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      After Times Square Shooting, Adams and Yang Stress Support for N.Y.P.D.

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      Eric Adams and Andrew Yang, among the front-runners in the New York City mayor’s race, said the shooting underlined the importance of public safety.Within hours of a shooting in Times Square that left three bystanders, including a child, wounded, two news conferences were held near the crime scene: one by the Police Department, one by an elected official.That official was not Mayor Bill de Blasio; the mayor, who is in his last year in office, does not typically appear at shootings where no one has died, a City Hall aide said. The official was Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who is running to succeed Mr. de Blasio.The symbolism of the moment, and its political upsides, were not lost on Mr. Adams and a leading rival, Andrew Yang, both political moderates. Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, held a news conference in Times Square on Sunday morning. Not to be outdone, or even matched, Mr. Adams book-ended Mr. Yang’s appearance with a second Times Square visit on Sunday afternoon.Both men are running as Democrats in a primary that is likely to determine the next mayor of New York City and is just six weeks away. Though many New Yorkers have yet to pay attention to the race, recent polling suggests Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams are vying for first place.The shooting near Seventh Avenue and West 45th Street wounded a 4-year-old girl from Brooklyn in the leg. She was shopping for toys with her family. A 23-year-old Rhode Island tourist who had been hoping to visit the Statue of Liberty was also shot in the leg, and a 43-year-old woman from New Jersey was shot in the foot. The victims did not know each other, the police said.A police official identified the suspect in the shooting as Farrakhan Muhammad, 32, a seller of CDs, and said he had been shooting at his brother, who was not hit. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Muhammad had prior arrests in incidents in Midtown involving making threats in 2018 and grabbing a man by the neck and throwing him into a garbage can in 2020. It was not immediately clear how the cases were resolved.The shooting was frightening. But from a political perspective, it also seemed tailor-made for moderate mayoral candidates like Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang, who are eager to highlight their rejection of defunding the police, a principle that continues to animate the party’s left. In both candidates’ remarks, they also stressed their belief that New York City’s economy could not recover without public safety.“We’re not going to recover as a city if we turn back time and see an increase in violence, particularly gun violence,” said Mr. Adams, in a blue windbreaker with his name on it.Mr. Yang, who lives nearby, spoke on Mother’s Day, with his wife, Evelyn, in tow.At a Times Square news conference on Sunday, Andrew Yang said that “New York City cannot afford to defund the police.”Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“My fellow New Yorkers, if there’s one thing I want to say to you it is this: Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety, we need the police,” Mr. Yang said. “My message to the N.Y.P.D. is this: New York needs you. Your city needs you.”“The truth is that New York City cannot afford to defund the police,” he added.Times Square represents the commercial and tourist heart of Manhattan, itself the financial capital of New York City and the nation. The shooting comes as the city is revving up its marketing engine, with the goal of reviving New York City’s tourist trade.In the year before the pandemic, 66.6 million tourists came to town, giving rise to 400,000 tourism-related jobs and an estimated economic impact of $70 billion. Last year, only 22 million tourists came to New York City, and officials estimate it will take years for the industry to recover.The police say more than 460 people have been shot this year in New York City as of May 2, compared with 259 last year and 239 in 2019 at the same point. Mr. de Blasio routinely attributes the rise in shootings to the societal upheaval wrought by the pandemic, which has created mass unemployment, and also blames a slowdown in the court system. Dermot F. Shea, Mr. de Blasio’s police commissioner, tends to blame recent statewide criminal justice reforms, which he says have made it harder to keep those charged with criminal offenses in jail..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang took the opportunity to highlight their policing agendas, which include reimagining plainclothes anti-violence units. Mr. de Blasio disbanded his plainclothes anti-crime unit, which had been involved in many police shootings, last year. Both also touted their commitment to criminal justice reform.Mr. Yang said he would ensure his plainclothes unit was populated by better-trained officers with clean records. Mr. Adams has said he would hire officers for the unit with the skills and temperament for the job.Other moderate candidates, like the former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and the former Citigroup executive Raymond J. McGuire, chimed in with similar themes — that public safety and strong policing need not come at the expense of criminal justice reform.Candidates further to the left talked about the importance of finding alternatives to traditional policing.At a press availability outside a church in Brooklyn, Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio who has embraced some of the defund movement’s goals, said she would invest in “trauma-informed” mental health care and summer youth employment programs.Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive who wants to more than halve the Police Department’s operating budget, said on Twitter that “we need bigger solutions than the police.”The incident prompted Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner under Rudolph W. Giuliani, to suggest that an electoral triumph by either Ms. Wiley, who is Black, or Ms. Morales, who is Afro-Latina, would mean a “catastrophic implosion” for New York City.Ms. Wiley did not take kindly to the remark.“Giuliani’s ex-police commissioner — a convicted fraudster — isn’t even being subtle with a racist trope that Black women would unleash a crime wave if elected,” Ms. Wiley responded. “Don’t get it twisted — as mayor, I’ll move our city forward with an economy that works for all and safe & just streets.”Ashley Southall More

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      Jean Kim Details Harassment Claims Against Scott Stringer

