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In the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race, Being Second Might Be Good Enough to Win
by Aurelia Butler 10 June 2021, 09:00
Political campaigns are considering cross-endorsements and vying for the No. 2 spot on voters’ ballots.In the fiercely competitive world of New York City politics, it is hard to imagine a candidate embracing a strategy to be voters’ second choice. Yet in the volatile, crowded race for mayor, such a gambit might actually pay off.The reason? Ranked-choice voting.The introduction this year of the ranked-choice system — allowing the selection of up to five choices for mayor, ranked in preferential order — has inserted a significant measure of unpredictability into an election still unsettled by the pandemic.With the June 22 primary less than two weeks away, campaign officials for the leading Democratic candidates are still trying to figure out how best to work the system to their advantage.Some campaigns have hired staffers who have experience with ranked-choice voting. They are weighing the risks of making a cross-endorsement with a rival. And candidates are openly reaching out to voters committed elsewhere, hoping to become their second choice.When Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, recently lost an important endorsement from his friend John Liu, a state senator, he was unbowed. He called on Mr. Liu to rank him second, behind a key opponent, Andrew Yang.“I’m going to need No. 2 voters, and I’m hoping that I can get him to endorse me as No. 2,” Mr. Adams said.Even before Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, entered the race last year, an “electability” presentation to potential backers extolled how his “broad appeal makes him a natural second and third choice for voters.”New York City approved the switch to a ranked-choice system in a 2019 referendum; it was designed to give voters broader influence by allowing them to back their top choice while still weighing in on the race’s other candidates — lessening the chances of a scenario where two popular candidates split the vote and a candidate without broad support wins.If a candidate does not initially win a majority of the votes, the rankings come into play. The last-place candidate is eliminated in a series of rounds, with that candidate’s votes reallocated to whichever candidate their supporters ranked next. The rounds continue until there are two candidates left, and the winner has a majority.The winner will still need to appear as the first choice on as many ballots as possible. But with 13 Democratic candidates diffusing the vote, securing the second spot on other ballots could be just as important, and could elevate a candidate with fewer first-place votes into the lead.How Does Ranked-Choice Voting Work in New York?New Yorkers voting in the June 22 primary for mayor will use ranked-choice voting for the first time this year. Confused? We can help.Uncertainty over how voters will approach the new voting system is making many of the campaigns nervous.“We’re in uncharted territory, and our campaign has done everything it can to ensure that we get as many votes as we can get,” said Chris Coffey, a campaign manager for Mr. Yang, a former presidential candidate.In most cases where ranked-choice elections have been held, the candidate who is ahead in the first round prevails. But there have been exceptions, including the 2010 mayoral election in Oakland, Calif., where Jean Quan won despite placing second in the first round. Ms. Quan, the city’s first female mayor, collected more second- and third-choice votes than her top rival, boosting her to victory.Ms. Quan had openly supported the candidate who placed third, Rebecca Kaplan, as her second choice and believes that the friendly gesture helped her with voters.“I knew there was a risk of helping Rebecca, but I thought it was more important to beat the front-runner,” she said in an interview.Those types of alliances have been rare in New York.A campaign adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning said that a cross-endorsement would only work if the other candidate was unquestionably lower in the standings. “You have to know that you’re going to beat the person you’re cross-endorsing — that’s rule No. 1,” the adviser said.Indeed, the campaigns of Mr. Yang and his chief rival, Mr. Adams, both considered trying to craft a cross-endorsement deal with Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, according to two people familiar with the plans. But her recent rise in the scant public polling available has made that proposition more unlikely.“We’re not overthinking our ranked-choice strategy,” said Lindsey Green, a spokeswoman for Ms. Garcia. “The goal is still to get as many No. 1 votes as we can and to win outright.”Kathryn Garcia, a veteran of city government, was thought to be a target of her rivals for a friendly co-endorsement, but her rise in polling has made that more unlikely.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesOnly two of the leading mayoral candidates, in fact, are even willing to list a second choice: Mr. Yang backs Ms. Garcia; Mr. Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, supports Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.The only known cross-endorsement pact was between Joycelyn Taylor, a businesswoman, and Art Chang, an entrepreneur, two Democrats who have shown little support in polling and fund-raising, and stand little chance of winning.The mayoral primary will be the first citywide contest in New York City to use ranked-choice voting, and the new system was expected to change the race’s dynamics.Most mayoral primaries typically feature bruising campaigns; ranked-choice was supposed to discourage that, with candidates wary of alienating each other’s base. That had largely been true this year, but the level of sniping and negative campaigning has increased in recent weeks.One thing is certain: There will be no costly runoff this year; whoever emerges as the winner will be the Democratic nominee, even if that person did not get 50 percent of the initial vote.But the voting system also has its quirks.Assuming no one wins a majority in the first round, the city’s Board of Elections must completely receive and process mail-in ballots before it begins the ranked-choice tally. That is expected to take weeks, and officials have cautioned that a victor may not be declared until mid-July.“Ranked-choice voting has definitely added an unpredictability to the race,” said Ester Fuchs, a politics professor at Columbia University. “The candidates would like to figure out how to maximize their chances of winning, and they haven’t been able to figure it out.