22 minute read
FIRST READ
Eric Adams’ election night celebration reflected the diverse coalition of support he has been forming for his whole career.
ADAMS IS NYC’S FIRST CHOICE FOR MAYOR
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Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has been waiting to become mayor of New York City for at least 16 years, when, as a newly minted captain in the New York City Police Department, he started telling friends that one day he’d lead the city where he had lived his whole life. But even though Adams leads the Democratic primary for New York City mayor with 31% of the first-place, in-person votes, he will have to wait a little longer before he can officially declare victory. “We know there’s going to be twos and threes and fours,” Adams said at his election night party Tuesday, referring to ranked-choice voting. “There’s something else we know – that New York City said, ‘Our first choice is Eric Adams.’”
This is the first citywide election with ranked-
THE POST GETS OUT THE VOTE
Eric Adams is comfortably ahead in the early New York City mayoral primary results, and while absentee ballot counting and rankedchoice tallies are still yet to come, Adams is already sending out thank you’s. The New York Post, which endorsed Adams in the Democratic primary, used its Election Day cover to remind New Yorkers to give him their vote.
– Maya Wiley, the day after the election, via The New York Times
choice voting, and since Adams didn’t earn at least 50% of first-ranked votes, Democrats’ lower-ranked votes will be counted and allocated toward the total in the coming weeks, after absentee ballots are also received. That “instant runoff” may close the gap between Adams and either Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is in second with 22% of first-place votes, or Kathryn Garcia, the former New York City sanitation commissioner, who is in third place with 19.5%. Garcia aggressively promoted ranked-choice voting by campaigning with another opponent, Andrew Yang, and polling suggested that Garcia was among the least polarizing candidates in the field, which should help her pick up lowerranked votes from New Yorkers who gave other candidates their No. 1 selection. However Adams’ lead was large enough that it’s unlikely for any other candidate to overtake him.
In a celebratory, though measured tone, Adams came close to declaring victory Tuesday. “What a moment. The little guy won today,” Adams said, emphasizing his humble upbringing in South Jamaica, Queens, and presenting his success as a triumph for blue-collar New Yorkers. Adams would be the first mayor to have attended New York City public schools since Abe Beame, who left office in 1977. Adams later added: “We have been chosen by our neighbors to lead this city.”
LANDER RIDES PROGRESSIVE WAVE
For weeks, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson was the presumed front-runner in the race to become New York City’s next comptroller, judging by most polls in the Democratic primary. He came under fire for being absent from the campaign trail at forums and from his job, fending off tough criticism in the first New York City Campaign Finance Board sanctioned debate.
However, at the end of election night, New York City Council Member Brad Lander was ahead of Johnson in first-place votes, leading the field with more than 31% of first-place votes to Johnson’s 22.5%. Lander had initially been considered a strong candidate before Johnson, who enjoyed greater name recognition, entered the race in March. But the progressive left coalesced behind Lander, who was endorsed by U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, the Working Families Party and The New York Times. In a recent poll by left-leaning think tank Data for Progress, Lander led Johnson by 8 points, which was close to his lead on election night.
“I’m feeling great,” Lander told City & State, speaking from the Threes Brewing bar in Gowanus, which is in his Brooklyn
Socialist India Walton had a decisive lead over Buffalo’s incumbent Mayor Byron Brown on election night.
Record number of women likely headed for City Council
The 21 in ’21 movement, it turns out, may have been too modest a goal. As results from the first round of ranked-choice voting poured in, at least 22 women appeared likely to win their New York City Council primaries and are heavily favored to win as Democrats in November’s general election. That would exceed the goal set by the 21 in ’21 campaign to elect this year 21 women to the City Council, a body that has historically failed to reflect the gender diversity of New York City.