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      Jean Kim said in an interview that Mr. Stringer, a Democratic candidate for mayor, had abused a position of power to make unwanted advances. He has denied her allegations.He was an ambitious state assemblyman and a rising star in the liberal hothouse of Upper West Side politics. She was a New York newcomer, born in South Korea, raised in Ohio and eager to break into the city’s thriving Democratic scene.The two — Scott M. Stringer and Jean Kim — would eventually play central roles in this year’s New York City mayor’s race. But their paths first intersected more than 20 years ago, initially at political events, and then more intensely as Mr. Stringer ran an unsuccessful campaign for public advocate in 2001.That summer and fall, Ms. Kim, working unpaid on his campaign, regularly attended Mr. Stringer’s events. They socialized as well, gathering over drinks with other young activists at Upper West Side bars like Merchants. On at least one occasion, there was a kiss.On this much, Mr. Stringer and Ms. Kim largely agree. But their accounts of the nature of their relationship diverge sharply from there, as do their views of the power dynamics at play. The clashing narratives have thrown Mr. Stringer’s mayoral campaign into crisis after Ms. Kim accused him of sexual misconduct, sapping his momentum and driving many of his allies away.To Mr. Stringer, Ms. Kim was a peer with whom he had an “on-and-off” consensual relationship that spanned four to five months. At the time, he was 41. Ms. Kim was 30. They were both unmarried.To Ms. Kim, who says she was intensely involved with Mr. Stringer’s campaign while trying to forge her own path in politics, he was a mentor who made unwanted advances.Supporters of Ms. Kim at an April news conference where she went public with her allegations against Mr. Stringer. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIn an interview at her Manhattan apartment last week, Ms. Kim described three instances during the campaign of unwanted touching in taxis, and she said Mr. Stringer had kissed her and groped her at a bar without her consent, an account she also shared with Gothamist.“He constantly reminded me of his power by saying things like, ‘You want me to make a phone call for you to change your life,’ ‘You want me to make you the first Asian district leader,’” Ms. Kim said. “There was no doubt in my mind that he was powerful and he could make or break me.”Mr. Stringer has denied making unwanted sexual advances and he said he never suggested he could give her that political position. He also objected to the idea that he had significant power over Ms. Kim.“Virtually every one of my friends volunteered on the campaign,” Mr. Stringer, who declined an interview request, said in a statement. “There was no sense in which they were subordinates. While I obviously can’t speak to how any individual felt, I don’t think most people who were part of our social circle would say there was a power dynamic at play.”Presented with Ms. Kim’s description of unwanted advances, Mr. Stringer said, “The way Jean describes our interactions, and what she leaves out, amounts to a fundamental distortion of what happened.”He offered a detailed account of what he has said was a consensual relationship.“I would estimate that on at least a dozen occasions over four to five months, an evening out ended with us kissing,” he said. “Sometimes the kissing was initiated by Jean and sometimes it was initiated by me.”Ms. Kim later said through her lawyer that Mr. Stringer’s account was “absolutely false,” and that she “certainly never initiated a kiss or any physical contact of any kind” with Mr. Stringer.Her lawyer, Patricia Pastor, said she filed a complaint with the New York attorney general’s office, alleging sexual abuse and sexual harassment.“I was never attracted to Stringer in the least,” Ms. Kim said. “He was an older man that I looked up to as a trusted mentor.”For nearly two decades, Ms. Kim largely kept her account of their interactions to herself. But as Mr. Stringer entered the final stretch of the race, appearing on her television often, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faced his own allegations of sexual misconduct, she decided to go public with her story, she said.When Mr. Stringer called for Mr. Cuomo to resign, Ms. Kim said she saw it as hypocritical. And when Mr. Stringer’s allies criticized Andrew Yang, a rival mayoral candidate, for “laughing at a misogynistic joke,” she said, “I felt triggered and thought about the abuse I endured.”Ms. Kim said she had not decided whom she was supporting for mayor.Mr. Stringer, Ms. Kim and around a half-dozen people involved in the 2001 race agree that the two shared overlapping social circles and that she actively supported his campaign.Beyond that, it may never be possible to know the full picture of the events of that year. Ms. Kim has not identified anyone from that time who could corroborate her version of events, and she indicated that she had no records from then regarding her allegations.In an interview on Saturday, Ms. Kim’s sister, Susan, said she recalled that at some point in 2001, Jean Kim became “withdrawn and stressed” after having previously been “very enthusiastic” about Mr. Stringer’s campaign. The next year, Susan Kim said, her sister indicated more clearly that she wanted to put distance between herself and Mr. Stringer and their shared political club, though she acknowledged that her sister “occasionally went to certain events after that.”“She did not share any specific details until fairly recently,” Susan Kim, 45, a lawyer in Manhattan, said. “We’re from an Asian family. It’s kind of like a taboo topic for us. So we didn’t really feel comfortable talking about those things.”Ms. Kim said she had not told anyone in detail about her account until she disclosed it to her fiancé, Anthony Caifano, after a brusque encounter with Mr. Stringer following his successful 2013 run for city comptroller. (Mr. Caifano, who attended the interview, confirmed the account. Ms. Pastor also attended.)Experts say there are many reasons that victims of unwanted sexual advances may not share their stories until years later, if ever. Mr. Stringer with his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, last month. He has categorically denied Ms. Kim’s allegations of sexual abuse, saying the two had an “on-and-off” consensual relationship.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Stringer’s campaign noted that several apparent discrepancies in Ms. Kim’s account have emerged since she and Ms. Pastor presented the allegations at an April 28 news conference. Such inconsistencies do not prove or disprove whether there was a consensual relationship, but Mr. Stringer’s allies argue that they raise broader doubts about Ms. Kim’s credibility.Ms. Kim and Ms. Pastor have described Ms. Kim as an “unpaid intern,” a term that can conjure an image of a student, or someone just out of college, Mr. Stringer’s allies note. But Mr. Stringer’s team and others who were directly involved in the race dispute that characterization, saying Ms. Kim was a volunteer.In her initial statement, Ms. Kim said Mr. Stringer’s advances had made her so uncomfortable that she decided to move, and to leave the Community Free Democrats, the Upper West Side political club in which they were both active.But she appeared to be listed as a vice president of the club in 2002, which Ms. Pastor did not directly dispute, and she listed herself as a club member on her résumé as late as 2013, as The Intercept has reported.Records show that she also continued to make relatively modest political contributions to Mr. Stringer long after the incidents allegedly occurred. Mr. Stringer’s campaign produced an email showing her asking if she could “be helpful” on his 2013 comptroller campaign as she passed along her résumé.Publicly and privately, supporters of Mr. Stringer who were involved in city politics at that time have questioned Ms. Kim’s description of his influence over his social circle. “The thing about these groups, there was no hierarchy, there was no power dynamic,” said Mike McGuire, a labor official who is part of a coalition that has endorsed Mr. Stringer. “We were all colleagues, friends, tied into the same business. We all hung around together.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Kim said she had maintained ties to Mr. Stringer’s orbit because she wanted to build her career, and could not afford to alienate him. After years working in lobbying, Ms. Kim said she is shifting out of the profession and weighing other interests, including activism and stand-up comedy.“This is not a pleasant experience for me,” Ms. Kim said of her decision to make the allegations public now. “I hope to God I don’t have to move out of New York City because of it.”Ms. Kim moved to New York in 1998, she said. She later found a full-time job in public relations and threw herself into the Community Free Democrats.Ms. Pastor said on April 28 that Ms. Kim had been introduced to Mr. Stringer by Eric T. Schneiderman, another club member, whom she met in 2001. He later became New York’s attorney general and resigned after being accused of assault by several women.Ms. Kim later suggested the association was less direct: She said that she had “chatted” with Mr. Schneiderman about her interest in politics in 1998. He directed her to the Community Free Democrats and suggested she seek out Mr. Stringer, she said.Ms. Kim grew animated during the interview while describing a conversation with Mr. Stringer in early 2001 in which, she said, he sketched out an expansive role for her. In addition to her full-time job, she said, she spent about 35 hours a week helping out on the campaign, including traveling to events with Mr. Stringer.“I was just really like, ‘Oh my God, I just hit the jackpot,’” she said. “For somebody who doesn’t know anybody, and now here he is taking me under his wing.”Mr. Stringer said in his statement that there had been no such offer.“Even I wasn’t out campaigning for 35 hours a week — most days, I was holed up in a room for hours on end raising money,” said Mr. Stringer, who, as a state lawmaker, was also traveling between New York City and Albany in 2001.In a cab that summer, Ms. Kim said, Mr. Stringer grazed her knee, suggesting he did so with his hand. Given the adrenaline of the campaign, she brushed off the episode. It happened again a few weeks later as they shared another cab. This time, his hand on her leg was “a little bit more insistent,” and she shifted away, she said.New York’s primaries in 2001 were set for Sept. 11. About a week before, Ms. Kim said, she was at a bar — she believes it was Merchants — with Mr. Stringer and others from their political circle. She and Mr. Stringer were the last to leave. They were at the bar facing each other, she said, when Mr. Stringer kissed her. Ms. Kim tensed up. Then, she said, he kissed her again, this time more passionately.“The fact that I didn’t slap him away, I think he just took that as indication that it was OK,” she said. Then, she said, he “took his hand, and he put it down, like, the back of my pants.”Ms. Kim described being both “horrified” and fearful of alienating Mr. Stringer. She said she sought to turn the conversation back to business. Mr. Stringer warned her not to tell anyone of his advances, she said. Mr. Stringer said Ms. Kim’s account of that remark was “totally and completely false. Our relationship was never a secret, and I would not have said anything of the sort.” Ms. Kim, center, and other supporters trailing Mr. Stringer on the Upper West Side in September 2001 during his campaign for public advocate. Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAfter the World Trade Center attacks, the primary was rescheduled for Sept. 25. Ms. Kim said she shared one more cab ride with Mr. Stringer when he made more advances, asking why she would not have sex with him.At a political meeting around that time, she said, he suggested he could make her the area’s first Asian-American district leader — if she proved her loyalty to him. Mr. Stringer denied suggesting that, but offered other details of what he has said was a consensual relationship.“She called me because she wasn’t feeling well, and I went over to her apartment to check on her,” Mr. Stringer said. “After the primary, I remember we had many long, heartfelt conversations, both on the phone and in person, about the disappointment of the election. On a few of those occasions, we kissed.”Ms. Kim said Mr. Stringer may have visited once when she was ill, but she insisted she had never initiated romantic interactions with him.As the interview at Ms. Kim’s apartment concluded, Ms. Pastor, her lawyer, raised an issue that is at the heart of the controversy — a question that has left New York Democrats deeply divided.“Is consent even possible in that situation?” she said.Kitty Bennett contributed research. More