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Yang, who has strong name recognition and centrist views, has tried to evoke a cheerful image on the campaign trail. He said recently on MSNBC that the voting system rewards candidates like him with “broad appeal.”Mr. Yang is working with Bill Barnes, a veteran of San Francisco government, which uses ranked-choice voting, and Billy Cline, who worked on the campaign of London Breed, that city’s first Black female mayor.Mr. Adams, who appears to be the front-runner in the race, is working with Evan Thies, a media strategist who has experience with the issue, and Ben Tulchin, a San Francisco-based pollster from Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.At the same time, progressive groups and the city’s powerful teachers’ union are urging New Yorkers not to rank Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams at all.“Any appearance on your ballot, even as your fifth choice, can get them elected,” the United Federation of Teachers recently told its members.Our City, a super PAC backed by progressive groups, is also arguing that anyone else would be better than Mr. Yang or Mr. Adams.“The rest of the candidates — we don’t feel like they’re completely unreachable for progressive issues,” said Gabe Tobias, who is running the PAC. “Adams and Yang are unreachable. That’s a situation where we couldn’t win any of the things we want to win.”Andrew Yang,who has mostly evoked a cheerful image during the campaign, said that ranked-choice voting rewards people like him with “broad appeal.”Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesOver the last few weeks, more endorsements have been given in ranked-choice format: The Working Families Party had endorsed the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, first; Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive, second; and Ms. Wiley third. But the group withdrew its support for Mr. Stringer and Ms. Morales after their campaigns became mired in controversy, and it is now supporting only Ms. Wiley.Daniel Rosenthal, a state assemblyman, and two Jewish groups in Queens just ranked Ms. Garcia second. Their first choices were split between Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams.Representative Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican-American to serve in Congress, also recently endorsed Mr. Adams first and Ms. Wiley second. (He rescinded his initial endorsement of Mr. Stringer after allegations emerged that Mr. Stringer had sexually harassed a woman working on his 2001 campaign for public advocate. Mr. Stringer denies the allegations.)The system allows voters to hedge their bets and rank multiple candidates — extending the odds of casting a winning vote for someone agreeable, even if not preferable. A voter could, for instance, rank three left-leaning candidates — Ms. Wiley, Mr. Stringer and Ms. Morales — guaranteeing that one would get their vote in a late round.The same scenario could present itself to a voter who wanted to support a Black candidate, and rank only the four major Black Democrats: Mr. Adams, Ms. Wiley, Ms. Morales, who identifies as Afro-Latina, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive.Yet some Black leaders are also concerned that minority and working-class voters might not rank more than one candidate because there has not been enough public education about the process. More than half of voters say they will pick a second choice; 30 percent said they would only pick one choice, according to a Fontas Advisors poll in May.Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good government advocacy group, said that ranked-choice voting eliminates the need for an expensive runoff election, which could take just as long to find a winner.“Democracy takes time, and every vote counts,” she said. “Accurate and fair election results are worth waiting for.” More
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Eric Adams Draws Fire for Skipping Mayoral Debate
by Aurelia Butler 9 June 2021, 01:23
Mr. Adams, a leading candidate for New York City mayor, was accused by his rivals of trying to dodge scrutiny of questions about his residency.Turbulence again rocked the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday, as Eric Adams, a leading contender, came under fire from two directions, even as two rivals, Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley, displayed signs of growing support.Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, first drew criticism for his decision to skip a new debate among the top candidates scheduled for Thursday; he will instead attend a vigil for a 10-year-old killed in gun violence in Queens.Then questions emerged over where Mr. Adams actually lives, after Politico reported some inconsistencies in public records that suggested that he did not live in the Brooklyn apartment where he had registered to run for mayor.During the pandemic, Mr. Adams has often slept in Brooklyn Borough Hall, a habit that he has apparently continued in recent weeks. He also co-owns an apartment in Fort Lee, N.J.“WTF?!?!” was the Wiley campaign’s reaction.An adviser to Andrew Yang, Eric Soufer, said Mr. Adams “refuses to give a straight answer” about where he lives. “Eric Adams is obviously skipping the debate to avoid answering questions about how long he’s lived in New Jersey. If my candidate lived in Jersey, I’d probably do the same thing,” he said.Evan Thies, an Adams campaign adviser, said in an interview that Mr. Adams lives in the garden apartment of the brownstone he owns on Lafayette Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where his son also lives. Mr. Thies said that Mr. Adams sleeps in the garden apartment “most nights,” and that the last time he slept there was Monday night.While Mr. Adams often works late at Borough Hall, sometimes sleeping there, Mr. Thies said, he only does borough presidency work there, never campaign work.Mr. Adams did not comment directly, but said on Twitter: “You know it’s silly season when your opponents are staking out your office late at night so they can attack you for working hard!”The issue would have been certain to come up had Mr. Adams attended the debate on Thursday, as his opponents try to shake his lead in a race that remains volatile just four days before early voting begins on Saturday.While Mr. Adams has run neck and neck with Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate, Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley flexed their ability to draw serious financial support. If one of them wins, she would be New York’s first female mayor, and both have made late-breaking gains in the race.Ms. Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, hit a fund-raising milestone when she raised enough money to max out public matching funds, her campaign said Tuesday. Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, got a boost from the nation’s largest health care union, 1199SEIU, which announced it was buying $1.2 million worth of television ads backing her campaign.Seeking to capitalize on a coveted endorsement last week from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a lodestar for progressive voters, Ms. Wiley also unveiled one of her most ambitious proposals yet: a $1 billion plan to create city-sponsored medical insurance that her campaign said would cover 246,000 low-income and undocumented New Yorkers, a large chunk of the city’s 600,000 uninsured residents..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The new union ad features health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately harmed low-income immigrant and Black communities.Maya Wiley unveiled a proposal to create a city-sponsored health insurance plan.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesMs. Wiley framed her plan as a way to protect the city’s essential workers who had been exposed to the coronavirus during the pandemic. She made her announcement at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, which was hit very hard during the pandemic.“We are going to invest in a health insurance program for the folks who don’t qualify for Medicaid, for the folks who don’t get health insurance on the job, for whom Obamacare isn’t a solution,” she said. “We’re going to do it because we are a great city of tremendous resources when we know how to use them.”But while progressive standard bearers like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez emphasize free care or “Medicare for All,” Ms. Wiley’s plan would follow the traditional insurance model. Patients earning more than $25,000 per year would have copays and deductibles. The plan would replace a program created by Mr. de Blasio to expand access to free care at city hospitals.Ms. Wiley will be one of the four leading candidates who have said they will participate in the debate on Thursday, a WCBS-TV spokesman, Mike Nelson, said. The others are Mr. Yang, Ms. Garcia and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller.Mr. Yang’s campaign accused Mr. Adams of running scared by avoiding the debate. But Mr. Adams said he had another commitment: a ceremony with the family of Justin Wallace, 10, who died last weekend in a shooting on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens.“I wanted to do the debate. I enjoy debating the people on the stage, I wanted to, but the people of Rockaway, the people of the city, violence is suffocating our city,” Mr. Adams, a former police officer, said on WCBS-TV.Reporting was contributed by Katie Glueck, Sean Piccoli, Dana Rubinstein and Mihir Zaveri. More
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Andrew Yang Is Hit With Negative Ads From Animal Rights Leaders
by Aurelia Butler 7 June 2021, 23:00
In 2013, the animal rights leaders helped undermine the mayoral campaign of Christine Quinn, boosting the chances of the eventual winner, Bill de Blasio.The last time there was a crowded race for mayor of New York City, a curious issue gained unexpected prominence: Just about every major candidate promised to do away with Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages, citing concerns over the horses’ safety.A notable exception was Christine Quinn, then the speaker of the New York City Council. Because of her stance, an animal rights group helped fund an “Anybody But Quinn” campaign that was credited with helping to topple her candidacy in 2013, paving the way for Bill de Blasio to become mayor.Eight years later, with horse-drawn carriages still rumbling through Central Park, that same animal rights group is making a return appearance in the 2021 mayoral race.The two founders of the group, New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, or NYCLASS, announced on Monday their support for a new super PAC that will run television and digital ads attacking Andrew Yang, one of the Democratic front-runners in the contest.The ads were not the only curious development in the race: The office of the New York City comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, whose campaign for mayor appears to be losing steam, released an audit on Monday targeting the emergency food program established by a rival candidate, Kathryn Garcia, who has been rising in the polls. The audit raised concerns that he was using taxpayer dollars for political purposes.The audit and the anti-Yang ads were the most recent illustrations of how the June 22 primary, which is likely to determine the next mayor of this heavily Democratic city, remains in flux. Mr. Yang’s numbers have been falling, Ms. Garcia has gained ground, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, is now thought to be in the lead, according to an Ipsos poll commissioned by Spectrum News NY1 that was released on Monday.The digital ads attacking Mr. Yang feature photographs of apparently ailing carriage horses lying on the street, and Mr. Yang’s “no” response on a questionnaire asking if he would support efforts “to strengthen welfare protections and increase the standards of care for New York City’s carriage horses.”The ads attacking Mr. Yang feature photos of apparently ailing carriage horses lying on the street.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesThe television ad makes no mention of animal rights, focusing instead on Mr. Yang’s qualifications.“What do we actually know about Andrew Yang?” the narrator asks in the advertisement, before launching into an unflattering biography of the former presidential candidate, describing him as “a prep school millionaire whose business career mostly failed.”The organization is spending about $200,000 for one week of ads, but is willing to spend about $1 million, according to its spokesman, James Freedland.The group’s leaders, Steve Nislick, a former real estate executive, and Wendy Neu, who runs a recycling and real estate company, declined interview requests. Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Ms. Neu’s sister and a film producer who is helping fund the super PAC, also declined to comment.In a statement, Mr. Nislick said that there was “no question that respect for animal rights goes hand in hand with respect for human rights.”“It’s clear that Andrew Yang is the wrong choice for mayor on both fronts,” he continued. “From supporting the abusive carriage horse industry to opposing tax increases on the wealthiest New Yorkers, Yang is simply unable and unwilling to stand up to the powerful forces that perpetuate cruelty in order to make a profit.”Chris Coffey, one of Mr. Yang’s campaign managers, spent years working as a lobbyist for NYCLASS and said he was taken aback by the group leaders’ decision to target Mr. Yang. Mr. Coffey accused the group of working behind the scenes with Mr. Adams.“This is the clearest evidence yet that Eric Adams is cutting deals with the same people who put Bill de Blasio in office,” Mr. Coffey said. “It’s time for a change from these sketchy unethical deals of the past.”A spokesman for Mr. Adams scoffed at Mr. Coffey’s suggestion that the borough president was involved in the ad campaign.