narrates a Spanish-language ad for Mr. Stringer, and Mr. Stringer’s extended Puerto Rican family is expected to join him at the rally, his campaign said.Many Latino voters are just starting to take notice of the race, said Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz of Queens, who pulled her endorsement from Mr. Stringer and has not backed anyone else. “They don’t really start talking about the election until like a month out,” she said. “You will see them start paying a lot more attention in the couple weeks leading up to the election itself, unless there’s somebody that completely electrifies them.” More

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      How NYC Mayoral Candidates Campaigned Throughout The Rainy Holiday Weekend

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      Because of the downpour, candidates for New York City mayor pressed their cases to voters at churches and bars, instead of in parks and on street corners.The cold rain dashed countless Memorial Day weekend plans in New York City, including those of the eight leading Democratic candidates for mayor, who were understandably eager to bump as many elbows as possible with just over three weeks before the June 22 primary.Instead of campaigning at subway spots and in parks, candidates spent the weekend in search of captive audiences. They tracked them down in churches, in bars and wherever dry spots could be found.Their messages varied in nuance, but the cold rain did not drown out one unifying theme: Post-pandemic New York City is in crisis, with a rise in shootings, increasing poverty and an exacerbated need for affordable housing.Several of the candidates made haste to pulpits in the voter-rich neighborhoods of central Brooklyn and southeast Queens to tout their wares.In East Flatbush, Andrew Yang pitched himself to parishioners at the Clarendon Road Church as an heir to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight against poverty.Dr. King argued for a version of guaranteed income, Mr. Yang pointed out — a concept that Mr. Yang cast a klieg light on during his 2020 presidential campaign. (The candidate made a point of noting that he knows Martin Luther King III, who is backing his campaign.)“This is when you probably met me, is when I appeared on your TV screens,” Mr. Yang told the congregation. “Now, you might remember this, the magical Asian man, who was saying we should start giving everyone money.”At separate Pentecostal churches in Queens, parishioners encountered beeping thermometers, consent forms and two well-funded but badly lagging first-time candidates for mayor: Raymond J. McGuire and Shaun Donovan.At Bethel Gospel Tabernacle, a majority Black church in a working-class section of Jamaica, a 15-piece live band and choir played rousing gospel to nearly empty pews, while two jumbo screens flanking the stage showed a live webcast interview with Mr. McGuire, the former Citigroup executive.It was the first of four scheduled church stops on Sunday in Queens, during which Mr. McGuire referenced his “old Pentecostal” religious upbringing and warned that New York City was facing “a crisis of Covid, a crisis of the economy, a crisis of safety and a crisis of education.” He said he was best equipped to lead the city to a place of shared prosperity.“I do not owe any political favors,” Mr. McGuire said.At Aliento de Vida, a bilingual church in Corona in an old playhouse, parishioners were greeted to a speech from Mr. Donovan, the former housing and budget secretary who is running on his experience in the Obama administration.His framing was similar to Mr. McGuire’s.New York is in a “Nehemiah moment,” Mr. Donovan said, referring to the biblical figure who rebuilt Jerusalem from ruins.Esther Beatrice Wiggins, pastor of First Faith Baptist Church in Cambria Heights, Queens, leads Raymond J. McGuire in prayer. Mr. McGuire had four church stops on Sunday in Queens.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesScott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller who is trying to revive his campaign following an allegation of sexual harassment, had planned to host his Sunday media event outdoors, in Foley Square. But with the rain pouring down, he relocated to the vaulted, Guastavino-tiled overhang at 1 Centre Street in Manhattan.There, Mr. Stringer said he would tamp down on the rise in hate crimes by educating students about the dangers of bigotry and focusing resources on hate-crime hot spots..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;}Mr. Stringer, who is running as a progressive, implicitly renounced the more pro-policing campaigns of his competitors.“We can do it without resorting to the old Giuliani-style playbook of over-policing,” Mr. Stringer said.Citing the rain, Maya Wiley had to scrap two outdoor events on Saturday at the Bronx Night Market and the Urbanspace Market in Bryant Park.She began her Sunday morning at two Black Baptist churches in Brooklyn, touting her commitment to New York City public housing, but then had to scratch another outdoor event planned for Socrates Sculpture Park in the progressive precincts of western Queens.Instead, she ended up at Katch bar in Astoria, with State Senator Michael Gianaris, who earned his progressive merit badge by helping to torpedo Amazon’s plans to build a second headquarters in Long Island City.At the bar, Ms. Wiley sampled a signature house cocktail with tequila renamed the “Mayarita” for the occasion. Over the din of more than two dozen flat-screen TVs showing a New York Knicks playoff game, Ms. Wiley and Mr. Gianaris greeted customers and well-wishers from behind the bar and served them the red concoction in stemmed cocktail glasses.It was a tougher setting than church for contemplating the city’s woes, but Ms. Wiley tried.“We had a crisis before Covid — of affordability, of systemic racism,” she said, “and what Covid did was fast-track and deepen some of the crises we already were facing.”She said the city is in recovery from the disease, but even when it is curbed, “We will still have people facing eviction. We will still have people who are hungry. We will still have a homeless crisis. We will still have a crisis of safety — safety from crime and safety from police violence.”Roseann McSorley, who owns and runs Katch with her husband, said the restaurant has hosted other women seeking office, including Cynthia Nixon and State Senator Jessica Ramos. Ms. McSorley didn’t outright endorse Ms. Wiley but said she supported the effort to put a woman in Gracie Manson, adding: “It’s time.” More