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      Eric Adams, N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidate, Has Something to Prove

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      Eric Adams Says He Has Something to Prove. Becoming Mayor Might Help.Mr. Adams is a top fund-raiser in the New York City mayoral race, with key endorsements and strong polling, but he still faces questions about his preparedness for the job.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has made public safety a focus of his campaign for mayor.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the third in a series of profiles of the major candidates.May 7, 2021Nearly three decades ago, when Eric Adams decided he wanted to someday be mayor of New York City, he started a journal of observations about local governance, making periodic entries before bed.He has now filled 26 notebooks.The long arc of Mr. Adams’s career — from the son of a Queens house cleaner to a reform-driven New York City police officer, from state senator to Brooklyn borough president and now a leading mayoral candidate — is an ode to personal discipline. By his telling, his life has been carefully structured to land him on the precipice of the only job he has ever wanted, in the only city where he has ever really lived.During an Easter Sunday visit to the Church of God of East Flatbush, Mr. Adams cited a biblical passage that describes a test of courage under duress.“I believe in all my heart that this is an Esther 4:14 moment,” Mr. Adams, 60, told the parishioners. “God made me for such a time as this.”To Mr. Adams, his broad life experience is what sets him apart in the vast and fractured field of mayoral candidates.He speaks of growing up poor and Black in Queens, being beaten by the police at age 15, starting as a police officer during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic, and then, in later years, becoming a voice for police reform. In 2013, he was the first Black person elected Brooklyn borough president.Yet there is a perception among some Democratic leaders, strategists and mayoral rivals that Mr. Adams’s career has been driven by self-interest rather than civic-mindedness, and that he is unprepared to lead the city as it tries to emerge from the pandemic.That perception rankles Mr. Adams, who equates efforts to dismiss him to reductive treatment of Black elected officials.His campaign, he believes, will surprise those he said have underestimated him and his ability to connect with the New Yorkers who make up his base: working class and older minority voters outside Manhattan, who prioritize authenticity in their politicians and issues like public safety.Mr. Adams, who has adopted more moderate positions than his left-wing rivals, says his broad life experience has prepared him for the role.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThis confidence gives Mr. Adams’s campaign stops — and his political strategy — a sense of assured purpose. He is not only trying to appeal to voters; he is seemingly running for personal validation, to prove that he is equally worthy to the rivals whom the city’s political class has deemed more polished, serious or qualified.“For years, I’ve had people — for years — calling me an ‘Uncle Tom’ or calling me a sellout,” Mr. Adams said in an interview, adding that he was “immune” to such attacks.“They don’t believe in me, but I believe in me,” he said. “Because I know me, and I’m a beast.”He will nonetheless be tested by a changing city and Democratic Party. New Yorkers have embraced big personalities in politicians before, particularly in mayoral races, but brashness and Blackness can project differently when packaged together.It may not help that Mr. Adams has had a history of embracing divisive figures, aligning himself with Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, and the ex-boxer Mike Tyson after his 1992 rape conviction. Mr. Adams has also faced several ethics probes during his career, including one that questioned his role in allowing a politically connected company to gain a casino franchise at Aqueduct Racetrack.He first rose to prominence in New York by challenging Police Department policies during news conferences, earning scorn from police officials that persists decades later. And bombastic statements, like a pledge to carry a gun while in City Hall and forgo a security detail, have fueled detractors.Mr. Adams, as he darts around Queens and Brooklyn with less than seven weeks to go before the June 22 primary, thinks that unconventionality is a political superpower. He gives out his personal cellphone number to people on the street and often refers to himself in the third person. He shuns the popular language of progressive academics in favor of a relatable grit.He is, at once, a candidate who desires to be taken seriously as a liberal policymaker, and one who mocks the idea that elite-educated activists get to determine what is or is not serious.“I’m in these forums, and they’re talking about legal crack, legal fentanyl, legal heroin! Are you kidding me?” Mr. Adams said to a resident during a recent stop in the Laurelton section of Queens. “Do they remember what crack did to your communities?”A son of two boroughsMr. Adams, right, appeared alongside the Rev. Al Sharpton, center, during a news conference in 1993.Bebeto Matthews/Associated PressThree omnipresent dangers loomed for a young Black man growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, in the late 1970s and 1980s: the crime, the drugs, and the police.At age 15, Mr. Adams and his brother were arrested on criminal trespassing charges. Mr. Adams said he was beaten by officers while in custody and suffered post-traumatic stress from the episode. Yet it fueled his desire to become a police officer six years later, he said, after a local pastor suggested that he could “infiltrate” the department and help change police culture.Beginning as a transit officer and rising to the rank of police captain, he made his largest impact not on the police beat but through his involvement in two Black police fraternal organizations: the Grand Council of Guardians, and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group that he founded.“Eric was always the guy who not just complained about the issues, but then pushed the group to organize to do something about it,” said David C. Banks, president and chief executive of the Eagle Academy Foundation in Brooklyn, which operates a network of schools for boys.“He was a pain in the neck and a thorn in the side of the central command at the police headquarters,” said Mr. Banks, who has known Mr. Adams for 30 years. “A lot of other officers would be afraid to raise these kind of issues.”Mr. Adams helped amplify cases of police brutality or errors, raising public awareness of uncomfortable policing issues, even if it did not sway top police brass, who tended to view him as an attention-seeking gadfly.His reputation also suffered from a series of unorthodox stances or appearances while on the force: He traveled to Indiana in 1995 to escort Mr. Tyson after his release from prison; he repeatedly defended Mr. Farrakhan in the 1990s; and he was registered as a Republican during that same time period, when New York, a predominantly Democratic city, was led by Republican mayors.Flanked by members of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group he founded, Mr. Adams held a news conference in 2000 in response to a shooting of a Black man by the police.Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesPaul Browne, a former chief spokesman for the Police Department under Raymond W. Kelly, said it was “laughable” that Mr. Adams was drawing on his law enforcement career to run for mayor on a public safety platform.“I don’t remember him distinguishing himself in any way, except promoting himself through 100 Black Officers in Law Enforcement Who Care,” Mr. Browne said.Mr. Adams “would try to have it both ways — that he was a cop but that we were all racist. He would say Blacks that weren’t as radical were an Uncle Tom,” said Mr. Browne, who is white. “He’d be a disaster as mayor.”Yet on the other side of the political spectrum, Mr. Adams’s law enforcement background is often viewed as a drawback, and as evidence that he is not the right candidate to bring significant changes to policing at a time when activists are demanding a paradigm shift.Mr. Adams rejected that notion, arguing that he helped lay the groundwork for more recent social justice movements. He cited a 2013 federal trial over the constitutionality of the stop-and-frisk program, when he testified that the police commissioner at the time had told him that it existed to “instill fear” in Black and Latino men. The judge cited his words in her ruling that the program violated the constitutional rights of those who were stopped.“They’re marching now saying Black Lives Matter, they’re doing Chapter 2 — I was Chapter 1,” Mr. Adams said. “When no one else was doing this, Eric Adams was doing this.”Mr. Adams, seen at the Capitol in Albany, was elected to the State Senate as a Democrat in 2006. Previously, he spent several years as a registered Republican.Mike Groll/Associated PressRising up in politicsAs early as 1994, Mr. Adams had decided that he wanted to be mayor — a desire he expressed to Bill Lynch, a deputy mayor under David N. Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City.Mr. Lynch gave him four pieces of advice, Mr. Adams recalled: get a bachelor’s degree, gain managerial experience in the Police Department, work in Albany, and become a borough president — a path that somewhat resembled the one Mr. Dinkins followed to his historic victory.Mr. Adams followed the advice, but largely kept his mayoral ambitions quiet. It was better to be known as an earnest doer than an ambitious climber, he said, particularly as a Black man.“I am the poster child of missteps, but I am also the poster child of endurance,” Mr. Adams said. “I had a plan.”The first step was to leave the police force and enter politics. There was a failed congressional run in 1994, when Mr. Adams’s relationship with the Nation of Islam proved divisive. His switch to the Republican Party in the following years, while Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor and the party controlled the State Senate, seemed opportunistic; he explained then that “if you take a look at some of the concepts of the Republican Party, you’ll see that many of them are our values.”By 2006, however, he was a Democrat again, in time for a successful run for State Senate. In the political career that has followed, Mr. Adams has often been ideologically fungible, displaying an independent streak as well as attention-grabbing skills.He was an early supporter of marriage equality and continued to rail against policing practices, like stop-and-frisk, that were shown to disproportionately affect Black and Latino communities. He turned his focus to issues many other politicians would avoid, such as a “Stop the Sag” campaign that called on Black men to pull up their pants and emphasized personal responsibility as a response to racism. He also pushed for higher pay for elected officials — including himself.“I don’t know how some of you are living on $79,000,” Mr. Adams said at the time. “Show me the money!”The comments hurt Mr. Adams’s reputation among the city’s political class in the same way the police news conferences had in the years before. In 2010, a scathing state inspector general report said that Mr. Adams, then the chairman of the Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee, had given the “appearance of impropriety” by getting too close to a group that was seeking a casino contract at Aqueduct Racetrack.The inspector general said Mr. Adams had attended a party thrown by the lobbyist, earned campaign donations from the group’s shareholders and affiliates, and conducted a process that amounted to a “political free-for-all.”By 2013, Mr. Adams had left Albany for a successful bid for Brooklyn borough president, succeeding Marty Markowitz, and becoming the first Black person to head New York’s most populous borough..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}As borough president, a job with limited formal duties but a sizable bully pulpit, Mr. Adams expanded the role that Mr. Markowitz pioneered as a garrulous cheerleader for Brooklyn.He put himself through what he sometimes calls “mayor school,” reaching out to donors, community activists and business leaders to check their pulses on which direction they felt the city should go in.“I knew I had to prove I was serious,” Mr. Adams said. “People had to see Eric had serious plans. They had to see Eric could raise the money and that I could articulate issues of impact.”But he also drew more criticism over potential conflicts of interest. In his first year as borough president, the city’s Department of Investigation found that his office appeared to have violated conflict of interest rules in raising money for a nonprofit Mr. Adams was starting. No enforcement action was taken.The final taskMr. Adams accepted an endorsement from the FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association last month. He has earned several major endorsements from organized labor.James Estrin/The New York TimesIn the early stages of the mayoral race, Mr. Adams was viewed as one of three leading candidates, along with Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker. Only Mr. Adams was thought to appeal to large swaths of Black and Latino voters, especially outside Manhattan.He also had longstanding relationships with union leaders and other elected officials, and a network of donors cultivated over the past decade.But the dynamics have changed. Mr. Johnson is running for comptroller, not mayor. Mr. Stringer is now facing an allegation of sexual assault.The Black Lives Matter movement has pushed younger voters and some white liberals to the left of Mr. Adams on racial justice and policing. And other top Black candidates — Maya Wiley, the former lawyer to Mayor Bill de Blasio and MSNBC analyst; Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street leader; and Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive — are in the running.And then there is Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate who appears to be the front-runner, according to the limited polling that exists, and who has drawn donors and media coverage to match.“Before Yang, I was the Chinese candidate,” Mr. Adams said. “I was the Bangladeshi candidate — which I still am. I’m going to get overwhelmingly the Muslim vote.”Mr. Adams has sought to portray Mr. Yang as unprepared to be mayor.“When I look over the lives of everyone else, I see moments of commitment. And I’m asking like, ‘Who is Andrew?’” Mr. Adams said. “Maya Wiley, I see a civil rights activist. Ray? Successful businessman. Dianne Morales, I see her commitment to fighting against injustice.”He added: “They didn’t just discover that we have injustice in this city.”Mr. Adams believes people have underestimated his ability to connect with the working-class New Yorkers who make up his base.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesIn a statement, the Yang campaign pushed back against the idea that Mr. Yang had not demonstrated a commitment to service. “Andrew is known by the most New Yorkers in the race for starting a national movement on universal basic income,” said Alyssa Cass, Mr. Yang’s communications director. “While some candidates were handing out patronage jobs or getting investigated for corruption, Andrew was fighting poverty.”Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang tend to have more moderate positions than some of their left-leaning rivals, like Mr. Stringer, Ms. Wiley and Ms. Morales.But Mr. Adams argues that his platform, which includes an expanded local tax credit for low-income families, investment in underperforming schools, and improvements to public housing, amounts to the systemic change progressives want.His “100 Steps for New York City,” a plan he partly drew from his journal of observations that began decades earlier, includes a special focus on public safety initiatives like releasing the names of officers being internally investigated for bad behavior.Mr. Adams has proposed diverting $500 million from the New York police budget to fund crisis managers and crime prevention programs, and has pledged to further diversify the police force.He has also proposed restoring a maligned plainclothes anti-crime unit that was disbanded by the Police Department last year, and refashioning it to focus on getting guns off the streets. Mr. Adams says proposals like these showed a responsiveness to the city’s most needy residents, including some Black neighborhoods suffering the brunt of violent crime. Critics point out that the disbanded unit has been behind several police shootings.As he runs to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, left, Mr. Adams has faced skepticism from the city’s progressive Democrats.Dave Sanders for The New York Times“Those other candidates, their names don’t ring out over here,” said Takbir Blake, a community activist who shepherded Mr. Adams during a business tour in Laurelton. “It’s that you know he’s been on the front lines. But you also know he’s from the streets.”As the primary approaches, Mr. Adams has begun to demonstrate the benefits of his long-honed political relationships. He has won major labor endorsements, including from the city’s largest municipal union, 32BJ SEIU, which represents private-sector building service workers. He has raised more money than his rivals participating in the city’s matching-funds program, yet has spent less than several of them — maintaining his war chest for the stretch run.And he believes that he will eventually win over the party’s progressive wing, especially if it becomes clearer that Democratic voters still favor Mr. Yang as their top choice.“The polls are not everything, or always honest, but it’s going to send a message,” Mr. Adams said. “They not only need a person that they agree with, but I’m the person that could win the race.”Mr. Adams says he can form a coalition of the marginalized, who want a mayor who has not had an aspirational New York experience, but who has experienced the common struggle.It is the path of Mr. Dinkins, laid out by Mr. Lynch, and executed over decades by the most disciplined loose cannon in New York City politics.“Say what you want, but there’s very little misunderstanding about me,” Mr. Adams said. “When you pull that lever, you know who you’re voting for.”“An actual, real blue-collar New Yorker.” More