“Absurd and sad,” said Evan Thies, the spokesman. “Apparently there are plenty of other people who don’t think Andrew Yang should be mayor.”A spokesman for Eric Adams, center, scoffed at the suggestion that the borough president was involved in the ad campaign.James Estrin/The New York TimesThe group’s founders donated generously to Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, but they also fought with him over his failure to actually ban the industry, as he had promised. Instead, Mr. de Blasio has moved the horse-carriage line from 59th Street into Central Park, and signed legislation limiting horse-carriage operations on particularly hot days..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}During his regular Monday morning media briefing, Mr. de Blasio said he hadn’t met or spoken with Ms. Neu or Mr. Nislick in “months and months, for sure.”In the years after the 2013 election, the New York City Campaign Finance Boards fined NYCLASS for making illegal campaign contributions, and the issue of horse carriages receded into the background.This year, four of the top eight mayoral candidates responded to NYCLASS’s candidate questionnaire. Only two of them expressed outright support for eventually banning the industry: Maya Wiley, Mr. de Blasio’s former counsel, and Dianne Morales, the former nonprofit executive. Mr. Adams selected “no” in response to the question about banning the industry, but then elaborated that he was “open to further discussion about prohibiting the operation of horse-drawn carriages.”Ms. Quinn, the target of the organization’s 2013 ad campaign, expressed disapproval of the group leaders’ new efforts.“What’s the horror movie where you can’t kill the monster and he keeps coming back?” Ms. Quinn said when reached by phone.Meanwhile, Mr. Stringer’s release of an audit targeting Ms. Garcia’s emergency food program prompted criticism that he was misusing the comptroller’s office for political gain.After the pandemic threw one million New Yorkers out of work, and it became apparent that New York City was facing a hunger crisis of historic proportions, Mr. de Blasio tasked Ms. Garcia, then the sanitation commissioner, with creating an emergency food program. At its height, it distributed 1.5 million meals a day.On Monday, Mr. Stringer’s office faulted the city for failing to adequately vet the background of a contractor whose owner had been convicted of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, released an audit targeting an emergency food program established by a rival candidate, Kathryn Garcia.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesA spokeswoman for Mr. Stringer said the audit began last July, well before Ms. Garcia launched her campaign, and that the office evaluates whether an audit merits a news release based on the significance of the findings and recommendations.“The comptroller’s office has been diligently working to examine what went well and what didn’t during the response to the pandemic, and how to improve agencies’ emergency procurement procedures to quickly secure goods and services while mitigating the risks of squandering taxpayer dollars and contracting with unqualified or criminal vendors,” said Hazel Crampton-Hays, the comptroller’s press secretary.But Annika Reno, a spokeswoman for the Garcia campaign, was unconvinced.“It’s hardly a surprise that after Scott has spent his entire career in political office, that he would then use his office and taxpayer dollars to further his political career,” Ms. Reno said. “This is why New Yorkers don’t want another career politician as mayor, they want a public servant who gets things done.” More
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Wiley Wins the Progressives: 5 Takeaways From the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race
by Aurelia Butler 7 June 2021, 07:00
With just two weeks to go before the primary, Maya Wiley is consolidating support from the left wing of the Democratic Party.With two weeks to go before the Democratic primary, the progressive left has seemed to have coalesced around a single candidate, relying on a time-honored technique: self-elimination.The candidate is Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Her rise to the top of the progressive pile did not come easily. To get there, her two rivals first had to see their campaigns implode.First to take himself out was Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller. He was an original progressive favorite, until two women came forward with decades-old allegations of inappropriate sexual advances, causing many progressives leaders to withdraw their support.Next to run into trouble was Dianne Morales, the former nonprofit executive whose campaign mutinied, tried to unionize and then accused her of union-busting. It was a bad look for a woman who has run on empowering the grass roots.Support for Morales collapsesFour progressive groups, including the Working Families Party, have rescinded their endorsements for Ms. Morales. All are now endorsing Ms. Wiley, joining Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, who endorsed her over the weekend.And three of the city’s major progressives groups, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, the Jewish Vote and New York Progressive Action Network, have all moved from Ms. Morales to Ms. Wiley.“As Eric Adams and Andrew Yang continue to push dangerous pro-corporate, pro-carceral agendas, it’s more important than ever that we consolidate progressive strength to ensure a working people’s champion wins this year,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, the New York State director of the Working Families Party. “Maya Wiley has the momentum, platform and growing diverse coalition to win this race.”The rescinded endorsements follow news last week that Ms. Morales’s top adviser, Ifeoma Ike, has also defected to Ms. Wiley’s team.Although many of these groups are switching to Ms. Wiley, Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary who has remained in the second tier of top candidates, is trying to take advantage of Ms. Morales’s misfortune by poaching her supporters.His campaign has sent texts to Ms. Morales’s backers highlighting his support for ending solitary confinement in prisons and removing metal detectors from schools.“Shaun is the only candidate, aside from Dianne, who has called for $3 billion to be reallocated from the police and corrections budget toward community-based public safety and racial justice initiatives,” said Jeremy Edwards, a spokesman for Mr. Donovan.A.O.C. backs list of progressives for City CouncilAlthough Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Ms. Wiley on Saturday made headlines, she also took a stand on the City Council race, throwing support to 60 candidates running in 31 districts.They had all signed a 30-point pledge aligned with the vision of her PAC, Courage to Change, promising to support policies like a Green New Deal, moving money from the police to social services, investing in public transit and rejecting donations from the fossil-fuel and real-estate industries.The message: Lasting movements are built from the ground up, and the fight for the bottom of the ticket is at least as important as the top-billed mayoral race.