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      Think Your Weekend Plans Were Ruined? Try Being a Mayoral Candidate.

      by

      Because of the downpour, candidates for New York City mayor pressed their cases to voters at churches and bars, instead of in parks and on street corners.The cold rain dashed countless Memorial Day weekend plans in New York City, including those of the eight leading Democratic candidates for mayor, who were understandably eager to bump as many elbows as possible with just over three weeks before the June 22 primary.Instead of campaigning at subway spots and in parks, candidates spent the weekend in search of captive audiences. They tracked them down in churches, in bars and wherever dry spots could be found.Their messages varied in nuance, but the cold rain did not drown out one unifying theme: Post-pandemic New York City is in crisis, with a rise in shootings, increasing poverty and an exacerbated need for affordable housing.Several of the candidates made haste to pulpits in the voter-rich neighborhoods of central Brooklyn and southeast Queens to tout their wares.In East Flatbush, Andrew Yang pitched himself to parishioners at the Clarendon Road Church as an heir to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight against poverty.Dr. King argued for a version of guaranteed income, Mr. Yang pointed out — a concept that Mr. Yang cast a klieg light on during his 2020 presidential campaign. (The candidate made a point of noting that he knows Martin Luther King III, who is backing his campaign.)“This is when you probably met me, is when I appeared on your TV screens,” Mr. Yang told the congregation. “Now, you might remember this, the magical Asian man, who was saying we should start giving everyone money.”At separate Pentecostal churches in Queens, parishioners encountered beeping thermometers, consent forms and two well-funded but badly lagging first-time candidates for mayor: Raymond J. McGuire and Shaun Donovan.At Bethel Gospel Tabernacle, a majority Black church in a working-class section of Jamaica, a 15-piece live band and choir played rousing gospel to nearly empty pews, while two jumbo screens flanking the stage showed a live webcast interview with Mr. McGuire, the former Citigroup executive.It was the first of four scheduled church stops on Sunday in Queens, during which Mr. McGuire referenced his “old Pentecostal” religious upbringing and warned that New York City was facing “a crisis of Covid, a crisis of the economy, a crisis of safety and a crisis of education.” He said he was best equipped to lead the city to a place of shared prosperity.“I do not owe any political favors,” Mr. McGuire said.At Aliento de Vida, a bilingual church in Corona in an old playhouse, parishioners were greeted to a speech from Mr. Donovan, the former housing and budget secretary who is running on his experience in the Obama administration.His framing was similar to Mr. McGuire’s.New York is in a “Nehemiah moment,” Mr. Donovan said, referring to the biblical figure who rebuilt Jerusalem from ruins.Esther Beatrice Wiggins, pastor of First Faith Baptist Church in Cambria Heights, Queens, leads Raymond J. McGuire in prayer. Mr. McGuire had four church stops on Sunday in Queens.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesScott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller who is trying to revive his campaign following an allegation of sexual harassment, had planned to host his Sunday media event outdoors, in Foley Square. But with the rain pouring down, he relocated to the vaulted, Guastavino-tiled overhang at 1 Centre Street in Manhattan.There, Mr. Stringer said he would tamp down on the rise in hate crimes by educating students about the dangers of bigotry and focusing resources on hate-crime hot spots..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;}Mr. Stringer, who is running as a progressive, implicitly renounced the more pro-policing campaigns of his competitors.“We can do it without resorting to the old Giuliani-style playbook of over-policing,” Mr. Stringer said.Citing the rain, Maya Wiley had to scrap two outdoor events on Saturday at the Bronx Night Market and the Urbanspace Market in Bryant Park.She began her Sunday morning at two Black Baptist churches in Brooklyn, touting her commitment to New York City public housing, but then had to scratch another outdoor event planned for Socrates Sculpture Park in the progressive precincts of western Queens.Instead, she ended up at Katch bar in Astoria, with State Senator Michael Gianaris, who earned his progressive merit badge by helping to torpedo Amazon’s plans to build a second headquarters in Long Island City.At the bar, Ms. Wiley sampled a signature house cocktail with tequila renamed the “Mayarita” for the occasion. Over the din of more than two dozen flat-screen TVs showing a New York Knicks playoff game, Ms. Wiley and Mr. Gianaris greeted customers and well-wishers from behind the bar and served them the red concoction in stemmed cocktail glasses.It was a tougher setting than church for contemplating the city’s woes, but Ms. Wiley tried.“We had a crisis before Covid — of affordability, of systemic racism,” she said, “and what Covid did was fast-track and deepen some of the crises we already were facing.”She said the city is in recovery from the disease, but even when it is curbed, “We will still have people facing eviction. We will still have people who are hungry. We will still have a homeless crisis. We will still have a crisis of safety — safety from crime and safety from police violence.”Roseann McSorley, who owns and runs Katch with her husband, said the restaurant has hosted other women seeking office, including Cynthia Nixon and State Senator Jessica Ramos. Ms. McSorley didn’t outright endorse Ms. Wiley but said she supported the effort to put a woman in Gracie Manson, adding: “It’s time.” More