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      And Then There Was One: G.O.P. Defends Its Last Seat in Queens

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      The party struggles to hold on in an increasingly diverse borough, even as it fights its own internal battles.In heavily Democratic Queens, Councilman Eric Ulrich is a political oddity: He’s the only Republican elected to public office in the borough, and one of the only ones remaining in New York City outside of Staten Island.“One is the loneliest number,” Mr. Ulrich said.A white moderate, Mr. Ulrich has won four elections over his 12-year term representing District 32 in southern Queens. But because of term limits, he cannot run for re-election, making the race to replace him something of a last stand for Republicans in the borough.While Queens has long leaned Democratic, its Republican Party has for decades maintained a presence in citywide party politics, and up until less than a decade ago kept a grip on a handful of public offices.But waves of immigrants have transformed Queens into one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the nation, while a steady progressive shift in the borough’s politics has all but banished Republicans from elected office.The county party still has a base, in absolute terms: There are roughly 140,000 registered Republicans in Queens, the most of any borough in the city and more than in many large American cities. Those voters have helped two Republican mayors win five elections over the last 30 years in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic.But the Queens Republican Party has been hampered by long-running feuds that have driven members out and hindered its ability to embrace those waves of immigrant voters, even though many of them espouse conservative values, said Tom Long, chairman of the Queens County Conservative Party, which endorses many Republicans in Queen races. And the party has suffered a series of public embarrassments, most recently in February when Philip Grillo, a district leader, was arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C. Mr. Grillo retains his position while his case is adjudicated.“The division is killing the Republican Party,” Mr. Long said. “The average person gets disgusted and walks away.”Such discord has provided an opening for Democrats to eliminate Queens Republicans entirely from public office this year. There are several Democratic candidates vying in the June 22 primary for the chance to claim Mr. Ulrich’s seat in the November general election.District 32 is demographically and ideologically split: The northern portion voted heavily for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 and has seen the kind of influx of immigrants — including Latino, Indo-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Punjabi — that has made Queens a model of diversity. To the south, Blue Lives Matter flags and bumper stickers are ubiquitous in neighborhoods like the Rockaways and Breezy Point, a gated community at the southwestern tip of the district that is an enclave of white conservatism. It is one of the few areas in the city that voted overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump in 2020. Despite the large number of Republicans in Queens, registered Democrats still outnumber them roughly by three to one in District 32, though that difference is much narrower than the seven-to-one edge that Democrats enjoy boroughwide. Democrats say it is time to replace Mr. Ulrich with a leader who better reflects the immigrants and voters of color who have largely replaced white voters in the district’s northern stretches.Felicia Singh and her opponents in the Democratic primary for a city council seat say it is time for a council member who better represents their district in southern Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesTo win, they have to defeat Joann Ariola, 62, who is both the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party and its candidate to save the District 32 seat. “Being the Republican, there’s pressure on me,” she said, “But I have lot of support in the district.”Ms. Ariola, a longtime civic leader in Howard Beach, a mostly white, Republican-leaning neighborhood, is running partly on a tough-on-crime platform that she hopes resonates with voters frustrated with liberal city leaders like Mayor Bill de Blasio, who she says has mismanaged the city and implemented policies that have helped lead to a rise in violent crime.“Right now, the city is off the track,” she said. “It is absolutely a derailed train and needs to be brought back to the center.”She said cuts in police funding and bail-reform measures have helped turn the city into “a blood-soaked shooting gallery” that is driving New Yorkers away. She also opposes the mayor’s plan to close Rikers Island and build smaller jails across the five boroughs.Mr. Ulrich said he was supporting Ms. Ariola, and that he believed she could win in November.“People in this district vote for the person, not the party,” he said. “They are willing to vote for a moderate Republican when the Democrat is too liberal.”But not all Queen Republicans agree. Ms. Ariola’s campaign has already been affected by the kind of vitriolic infighting that has divided borough Republicans for years.The Queens Republican Patriots, a splinter faction within the county party, backed a local businessman, Steve Sirgiovanni, to run against Ms. Ariola in the primary. Her team responded by getting him ousted from the ballot over his petition filings, a ruling his campaign is appealing.Joe Concannon, who founded the Queens Republican Patriots in 2018, said party leaders have become more fixated on battling fellow Republicans than on battling Democrats. The focus, he said, should be on building the party through fund-raising, enrollment and recruiting moderate Democrats frustrated with the leftward drift of their party.For decades, handfuls of Queens Republicans managed to win elections in the borough despite its demographic and political shifts. But in 2012, Councilman Peter Koo, a Republican, switched parties to the Democrats, citing excessive Republican infighting. In 2013, Republican Councilman Dan Halloran, whose belief in Paganism had already made him a controversial figure, left office after becoming embroiled in a bribery scheme to sell a spot on the Republican ballot.Mr. Concannon complained that the county organization has come under the stranglehold of Bart and John Haggerty, two brothers from Forest Hills who are its vice chairman and executive director. (John Haggerty was convicted in 2011 of stealing $1.1 million in funds from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign. Released in 2015, he has since resumed a leadership role.)Mr. Concannon said the brothers helped install Ms. Ariola in 2017 as a figurehead, while retaining the real power in the party.Bart Haggerty denied Mr. Concannon’s accusation. “Joann Ariola runs the Queens Republican Party,” he said, and referred further questions to Ms. Ariola. Ms. Ariola likewise pushed back, calling Mr. Concannon and his supporters “a group of incompetent people” without standing in the party. “They’re squawking loudly from the sidelines but that’s exactly where they are, on the sidelines,” she said. “They’re not in the game.”Despite the infighting, Queens Republicans remain largely united behind their ongoing support for Mr. Trump, and county Democratic leaders see the District 32 race as an opportunity for borough voters to effectively rebuke the county’s pro-Trump voters, said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Queens congressman who heads the borough’s Democratic Party.Of course, discord is common within political organizations. Queens Democratic Party leaders have been criticized by more progressive members as remaining too moderate. In a Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Flushing, several candidates recently formed a coalition against Sandra Ung, the candidate backed by county party leaders, as a show of force against the party.Michael Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party, said it would make a “full court press” for the primary victor, including campaign volunteers, help from local Democratic clubs and appearances by local elected Democratic officials.County Democratic leaders opted not to endorse a candidate in the primary because local district leaders could not agree on a favorite and because it was difficult to isolate a front-runner, given the vagaries of the city’s new ranked-choice voting rules, which will allow voters to select their top five candidates.There are several moderate Democrats in the primary, including Kaled Alamarie, 52, a city planner; Helal Sheikh, 41, a former city schoolteacher; Bella Matias, a founder of an education nonprofit; and Mike Scala, 38, a lawyer and activist from Howard Beach who won the Democratic primary for the council seat in 2017 before losing to Mr. Ulrich.Ms. Singh campaigned in a garment shop in Ozone Park.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesAnother candidate, Felicia Singh, 32, a former teacher, hopes to ride a progressive political wave that has swept much of Queens in recent years, most notably with the 2018 election of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.Changing demographics are palpable in Ozone Park, a large part of the district’s northern section that in the 1990s was still an Italian stronghold where the mobster John Gotti once had his clubhouse and threw mammoth Fourth of July parties. Today, Bengali, Guyanese and Indian immigrants have moved in, Punjabi music blasts from passing cars and cricket games can be seen in schoolyards.Ms. Singh, campaigning outside the sari and pizza shops along 101st Street in Ozone Park, promised voters a “revolution of change.”Some Democrats believe that November could see not just a defeat for the Queens Republicans, but the election of the district’s first nonwhite council member.Thanks to ranked-choice voting, like-minded groups of voters now have a greater chance of electing a candidate who reflects their preferences — even if he or she is not their first choice — rather than splitting their vote among multiple candidates, said Evan Stavisky, a Democratic political strategist.In one scenario, voters of color could split their votes among multiple candidates of color — as most of the Democratic candidates are — and wind up essentially “agreeing” on a candidate who may not be their top choice. Ms. Singh said she would tackle issues that affect working-class immigrants, like her father, a 66-year-old Indian immigrant who became a victim of the taxi medallion crisis after declaring bankruptcy on his loan, leaving him in danger of losing the family’s Ozone Park house.“Now you have candidates of color who are ready to represent a community that has been neglected,” she said. More

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      Andrew Yang's Campaign Is Guided by a Wealthy Lobbyist