“We are advancing and making sure that we are coming together as a movement,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, standing before rows of candidates holding purple Courage to Change signs. She urged New Yorkers in their 31 districts to vote for them.The list includes all six candidates on the Democratic Socialists of America slate: Brandon West, Michael Hollingsworth and Alexa Avilés in Brooklyn; Tiffany Cabán and Jaslin Kaur in Queens; and Adolfo Abreu in the Bronx. Those candidates are emphasizing climate and environmental-justice policies such as building publicly owned renewable-energy infrastructure and banning new fossil-fuel infrastructure like gas power plants and pipelines.In districts with several candidates from her list, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez picked top choices on the basis of their support from grass-roots groups focused on public housing, climate action and immigrant and labor rights. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez emphasized that to keep its momentum, the progressive movement needs to build a bloc in the City Council to help a Mayor Wiley shift policy to the left.“We have a candidate that grass-roots movements can work with, can influence, can shape,” she said. Trump looms over the Republican primaryThe shadow of one of the most prominent former New Yorkers loomed large over the Republican mayoral primary last week.On Thursday morning, Fernando Mateo, a restaurant owner, announced an endorsement from Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Donald J. Trump.Hours later, Mr. Mateo announced at a debate with his opponent, Curtis Sliwa, that he had met with Mr. Trump that same day to discuss the state of New York City.“He is very saddened by the state of this city,” Mr. Mateo said of the former president, who was a lifelong New Yorker until he changed his primary residence to Florida in 2019. “President Trump has compassion for New York and New Yorkers.”A representative for Mr. Trump, who has not made an endorsement in the race, confirmed the meeting.Mr. Mateo has repeatedly voiced his support for the former president, who is under investigation by the Manhattan district attorney.Throughout his campaign, Mr. Mateo has criticized Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels who only became a Republican last year, for not supporting or voting for Mr. Trump, who remains popular with Republicans..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The two have also sparred over the lie that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election — Mr. Sliwa says he did not — which has become a litmus test for conservative candidates across the country.Mr. Flynn, a former general who became one of the most ardent voices in Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the election and recently suggested at conference organized by adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory that he would support a military coup, cited Mr. Mateo’s embrace of the former president as the reason for his endorsement.“He understands, supports and embraces President Trump’s America First agenda,” Mr. Flynn said.McGuire’s wife cuts an adMr. Yang’s wife, Evelyn, rode the Cyclone roller coaster in Coney Island, Brooklyn, with him in his first advertisement.Mr. Stringer’s wife, Elyse Buxbaum, appears with him in an ad showing the couple getting their two sons ready for school.Now, as the former Wall Street executive Raymond J. McGuire continues to struggle in the polls, his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, a lawyer and filmmaker, is appearing solo in an ad set to launch on Tuesday.The ad shows Ms. McCrary McGuire with Mr. McGuire and their 8-year-old son, Leo, and talks about his work behind the scenes helping New Yorkers as a “private public servant,” including on the board of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.“There are literally hundreds of stories about how Ray has been serving the community of New York City for three decades, but he hasn’t been putting out press releases about it,” Ms. McCrary McGuire said in an interview.Mr. McGuire entered the race with strong support from the business community. He has raised more than $9 million and has a super PAC supporting his campaign, but he has not been able to break through with voters, according to available polling.Yang takes on de BlasioFor weeks, Andrew Yang has been treated by the other mayoral candidates as a front-runner, drawing sustained attacks at debates and on the campaign trail. Yet Mr. Yang is sharpening his attacks on someone who is not even running against him: Mr. de Blasio.On Tuesday, Mr. Yang delivered what his campaign called a “closing message,” blaming Mr. de Blasio and his administration for problems associated with crime and quality of life.Then on Thursday, Mr. Yang showed up outside a Y.M.C.A. in Park Slope, Brooklyn — a gym famously frequented by Mr. de Blasio — where he planned to talk about how best to “turn the page on the de Blasio administration.” (Mr. Yang was heckled by protesters and forced to leave.)It has been a shift in tone for Mr. Yang, who had for months positioned himself as an exuberant, optimistic political outsider.But the attacks serve several functions. By targeting Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Yang is seeking to cement his position as a reform candidate. He is also implicitly drawing a contrast with some of his top rivals in the race.He has cast Eric Adams, who is vying with Mr. Yang for moderate Democrats, as an ally of Mr. de Blasio. And two other rivals worked for Mr. de Blasio — Ms. Wiley and Kathryn Garcia, who served as sanitation commissioner — making criticisms of the mayor’s record a form of proxy attack against them. More
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N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates on Police Reform
by Aurelia Butler 6 June 2021, 12:56