Initial results released by the city Board of Elections on election night only reflected the first-choice votes of ballots cast in person. Absentee ballots still have to be tallied and some of the closer races will go into further rounds of ranked-choice vote counting. All of that means that some of the initial results could still change, which is why the 21 in ’21 campaign said after Election Day that they’re “encouraged” by the results, stopping short of declaring an all-out victory. But a tally of declared winners and candidates who are at this point likely to win – those leading by at least 10 percentage points, and some by much larger margins – shows that at least 22 women are likely to win those primaries and secure those seats in November.
New York City currently has only 14 female City Council members. Women make up 27% of the body, despite accounting for roughly 52% of the city’s population. The 21 in ’21 effort was launched in 2017, co-founded by former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and former Council Member – and current Queens borough president contender – Elizabeth Crowley. “It doesn’t happen naturally,” Amelia Adams, political consultant and chair of the executive board of 21 in ’21, said of electing women to political office. “One, because we need to push women to run. And two, the traditional institutions don’t support and groom women to run for office.”
Jessica Haller, the group’s executive director, said that a key to the initiative’s success was that it didn’t just lend its name to candidates, but actually offered mentoring and other tools to help them build their campaigns. “We helped them with their elevator pitches, we helped them be able to talk to unions,” added Yvette Buckner, vice chair of the 21 in ’21 board. – Annie McDonough
THE WEEK AHEAD
TUESDAY 6/29
New ranked-choice voting results will be released by the New York City Board of Elections, but the final numbers factoring in absentee ballots won’t be reported until midJuly. THURSDAY 7/1
The new fiscal year begins in the five boroughs, so Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council better hustle on striking a budget deal. INSIDE DOPE
Federal aid gives the city billions to play with, but some people worry the mayor is using too much cash on shortterm needs. SUNDAY 7/4
A fireworks show over the East River in New York City, starting around 9:25 p.m., will be “the biggest show yet,” as the city and state continue coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brad Lander secured a number of high-profile endorsements in his run for comptroller, including from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
council district. “It’s too soon to make declarations, we have more results to come in tonight. I’m a supporter of ranked-choice voting, so we need to see the ranked-choice tabulations, but we are feeling great. This is a meaningful lead, we’ve built a broad coalition across the city and we’re thrilled with what we’re seeing.” Lander, who had not yet spoken to any of the other comptroller candidates when reached, credited the “broad and energetic” coalition he built in recent weeks with other elected officials, unions and community groups for his boost in the polls and said he believed he was always doing better than the polls predicted.
QUEENS BOROUGH PRESIDENT SURPRISE
Former New York City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley has become better known for losing high-profile races than winning them, after losing a congressional race in 2012, her own reelection bid in 2017 and a special election for Queens borough president in 2020. But the cousin of former Rep. Joe Crowley seemed to be close to pulling off an upset in the Democratic primary for Queens borough president, as the unofficial returns showed her trailing incumbent Donovan Richards by just 1 percentage point.
Four of New York City’s five borough presidents are term-limited at the end of this year, but Queens had already chosen a borough president last year, when Richards comfortably defeated Crowley in a special election 35.8% to 28.8%.
So many political observers were shocked when the election night results showed Crowley trailing by only 2,076 votes. A political consultant who works in Queens, but wasn’t involved in the race and asked for anonymity so as to not speak for his clients, may have captured the sentiment best in a phone interview: “What the fuck happened there? That is insane! Insane! God bless Liz Crowley.”
It’s extremely rare for candidates who lose special elections to come back the next time and win. All five City Council members elected in special elections in the past six months have comfortable leads, if not outright victories based on first-place votes on election night. And as New York City political savant Louis CholdenBrown noted on Twitter, a Queens borough president hasn’t lost reelection since 1957.