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      Andrew Yang’s relationship with Bradley Tusk, a tech investor, has raised concerns about conflicts of interest if he is elected.When Andrew Yang parachuted into the New York City mayor’s race from a losing presidential campaign, he was a known national quantity but unknown in the insular world of local politics.He did not rise from a political club, had never run for local office and had no established base of financial or political support in the city. He had never even voted in a mayoral election.But he had one major asset working in his favor: He had joined forces with Bradley Tusk, a powerful New York political strategist, lobbyist and venture capitalist whose investments could hinge on government action.Mr. Yang leads most early polling in a race for mayor that is less than seven weeks away. But Mr. Tusk’s personal business concerns could present significant potential conflicts of interest should Mr. Yang be elected mayor. Mr. Tusk, 47, has an expansive political and financial portfolio. He worked for Senator Chuck Schumer as his communications director, was a special adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and then became deputy governor of Illinois, under Gov. Rod Blagojevich.His venture firm lists interests in high-profile companies like Bird, the electric scooter company; Coinbase, a cryptocurrency company; and Latch, a company that makes keyless entry systems for homes.He also has a well-known penchant for self-aggrandizement: His 2018 book is called “The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Death by Politics.” He describes various exploits, including how he helped Uber ward off government regulations — though some of his colleagues have said that he has taken more credit than he deserves. Nonetheless, because he took equity in the company in exchange for consulting advice, he ultimately cashed out for what some reports estimate as $100 million.And now he is advising a candidate with a total absence of government experience — so much so that Mr. Tusk recently called Mr. Yang an “empty vessel.” “Tusk could essentially be the shadow mayor for New York, while he is representing the interests of big corporate clients,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany.After The New York Times sought comment from Mr. Yang’s campaign, Mr. Tusk posted a 1,000-word statement on Medium blaming his political opponents for rumor-mongering, and outlining policies that he and his team would follow should Mr. Yang win the election.“If we win, I will not lobby or talk with the new mayor — nor anyone in a Yang administration — on any matter that intersects with our work,” he wrote on Thursday.Andrew Yang has embraced stances that could help Mr. Tusk’s investments and his lobbying clients.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesVoters who like Mr. Yang and his upbeat vision for the city’s recovery might not know Mr. Tusk’s name. His closeness to big business and connections to Mr. Bloomberg have led some Democrats to worry that Mr. Yang will embrace a Wall Street-centric vision for New York City.“Tusk spent the past decade defending billionaires and corporate interests,” said Monica Klein, a progressive political strategist. “If Yang won, there’s no question his agenda would mirror Tusk’s — and most New Yorkers aren’t looking for a mayor that will cater to the wealthy and corporations.”Mr. Tusk’s firm has proudly represented clients whose policies run afoul of Democratic orthodoxy: the hard-charging police union; a Republican who ran for New York attorney general; and the organizers of a campaign to preserve an admissions exam that has resulted in the enrollment of only tiny numbers of Black and Latino students in New York City’s elite high schools.Mr. Yang said he would not be influenced by his strategist. “I chose Tusk because they are experts in NYC politics,” he said in a statement relayed by Chris Coffey, who works for both Mr. Yang and Tusk Strategies. “New Yorkers know I’ve always been independent and have my own vision — I wrote a book in 2018 that spells out my agenda quite clearly. If elected, my decisions will be mine alone.”Mr. Yang has done little to allay concerns over conflicts of interest. He does not have his own office — his staffers work from home when they are not in the field — but he uses Mr. Tusk’s office for storage. He has also repeatedly embraced stances that would benefit both Mr. Tusk’s investments and his lobbying clients.Mr. Yang has long been a fan of Bird, the e-scooter company that Mr. Tusk has an ownership stake in and that is participating in a city-governed program in the Bronx.“Every once in a while a Bird scooter feels like the greatest invention in the world,” Mr. Yang tweeted in June 2019, before Mr. Tusk spoke to him about running for mayor.Other ideas seem to have sprung more directly from the Tusk-Yang mind-meld.One of Mr. Yang’s very first proposals after announcing his run for mayor was that the city should put a casino on Governors Island. Mr. Yang argued the city could reap financial benefit from the casino, with the added benefit of making New York City “more fun.” Critics immediately pounced, noting that the island in New York Harbor is a peaceful respite so ill-suited to gambling halls that they are expressly forbidden in the island’s deed.Mr. Yang did not back down. Nor did Mr. Tusk, whose interest in casino investment is longstanding.In 2018, his casino management company, then called Ivory Gaming, mounted a bid for a casino site in Las Vegas. He told Politico that if he won, he would put an ax-throwing facility inside the casino. The deal did not move forward.Ivory Gaming ultimately spawned IG Acquisition Corp., a gambling concern that reportedly raised $300 million in the public markets to invest in the industry. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that Mr. Tusk’s publicly traded shell corporation is aiming to identify “businesses in the leisure, gaming and hospitality industries with an enterprise value exceeding $750 million, with particular emphasis on businesses that are well-positioned for growth.”The casino issue in New York City is poised to become a major one for the next mayor. Starting in 2023, the state is expected to open bidding on three casino licenses for the area in and around New York City.A spokesman for Mr. Tusk said he would have no role in a New York City casino and never had intended to.In his Medium statement, Mr. Tusk said his involvement in Mr. Yang’s campaign stemmed from the need for innovation after the pandemic.“We took on this campaign because we looked at the crisis facing this city, looked at the options of viable candidates and knew we could do a lot better,” he said.His campaign also pointed to other candidates who are working with consulting firms that are involved in lobbying — a practice recently highlighted by City & State..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The firms include Pitta LLP, which is working for Eric Adams’s campaign and has ties to lobbyists who represent Wheels Labs, an e-bike company, and the unions for police detectives and transit workers; and Global Strategy Group, which is working for Scott Stringer’s campaign and whose clients include RXR Realty, a prominent real estate company, and MGM Resorts, according to state records.Mr. Tusk’s investments go well beyond the gambling industry. His venture capital firm has also invested in three companies dealing in the technology underpinning Bitcoin. The state regulates e-coin, but the city may well have an interest in the sector under a Yang mayoralty, too.“As mayor of NYC — the world’s financial capital — I would invest in making the city a hub for BTC and other cryptocurrencies,” Mr. Yang tweeted in February, apparently referring to Bitcoin.Mr. Tusk’s venture capital firm has also invested in Latch, an app-based door-locking company that critics argue will allow landlords to surveil their tenants’ movements and keep track of their visitors. Mr. Tusk’s consulting firm, Tusk Strategies, lobbied against recent efforts in the City Council to limit the company’s operations in New York City.Several of the Tusk lobbyists listed as working for Latch in New York State’s lobbying database are also working for Mr. Yang’s campaign, including Mr. Coffey, one of Mr. Yang’s campaign managers; Mr. Yang’s senior adviser Eric Soufer; and his press secretary, Jake Sporn. The Yang campaign has been paying Tusk Strategies about $33,000 per month.“First, you don’t want a mayor whose staff are the same as the lobbyists for for-profit corporations with interests before the city,” said Brad Lander, a candidate for comptroller who is the sponsor of a City Council bill that would limit Latch’s operations. “You sure don’t want a mayor with a staff who are not only staff of the lobbyists, but staff of the for-profit interests themselves.”Mr. Tusk’s work history is as unconventional as the campaign he is now running for Mr. Yang. He grew up on Long Island and started out handling press for the famously idiosyncratic Parks Department commissioner Henry Stern, before joining Senator Schumer’s office. From there, he worked as an aide to Mr. Bloomberg.Mr. Tusk was heavily involved in the successful effort to amend New York City’s term-limits law, allowing Michael Bloomberg to win a third term as mayor.Ruby Washington/The New York TimesAt the age of 29, as Mr. Tusk recounts in his book, a friend from his Schumer days asked if he wanted to work as a deputy governor under Mr. Blagojevich, who would later end up in prison for soliciting bribes and trying to benefit from filling President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.Mr. Tusk was unsure if he had the requisite skill set for the job, but he was smart and hard-working and learned a lesson he found so profound that he used it as a chapter title in his book: “Not Being Qualified for a Job Shouldn’t Stop You.”Mr. Blagojevich was uninterested in governing, and Mr. Tusk has said that he essentially ran the state. Mr. Tusk testified at Mr. Blagojevich’s corruption trial in 2010 and said he steered clear of any wrongdoing.Mr. Tusk went on to work for Lehman Brothers, leaving the bank just before its collapse. He ran Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election drive in 2009, in which the incumbent mayor, even with a huge campaign budget of $100 million, barely prevailed over the Democratic New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson.Then he jumped into the world of political consulting and lobbying, working to expand charter schools. His firm lobbies for the Education Equity Campaign, an organization funded by the cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder that wants to keep the admissions test for selective high schools. The firm emphasized that it stopped representing the police union before it endorsed Donald J. Trump.Mr. Tusk began discussing the race with Mr. Yang in early November; Kevin Sheekey, who ran Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, had introduced Mr. Tusk to Mr. Yang’s campaign manager, Zach Graumann, not long after Mr. Yang dropped out of the presidential race.Mr. Tusk had been looking for a like-minded mayoral candidate for years. In 2017, he tried — unsuccessfully — to recruit a candidate to run against Mayor Bill de Blasio.In the Medium post, Mr. Tusk noted that he had not worked on a mayoral campaign since his Bloomberg days, adding that he decided to get involved now because he wanted to protect New York and his interests there, including his plans to open a bookstore and podcast studio on the Lower East Side.“Obviously, this is happening because their candidates and campaigns are behind in the polls and they’re looking for anything that can stick,” he wrote, before adding parenthetically, “I’m familiar with how this stuff works.” More