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      A Trump Case Awaits the Next Manhattan DA. Who Is the Best Prosecutor for the Job?

      by

      Some candidates for Manhattan’s district attorney are agents of change who want to cut the police budget. Others are very comfortable with long-established established power networks.During its 20 year run, “Law & Order” cast five different actors in the role of Manhattan district attorney, a rate of turnover that feels like science fiction given that, in reality, four people have been elected to the office in 83 years. For the past 46 of them, the position, one of the most important prosecutorial posts in the country, has been held by two people, each an aristocrat born to a political dynasty: First, Robert M. Morgenthau, son of Henry Morgenthau Jr., who served as treasury secretary under two presidents (and who was himself the son of the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire); and since 2010, Cy Vance, son of the former secretary of state for whom he is named.In three weeks, Manhattanites will have the opportunity to vote for someone new at a pivotal moment in the history of race and social reform, during a period when leading prosecutors around the country — in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston — have been on the vanguard of the movement to reduce incarceration. The stakes would suggest a certain amount of heat, but engagement with the election has been strikingly low. In a recent poll of likely Democratic voters living in Manhattan, 44 percent said that they did not know whom they would vote for among the eight available D.A. candidates.The contender who has received the most attention is the one who has spent the most money to get it. Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a highly qualified prosecutor, leads the field in two areas: financing, having raised close to $4.5 million, an astonishing sum for a race of this kind, and the elite credentials that often make that possible. A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, a Rhodes scholar who clerked for Merrick B. Garland and Sandra Day O’Connor, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has been, among other things, a chief adviser to Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney known for his reform work around bail, juvenile justice and diverting low-level drug offenders from the prison system.With the exception of Elizabeth Crotty, who is running a campaign so traditionally focused on public safety that police unions can’t stop endorsing her, everyone else has produced a platform that lands somewhere along the spectrum of a contemporary progressive mandate. (There is a single Republican candidate, Thomas Kenniff, but Manhattan has not elected a Republican D.A. since Thomas E. Dewey in 1937.)The issue with Ms. Farhadian Weinstein is not that she lacks the sensitivities this particular moment is calling for; rather, she offers no break in the long and dubious tradition of handing the office over to those who live at the top of an intricately knit network of wealth and power, far from the ordinary realities.The wife of hedge-fund manager Boaz Weinstein, with whom she bought a $25.5 million Fifth Avenue apartment formerly belonging to the copper heiress Huguette Clark, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has raised tens of thousands of dollars from her husband’s friends and colleagues on Wall Street. (Among them is the billionaire Ken Griffin, who built his own stunning relationship to New York real estate when he bought a condominium on Central Park South for $238 million, at the time the most expensive home ever sold in the United States.)Throughout her campaign, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein has argued that none of these connections would impede her judgment, that she would prosecute financial crime fearlessly. When asked in a debate earlier this month about whether she would recuse herself from prosecuting cases involving donors to her campaign, she said that she would not. But what about all the other potential conflicts — and appearances of conflict — that could arise from her position as the spouse