We interviewed the eight leading Democratic candidates for mayor about the biggest issues facing the city. Here’s what they said.The protests last summer following George Floyd’s death sparked a national outcry over police brutality. Here are the most important police reforms eight of the leading candidates for mayor of New York say they would pursue:Eric AdamsWe’re no longer going to allow police officers who are abusive to remain in the department for such a long period of time. I’m going to have a fair but speedy trial within a two-month period to determine if that officer should remain a police officer. The goal here is to rebuild trust, look at our police budget, look at areas such as overtime and civilianization of policing.Shaun DonovanWe need to reform policing by creating real transparency, real accountability, weeding out the bad apples. But we also need to reduce what we’re asking the police to do. They’re asked to be mental-health experts with our homeless and in so many other situations.Kathryn GarciaThe most important police reform that I would pursue as mayor is to ensure that we have very clear and transparent discipline for our officers. We have to instill new training programs, and make sure that we are promoting those officers who are rebuilding trust with communities.Raymond J. McGuireI would create an emergency social services bureau, 24 hours, seven days a week, given that four to five out of the 10 calls that go into 911 have to do with mental health issues.Dianne MoralesI don’t believe that we can reform the Police Department. I think we need to transform it. And that means divesting from the department, investing in the services that we need, and then fundamentally transforming the way the department operates in our communities.Scott M. StringerI will put forth a community safety plan that meets the challenges of reducing police interaction in communities of color but at the same time recognizing that we have an ability to keep our city safe. They’re not mutually exclusive. We can do both.Maya WileyPolice brutality has been at a crisis point in this country. I have many plans on transforming policing in the city. That starts by putting people back in public safety, and that means focusing on the job of policing that police should be doing to keep us safe, but taking those functions police did not sign up for the force to do and should not be doing, like mental health crisis response.Andrew YangCultures change from the top. We need a civilian police commissioner who’s not of the N.Y.P.D. culture to help our police force evolve. More
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N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates on Pandemic Recovery
by Aurelia Butler 6 June 2021, 12:56
We interviewed the eight leading Democratic candidates for mayor about the biggest issues facing the city. Here’s what they said.The next mayor will inherit an economy devastated by the pandemic. Here’s how eight of the leading candidates for mayor of New York say they would help the city recover:Eric AdamsWe will focus on our small businesses to get our small businesses up and operating again. We will look after those over a million New Yorkers who are rent-insecure so that we can stabilize them. And then we will also assist those small-property landlords so that they won’t lose their homes in the process.Shaun DonovanI would make sure everyone can walk into a restaurant, everyone can walk into a theater, with an app on their phone that lets them know that it’s a safe place and that the restaurant or the theater knows that that person has been vaccinated.Kathryn GarciaArt, culture, restaurants. When they’re strong, that means offices are strong, and that means that tourism comes back. That’s how we come out of this.Raymond J. McGuireThe first thing I would do is my economic plan, the largest, most inclusive economic comeback in the history of this city. Five hundred thousand jobs — go big, go small, go forward, focusing on the small businesses who are the lifeblood of this city.Dianne MoralesThis is an opportunity for us to transform how we operate and move away from an overreliance on large corporations that come into our communities, exploit our labor and extract our wealth, and rebuild by focusing on those who own businesses locally.Scott M. StringerWe can’t open our city the same way we closed it. We have to recognize that in our hardest-hit communities, where there was tremendous loss of life, we have to reinvest in these neighborhoods to repair the damage that Covid brought.How 8 Mayoral Hopefuls Plan to Fix the EconomyNew York City is facing a financial crisis, largely because of the pandemic. Here’s how some candidates plan to address the city’s budget shortfall..Maya WileyI have a plan called New Deal New York, which I can start executing on Day 1, because as mayor, I will have the power to increase our capital construction budget to $10 billion. That just means money that helps us build things we need built and fixing things we need fixed.Andrew YangWe have to get back some of the 66 million tourists who helped support 300,000 of the 600,000 jobs that are missing, as well as all the commuters who are missing from Midtown and other parts of the city. More
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Scott Stringer Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct by 2nd Woman
by Aurelia Butler 4 June 2021, 19:53
The woman, Teresa Logan, accused Mr. Stringer of sexual harassment and making unwanted advances while she was working for him at a bar and restaurant he co-owned in 1992.Five weeks after an allegation of unwanted sexual advances upended Scott M. Stringer’s New York City mayoral campaign, a second woman is accusing him of sexual harassment and making unwanted advances when she said she worked for Mr. Stringer nearly three decades ago.The woman, Teresa Logan, said that she was a waitress and tended bar at Uptown Local, an establishment on the Upper West Side that was co-founded and run in part by Mr. Stringer. In an interview, she accused Mr. Stringer of once groping her as she carried trays, making unwanted sexual advances, including kissing and groping, outside the workplace at least twice and treating her in a manner that often made her uncomfortable.The first interactions, she said, took place in the spring of 1992, when Mr. Stringer was 32 and she was 18.Teresa Logan in 1992. In a statement, Mr. Stringer, 61 and now the city comptroller, said he had “no memory” of Ms. Logan, now 47.