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      Scott Stringer Campaign Moves Forward Amid Sexual Assault Allegation

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      While Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, has lost crucial supporters in his drive to become mayor, other backers have stood by him.From a distance, Scott M. Stringer’s campaign for mayor doesn’t appear to have changed much since last week, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a campaign volunteer 20 years ago.On Monday, a union representing 24,000 school safety agents and public housing employees endorsed him. Later that night, he answered questions about hate crimes and police funding at a forum sponsored by interfaith youth. Since the allegations first surfaced, he’s been to at least four candidates’ forums, three churches, two news conferences, three subway stations and one editorial board interview.The message at each stop is a forceful denial of the allegations from Jean Kim, a lobbyist, that he sexually assaulted her 20 years ago when he was running for public advocate. Each time, Mr. Stringer, 61, makes a statement similar to the one he gave during a television interview Tuesday: “I’m going to be the next mayor and win the Democratic primary.”But up close, Mr. Stringer’s hopes for becoming mayor have suffered a devastating blow. Members of the progressive coalition that assembled behind him began rescinding their endorsements on Friday.And much of the uptick in attention from the news media, like a 15-minute interview on NY1 on Tuesday morning, has focused as much on Ms. Kim’s allegations as it has on Mr. Stringer’s plans if elected mayor.On Wednesday morning Mr. Stringer appeared on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC to discuss the city’s economic recovery from the pandemic.Mr. Lehrer said the show was “trying to focus our candidate interviews on policy,” but immediately added that “we can’t ignore the elephant in the room of the sexual abuse and harassment allegation and your significant loss of endorsements.”Mr. Stringer’s campaign points out that the increased media coverage gives him a chance to dispute the allegations and talk about his plans for the city.During the interview on WNYC, Mr. Stringer, who declined to be interviewed for this article, talked about how his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, is a survivor of sexual assault. He mentioned that his mother had died of Covid-19, one of the reasons he said he wants to become mayor and help the city recover. And he said he wanted his two sons to be able to look back on this moment and understand that he strongly denies the allegations against him.None of that has been enough to stanch the flow of progressive groups and leaders abandoning the candidate.Sochie Nnaemeka, head of the New York State Working Families Party, said her group’s decision to drop Mr. Stringer was based in part in concern about “toxic male leadership.” The ideas of the progressive movement are now permeating city and state politics, and progressive groups have to guard their “governing values,” she said.“It cannot be that the candidate is the sole vehicle and the only option to make people’s lives better and to make our city different,” said Ms. Nnaemeka, whose group is now endorsing both Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.While Mr. Stringer’s progressive coalition has dissolved, members of his labor coalition, including the influential United Federation of Teachers and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, have stood by him.Jean Kim, left, and her attorney, Patricia Pastor, right, have accused Mr. Stringer of sexual assault.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe U.F.T.’s most active political volunteers met on Sunday and decided to reaffirm their support for Mr. Stringer. Heading into the final weeks of the campaign, the union expects to unleash its full capabilities to help him, including phone banking, canvassing and door knocking.The U.F.T. is also considering a donation to an independent expenditure committee that would boost Mr. Stringer’s campaign with advertisements.“It’s a wide-open race at this point,” said Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president.Mr. Stringer, one of the best-funded candidates in the race, continues to attract money, and he expects to have raised at least $10 million before the campaign is over. A fund-raising email said he was just over $41,000 away from receiving the maximum amount of matching public funds.A fund-raiser on Zoom this week went on as planned. And the campaign continued to purchase ads, a long-planned, multimillion-dollar effort seen as part of a final push to fulfill Mr. Stringer’s longtime goal of becoming mayor.Some voters received surveys from a polling firm to examine how concerned they are about the sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Stringer’s campaign declined to comment..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“I actually think Scott still has a path,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, a progressive grass-roots organizing group that rescinded its endorsement of Mr. Stringer last week. “One of the main things I’ve heard from my membership is, ‘They did this to Joe Biden, they went after him and he still prevailed’” — a reference to allegations by Tara Reade in 2020 that Mr. Biden had sexually assaulted her.Gregory Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, which announced its support for Mr. Stringer after the allegations were unveiled, said many members of his 24,000-person union may even feel a personal connection with the candidate. Among them are 5,000 school safety agents who say they have been unfairly accused of abusing students.“They, more than anybody, understand what it is to be accused of something they didn’t do, so this resonates with them,” Mr. Floyd said.Mr. Mulgrew said his members were also concerned about due process.“The basic work of why unions form is about workplace rules, and allegations are a major piece of workplace rules,” he said. “Their thing when they see something like this is, what’s the due process?”Ms. Kim has called for Mr. Stringer to resign from his current job as city comptroller and to withdraw from the mayor’s race. On Tuesday, her attorney, Patricia Pastor, filed a complaint with the New York attorney general’s office.“Jean will participate fully” with any investigation, Ms. Pastor said in a statement. The attorney general’s office is reviewing the complaint.Mr. Stringer has also faced criticism for the way in which he has responded to Ms. Kim’s allegations, including his characterization of their relationship as consensual — a point he repeated during the interview Wednesday on WNYC, citing an article from The Intercept that quoted anonymous sources saying that he and Ms. Kim had had a “casual” relationship. He described their relationship as “a friendship with a little more.”Mr. Stringer said that they had remained on good terms and that she had donated to his campaign multiple times, but he said that things soured after Ms. Kim was not offered a job on his 2013 run for comptroller. The campaign accused her of working for the front-runner in the race for mayor, Andrew Yang, which Ms. Kim denies.Ms. Wiley said last week that Mr. Stringer was “running a smear campaign.” She has called on Mr. Stringer to drop out of the mayor’s race.Despite his significant remaining support, it’s still unclear if Mr. Stringer will be able to fully recover, said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist.“A week ago people presumed that Stringer was finished,” Mr. Gyory said. “A week later he’s back on his feet.”New York City voters, he noted, “like someone who can take a punch and get up.” More

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      Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals

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      More from our inbox:A Resource for New York City VotersTruth, Race and Reconciliation  Illustration by The New York Times; photographs from the Gerson FamilyTo the Editor:Re “Immigration Lies, Past and Present” (Opinion guest essay, April 27):Daniela Gerson, in her tribute to her father, presents a misleading picture of the Office of Special Investigations in the U.S. Department of Justice, where her father served in 1980 and 1981. I was the director of that office, and Allan Gerson was a lawyer on my staff.To say that O.S.I. “did not prosecute Nazis based on their wartime crimes, but rather because they had lied on immigration forms” misunderstands the cases we presented. We proved those lies as a necessary predicate to proving the crimes themselves, to show that their entry was unlawful.The trials, and the judgments against them that followed, depended entirely on the compelling proof of their criminal actions. We had neither the purpose nor the desire to concern ourselves with those who, like Mr. Gerson’s parents, had merely lied on immigration forms, and certainly not those who, like them, were survivors of Nazi crimes.As federal prosecutors (we eschewed the characterization of “Nazi hunters”), our mandate from Congress and the attorney general was to present cases against Nazi criminals to secure the loss of their citizenship and their eventual deportation. Anyone who sat in the courtroom would have witnessed the prosecution of those criminals in full and fair trials, their complicity conclusively proved by the Nazis’ own documentation and the testimony of those who survived their crimes. That includes the federal judges who rendered the decisions of denaturalization and deportation.As Ms. Gerson states, her father left O.S.I. after 18 months, but at no time did he ever suggest to me any discontent with our “tactics,” our investigations and lawsuits, or the legal basis on which they securely rested.In April, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum awarded the Office of Special Investigations its highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award. Howard M. Lorber, the museum’s chairman, said:“While true justice for the victims of the Holocaust is not possible, [Ambassador] Stuart Eizenstat and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations have each worked tirelessly in different ways to secure a measure of justice for the survivors and accountability for the perpetrators. We are honored to recognize their achievements and decades-long dedication to these noble pursuits.”That honor was not conferred on O.S.I. for the prosecution of lies on immigration forms.Allan A. RyanNorwell, Mass.The writer was director of the Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department from 1980 to 1983 and is the author of “Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America.”A Resource for New York City VotersTo the Editor:Re “New York’s Electing a Mayor. New Yorkers Yawn” (front page, April 27):The last year has put a tremendous strain on millions who have lost a loved one, become extremely ill or faced financial hardship. Given the circumstances, it’s understandable that many New Yorkers are oblivious to the citywide primary elections on June 22.In addition to these circumstances, there are more than 400 candidates running for various offices in the city, and ranked-choice voting will be used for the first time.The people who win the primaries in less than seven weeks will most likely be the ones to shape our city for a generation to come. We need as many New Yorkers engaged in this election as possible to ensure that our city’s recovery benefits us all.If people feel overwhelmed by the prospect of educating themselves about who is running, that can’t be allowed to happen. That’s why we started ElectNYC.org, a comprehensive, nonpartisan guide to the 2021 elections, so voters can feel empowered to make the best choices for themselves and their communities.New Yorkers need a place where they can easily get unbiased information about who is running, where they stand on important issues and how to cast a ballot. We encourage everyone to use this valuable resource ahead of the June primary.Betsy GotbaumNew YorkThe writer is executive director of Citizens Union and a former New York City public advocate.Truth, Race and ReconciliationWilliam Sylvester White Jr., who was appointed to the rank of Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, Chicago, 1940.Illustration by Alexandria Valentine; photograph by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Black Troops Deserve Better” (Opinion guest essay, April 22):Theodore R. Johnson helps us all understand how systemic racism has corrupted our country. Now we need a truth and reconciliation commission to put these cases into their context.We will never reach a fair and equitable society until these issues are brought into the light of day. Denying that our country has been systemically racist and that this affects our world today is a falsehood.If we review the truth, maybe politicians will then take reparations arguments seriously.Daniel DziedzicRochester Hills, Mich. More

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      Kathryn Garcia Makes Push in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Amid Rival’s Crisis

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      A sexual harassment allegation against Scott Stringer may open a lane in the New York City mayor’s race for Ms. Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner.In her years as a leader in New York City government, Kathryn Garcia earned a reputation as a veteran problem solver and the admiration of political insiders.But in the months since Ms. Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, began her campaign to be the next mayor of New York, she has struggled to use that track record to capture voter interest and break through a crowded field.With seven weeks until the Democratic primary contest and many city residents just beginning to pay close attention to the race, there may be an opportunity for Ms. Garcia to try to jump-start her campaign — and she is seizing the moment.On Tuesday, Ms. Garcia will air her first television ad of the campaign and announce an endorsement from Loree K. Sutton, a former city commissioner who ended her own mayoral bid in March.The one-two punch comes just days after Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, who, like Ms. Garcia, has campaigned on his record in government, was confronted by 20-year-old allegations of sexual harassment from a former campaign worker.The allegations against Mr. Stringer may have opened up a path for Ms. Garcia to win over voters who value experience. Mr. Stringer has vehemently denied the allegations against him, but he has nonetheless lost several key endorsements, and many candidates have called on him to drop out.Ms. Garcia has also gained attention from remarks made by Andrew Yang, the race’s apparent front-runner, suggesting that he would welcome Ms. Garcia to serve as his No. 2 — a prospect that she has rejected with disdain.“It definitely feels like the winds have shifted, and they are blowing into our sails,” Ms. Garcia said in an interview this week.The new ad and Ms. Sutton’s endorsement will emphasize the message that Ms. Garcia has stuck to since kicking off her mayoral bid in December: that her pragmatic approach and experience in city government make her the person best suited to lead New York City.“It’s not conjecture to wonder how Kathryn would operate, how she would function, how she would govern during a time of life-and-death crisis,” Ms. Sutton, who ran on a similar message, said.Before last year, Ms. Garcia had never before run for political office, but she racked up extensive experience at the city’s sanitation, finance and environmental agencies.“She clearly knows more about government than almost anyone I know, and I know a lot of people who know a lot about government,” said Howard Wolfson, who served as a deputy mayor under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.Ms. Garcia became known for being particularly effective during crises. In 2012, she helped bring the city’s water systems back online after they were knocked out by Hurricane Sandy.Ms. Garcia, center, at a recent volunteer cleanup event.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesDuring her tenure as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s sanitation commissioner, she was also deployed to temporarily oversee the troubled New York City Housing Authority in 2019. When the coronavirus swept into the city, he put her in charge of an emergency initiative to feed the needy and the homebound.But that expertise does not appear to have resonated with voters. While polling on the race remains limited, Ms. Garcia has consistently received single-digit support.A recent poll conducted by the news channel NY1 and Ipsos found that only 29 percent of likely voters said they were familiar with Ms. Garcia, while 37 percent said they had not heard of her at all..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Still, a large percentage of city residents remain undecided in the race, and Ms. Garcia said she was confident that she could win over those voters with her record.“They want to make a thoughtful decision,” she said. “And they are looking for expertise and experience.”Christina M. Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said she expected that the accusations against Mr. Stringer would prompt some of his supporters to reconsider his candidacy. Ms. Garcia’s campaign, she added, is well poised to scoop up some of them.“If her campaign can just transfer some of those types of voters who say ‘I really just want someone who knows government’ — well, she fits the mold,” Dr. Greer said.Ms. Garcia may also pick up voters who, in the wake of the accusations against Mr. Stringer, are convinced that a woman should lead the city for the first time in its history, Dr. Greer said.But support from Mr. Stringer’s base is far from guaranteed. He has sought to become the leading progressive candidate in the race, while Ms. Garcia has billed herself as a nonideological technocrat.Ms. Garcia’s campaign ad doubles down on that messaging. In the 30-second spot, she stands inside a red box labeled “in case of emergency, break glass.” As she slips on a leather jacket, she mentions her record as the city’s “go-to crisis manager.”Then, Ms. Garcia puts on a pair of safety glasses. “When there’s a crisis,” she says, “sometimes you’ve got to break glass to solve it.”The metaphors — escaping a box, shattering the glass ceiling, the emergency response — are beyond clear.“It is about breaking out,” Ms. Garcia acknowledged. “But there’s also this underlying message of other people are trying to define you. And I’m going to define myself.”Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting. More