of a famous and hugely successful investor? When you elect a gifted lawyer to run an influential office, the hope is that she’ll be available, game in hand, to advise on the biggest and most sensational cases.The chief criticism of the Vance era is that his office kowtowed to the moneyed class over and over. It laid bare the danger that comes from intimacy with the opposition and revealed the high costs of recusal. A decade ago, for instance, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a housekeeper in a Midtown hotel, he retained the counsel of Marc Agnifilo. As it happened, the lawyer was married to someone high up in Mr. Vance’s office — the chief of the trial division, who ordinarily would have supervised the case.Given that Karen Friedman Agnifilo had a lot of experience in sex crimes, her involvement would have been invaluable. Instead she was forced to tuck herself away. Eventually the charges against Mr. Strauss-Kahn were dismissed under a case that famously collapsed. During the preceding 18 months, the Agnifilos had found themselves in similarly entangled situations two dozen times.In his acclaimed 2017 book, “The Chickenshit Club,” the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger begins with the question of how it came to pass that virtually no one was prosecuted in regard to the 2008 financial crisis. He determines that a growing sense of coziness and collusion between the business and legal professions, emergent since the beginning of the current century, have limited both the ability and commitment of prosecutors to tackle corporations and the people who run them. Several years ago, Eric Holder, who has endorsed Ms. Farhadian Weinstein (she worked for him in the Obama Justice Department), briefly embraced the idea that certain banks are “too big to jail.”Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer who is essentially a dismantlist, sits at a very different end of the continuum. She is in favor of cutting the budget of the police department by 50 percent, and her antipathy to incarceration extends to a refusal to prosecute a long list of offenses, including harassment in the second degree, which, as Ms. Farhadian Weinstein astutely pointed out in the most recent debate, would include shoving a person on a subway platform out of bias.Even the Five Boro Defenders, a group of lawyers and social justice advocates deeply sympathetic to Ms. Aboushi’s worldview, pointed out in their voting guide that they found it “concerning” that “she frequently lacked a clear understanding or vision” for accomplishing her objectives. Some opposed to Ms. Aboushi’s approach resent her inclusion in a race that they worry could detract from the other leading progressive, Alvin Bragg, the only Black candidate in the field. Nonetheless, Ms. Aboushi has the support of the influential Working Families Party.A native of Harlem, the son of a math teacher and a father who worked in social welfare, Mr. Bragg has a long and impressive résumé, having served as a federal prosecutor under Preet Bharara (who has endorsed him) and in various top positions in the state attorney general’s office. There he oversaw an investigation into the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program and found that only one-tenth of 1 percent of stops, over a period of three years, resulted in convictions for a violent crime. He also worked to repeal 50-a, the law that shielded the misbehaviors of the police from the public for so long.“The thing about Alvin is that you don’t have to worry about his sincerity as a reformer,” Zephyr Teachout, the legal scholar who challenged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo from the left in the Democratic primary six years ago. “He has done the work.”Whoever becomes the next D.A. will inherit the case against the Trump Organization and all the major legacy potential that comes along with it. In the eyes of many New Yorkers, Manhattan’s next district attorney will either be the one to finally bring Donald Trump to account — or be remembered as the one who failed to do so. For the moment at least, there is no evidence that anyone running would need to back away from the challenge of that. More