“If, in fact, I met Ms. Logan, and ever did anything to make her uncomfortable, I am sorry,” he said. In response to Ms. Logan’s description of an unprofessional work environment, he said: “Uptown Local was a long-ago chapter in my life from the early 1990s and it was all a bit of a mess.”He did not otherwise respond to the details of her account or her description of the workplace.Three people who knew Ms. Logan at the time confirmed in interviews that she had worked at Uptown Local, including her sister, a man her sister dated at the time, and a friend.There are no known witnesses to Ms. Logan’s claims of unwanted sexual advances, but her sister, Yohanna Logan, who was her roommate that summer, recalled that her sister told her of some of the alleged interactions. Yohanna Logan said that her sister came home deeply shaken at least twice and had described the unwanted advances.A friend who has known Ms. Logan for decades and requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions said she visited Ms. Logan at Uptown Local on one or two occasions that summer. She recalled Ms. Logan saying sometime that year that Mr. Stringer had made at least one unwanted advance.Ms. Logan’s accusations follow similar allegations made by Jean Kim, an unpaid worker on Mr. Stringer’s 2001 campaign for public advocate. Ms. Kim has accused Mr. Stringer of making unwanted sexual advances during that race, charges that he vehemently denied, but that led key left-wing endorsers to withdraw their support for him in the Democratic primary for mayor.Until now, no other women had come forward with similar claims, and a number of women who have worked with or known Mr. Stringer for decades have vouched for his reputation.Ms. Logan was connected with The New York Times through Ms. Kim’s lawyer, Patricia Pastor, who set up the initial interview; several follow-up conversations occurred without Ms. Pastor’s involvement or presence. In a statement, Mr. Stringer and his team cited inaccuracies in Ms. Pastor’s past remarks concerning Ms. Kim’s allegations.“With one week to go before voting starts, Ms. Pastor is back with more allegations, this time from 30 years ago,” he said. The mayoral primary is on June 22 and early voting begins June 12.Rebecca Katz, a spokeswoman for the campaign, added that the allegations “predated decades of service and management by Scott Stringer in the public eye and should be considered in that context.”Ms. Logan, who lives in Manhattan and now works in the fashion industry, said she called Ms. Pastor after seeing her publicly associated with Ms. Kim.“I don’t have a lawyer, I don’t need the lawyer, I don’t want to press charges,” she said. “I just wanted to really just tell my story.” She is a registered Democrat and does not appear to have made donations in the mayor’s race.Ms. Logan said she had been thinking of making her claims public for at least a year, but only decided to move forward after hearing of Ms. Kim’s accusations.“It was like this trigger,” she said. “There’s like a visceral feeling hearing her on the news, and him, and hearing her and knowing she was right. I was like, I know I have to do this.”Jean Kim was the first woman to accuse Mr. Stringer of sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegation.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesMs. Logan said she began working at Uptown Local in late May or early June 1992, around the time the bar and restaurant had filed for bankruptcy. Patrons recalled it as a dimly lit institution with middling food, started by several New York Democrats, including Mr. Stringer, who hoped it would be a premier political haunt. He was not an elected official at the time of the allegations, though he pursued political office later that year.His co-owners did not respond to interview requests or were not reachable.Ms. Logan said that Mr. Stringer sometimes stood uncomfortably close to her and would remark on her appearance.Within weeks of starting her new job came an unsettling interaction, Ms. Logan said. As she carried trays up a flight of stairs, Mr. Stringer was walking down it.“He just, like, totally pats me on the butt, and like, squeezes it,” she said. “I had no way of reacting. My hands weren’t free to even protect myself.”The situation, she recalled, “freaked me out.” But Ms. Logan, who acknowledges that attitudes around sexual harassment in the workplace were different decades ago, tried to move past it.“I sort of glossed it over for myself saying, ‘But I’m getting paid in cash, free drinks, my friends and I are getting free drinks every night,’” she said. “This dude’s a creep, so are a lot of guys at bars probably.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}She stayed on and continued to socialize with Mr. Stringer, she said, celebrating her 19th birthday at Uptown Local.Ms. Logan said that on another occasion, Mr. Stringer suggested that they go out to another bar. She expected that they would go somewhere within walking distance, but instead, he hailed a cab.“I just have a memory of him in the car, putting his hand on my inner thigh,” she said, adding that he “definitely kissed me, like, made out with me.”She added: “And I was like, ‘No, no, no,’ and then when I was so strong about the ‘no’ in that situation, it stopped and he kind of laughed it off, like, ‘Oh, I’m drunk, I’m sorry.’”Yohanna Logan, who was 17 that summer, says her sister described the incident to her on the night that it happened.“I do remember her coming home and being like, more scared than I’ve ever seen her, and just telling me, like, she was really, really shaken up,” she said. “I remember her saying that she was in a cab with him and that he, like, touched her, tried to, like, kiss her and she was trying to get out of it.”Ms. Logan said she felt uncomfortable around Mr. Stringer after the cab ride, but that she hoped that was the end of any unwanted advances.One night, she said she and Mr. Stringer were drinking after work, when he suggested going to another bar.She recalled that their walk took them, eventually, to the outside of an apartment building. Mr. Stringer invited her up, she said.At first, the overture was playful, she recalled, and she responded in kind, proposing that they share a cigarette and talk but saying that there was “no way” she would join him upstairs.Then Mr. Stringer began to kiss and grope her, she said.“It was almost like this out-of-body experience, where I’m like, ‘What do I do, like this is my boss,’” she said. “Meanwhile he’s like, his hand going up my skirt, and my chest.”Ms. Logan said she knew clearly that she wanted him to stop.“I was like ‘No, no, no, I’m going home,’” she said. “And I like, turned my back, walked away. Got a cab.”She said that she told her sister about what happened that night.“She did tell me that he tried to kiss her,” Yohanna Logan said, adding that she recalled learning that Mr. Stringer had “felt her up.” She described her sister as seeking to appear “tough” — “just being like, ‘I’m OK, but it’s really creepy.’”Ms. Logan’s friend recalled Ms. Logan telling her that Mr. Stringer had sought to get her to go upstairs with him and that Ms. Logan did not go. The friend did not recall exactly when that conversation occurred.Ms. Logan left the bar by late summer for another job, and said that she never saw Mr. Stringer again. She said the experience had changed her approach to dealing with men in the workplace.“It was my first job ever in New York, and it affected the way I felt about working with men really throughout my career,” she said. “There’s like a lot of great men in my industry that I could feel more comfortable with, that I don’t.”Susan C. Beachy contributed research. More
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After a Fiery N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate, Who’s Ahead? Who Knows.
by Aurelia Butler 3 June 2021, 22:38
With the campaign in its homestretch, candidates took turns attacking one another, but largely failed to distinguish themselves in a crowded and still undecided race.Not long into New York City’s second Democratic mayoral debate last night, the candidates were asked how they would handle reopening after more than a year of coronavirus lockdown.Some of the relatively centrist hopefuls, like Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, said they would prioritize confronting crime, which has risen in New York over the course of the pandemic. The more progressive candidates, including Maya Wiley and Scott Stringer, argued for less emphasis on policing and a greater focus on affordable housing and youth employment.But beyond specific policy differences, there was a more immediate question for the candidates to confront: how to make up for lost time on the campaign trail, now that the city is finally moving toward a full reopening.The prevailing strategy was to attack, often in personal terms. But with the candidates locked in combat, none seemed to fully break away from the pack.“A lot of the substance was repetitious: Everybody was saying we have to help small businesses, everybody was saying that we have to get the guns off the street,” Michael Krasner, a professor of political science at Queens College and co-director of the Taft Institute for Government, said in an interview.“I didn’t feel like anybody had such a compelling idea or policy proposal that it would make a big impression on undecided voters,” he added. “That made it harder for people to see distinctions.”The June 22 primary is less than three weeks away, and early voting starts in just nine days, but the race remains suspended in midair. In a Fontas/Core Decision Analytics poll released last week, no candidate was the first-choice pick of even one in five likely voters. More than that — 26 percent — said they were entirely undecided. (And even that came only after respondents were pushed to name a choice: On first blush, 50 percent of likely voters said they hadn’t settled on a top candidate.)The relatively large field, peopled by a mix of longtime public officials and relative newcomers, is complicated further by a ranked-choice voting system, new this year, which makes it difficult to determine who really has the upper hand. And the pandemic has put a damper on traditional campaigning: Only in recent weeks have candidate sightings on the streets of New York become commonplace, as the race hits the homestretch.Yang and Adams face offThough long considered the front-runner, Yang has recently been buffeted by attacks from other candidates and by lingering questions about his qualifications, while two fellow centrists — Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Kathryn Garcia, the former city sanitation commissioner — have risen in recent polls.Onstage last night, Adams painted Yang as out of touch with the city. “You started discovering violence when you were running for mayor,” he said. “You started discovering the homeless crisis when you were running for mayor.”Yang shot back, accusing Adams of shady fund-raising practices. “We all know that you’ve been investigated for corruption everywhere you’ve gone,” Yang said. (No charges have been brought against Adams, though some of his political dealings have drawn public scrutiny.)Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, was even more pointed — dinging Yang and Adams in the same breath. “You’re both right: You both shouldn’t be mayor,” he said. On the topic of public schools, Stringer accused Yang and Adams of “taking millions of dollars from Republican billionaires who want to privatize the school system.”Progressives sparOn a night of fierce attacks, Stringer put in a strong showing, Krasner said. But he arguably had the most to prove of any candidate, after his campaign — which had begun strongly, thanks to his relatively high name recognition and endorsements from major progressive groups and labor unions — nearly tanked when a former campaign worker accused him of sexual misconduct.Krasner said that the ranked-choice system could help Stringer — particularly among voters who are hesitant to put a scandal-plagued candidate at the top of their ticket. “A lot of people are going to see him as an appealing No. 2,” Krasner said. “He comes across as a competent progressive.”Wiley has emerged as the only candidate on the progressive wing not enmeshed in scandal, after the campaign of Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, was hit with allegations of blocking her former campaign staff members from unionizing, leading to a number of departures last month.Morales tried last night to clear a path for herself in the left lane, and went further than Wiley or Stringer on calls to reallocate police funding. She reiterated her pledge to redirect $3 billion from the Police Department’s budget toward crime prevention and community investment. Wiley and Stringer have each set a target of trimming $1 billion from the police budget.Centrists seek to define themselvesThe more centrist candidates took a different approach. Yang stated unequivocally, “The defunding of police is not the right approach for New York City.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}And Adams, a former police officer, emphasized the need to confront crime with effective policing. “We must be safe, and then on that platform we can build our economy the right way,” he said, even as he sought to turn back opponents’ attacks on his past support for stop-and-frisk tactics.Garcia has risen into the double digits in recent polls, thanks in part to editorial endorsements from The Times and The New York Daily News that have focused on what had been a relatively low-profile campaign. Last night she framed herself as a savvy technocrat, calling herself “the only candidate up here who can deliver on every promise she makes.”But she was the rare candidate onstage who rarely went on the attack, and she struggled to explain, when challenged by her opponents, why she had left the de Blasio administration in the middle of the pandemic.“She certainly seemed confident,” Krasner said, but he added, “I didn’t think she gained any ground.”Also onstage were Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, and Shaun Donovan, who served as secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama. Each positioned himself as an agent of change.In his opening remarks, Donovan promised “a change from the political status quo of the last eight years,” saying he “would lead New York in a new and better direction.”McGuire offered a poetic variation on the same theme, pointing out that most of his opponents had spent years in public office. “This is a bad movie, playing out at City Hall, with the same characters,” he said. “We simply cannot afford a disastrous sequel. Make the change, hope for the change.”On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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