As Queens-based political consultant Sam Goldsmith put it, “I’ve been speaking with political insiders for weeks and months. And months ago, the thought was Donovan’s a sure thing, and weeks ago the thought was Donovan’s
BIG SPENDERS
WHO LOST BIG
BY JEFF COLTIN
Spending a lot on an election doesn’t always mean you’ll get the votes – and some of the city’s highest-spending candidates made that especially clear this primary season. These vote totals are preliminary, and will grow, slightly, and Tali Farhadian Weinstein – who spent $8.2 million of her own wealth on the race – still has a small chance of victory. But the mayoral candidates have no shot after spending millions.
TALI FARHADIAN WEINSTEIN
$12,763,475
RAY MCGUIRE
$17,689,808
ANDREW YANG
$14,227,156
SHAUN DONOVAN
$11,312,140
– Scott Stringer, in an interview with City & State’s Jeff Coltin, on progressives blaming him for Maya Wiley’s apparent loss in the mayoral race
– Andrew Yang, on election night, via City Limits
a sure thing. … The incumbent was always supposed to win this election, and Liz Crowley was never on anybody’s mind.”
MONEY DOESN’T BUY MANHATTAN DA
The election night results from the packed primary race for Manhattan district attorney showed former state Chief Deputy Attorney General Alvin Bragg with a 3-point lead.
Throughout the course of his campaign, Bragg was able to win over progressives and moderates with his work experience and plans to reduce incarceration, along with his promise to not prosecute a number of minor offenses. Bragg has been vocal about how his own experience of being stopped and frisked by the police shaped how he thinks about the criminal justice system. Trailing close behind Bragg in second place is Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who spent millions of her own money on advertising.
While this was one of the few races, aside from the judicial primaries, to not use ranked-choice voting, as the position is technically a state elected office, voters are still going to have to wait for results from absentee ballots to be counted before we know the official winner. The winner of the race will likely inherit an ongoing high-profile investigation into former President Donald Trump’s finances after the November general election.
TWO UPSTATE MAYORAL SHAKE-UPS
The upstate primary mayoral elections were a test of the strength between established
Wiley and Garcia have a slim chance to catch Adams
In the wake of New York City’s first major test of rankedchoice voting, everyone who voted for a candidate currently in second or third place among first-choice votes is wondering: Can someone come from behind for a win after trailing on election night?
While statistically unlikely, it remains possible in several tight races in the city. The new voting system creates a chance that someone who doesn’t win the most firstchoice votes could wind up the winner once the instant runoff is conducted, as candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and their votes are redistributed. Since the New York City Board of Elections won’t conduct that instant runoff for weeks, until after all the absentee ballots are in, candidates and their supporters in races in which no one won a clear majority of first-place votes remain in limbo.
That includes the mayoral election, in which Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams ended election night with 31.7% of first-choice votes, Maya Wiley ended with 22.2% and Kathryn Garcia ended with 19.5%. History suggests that candidates almost never make up that large of a margin. However, three borough president races and several City Council races are still close enough that the second-place finisher on election night has a more plausible shot at winning.
Although candidates losing on election night may still hope they’ll emerge victorious, with the help of lower-ranked votes, it hasn’t happened often in cities and states that already had ranked-choice voting. In fact, it only happens about 4% of the time. According to FairVote, a national rankedchoice voting advocacy organization, only 15 of 375 ranked-choice elections held in the United States between 2004 and 2020 have resulted in a victor other than the person leading in first-choice votes. Of
those, only two were originally in third place, with the other 13 having originally placed second. In the vast majority of New York City primary elections, whoever finished the night with the most first-choice votes will likely remain in the lead throughout the tabulation process.
In many of those rankedchoice elections, a candidate won a majority of votes on election night, whereas in elections that actually go beyond the first round of counting – as the mayoral race will – someone other than the initial leader wins 12% of the time.
Only three times out of the 375 ranked-choice contests has a candidate come from behind by as much as Wiley would have to to win, and no one ever made up as large of a margin as Garcia would have to.
In most ranked-choice elections in the state of Maine and cities such as Minneapolis, when a second- or third-place finisher prevailed, the results were pretty close after the first round of counting, generally only a difference of a few percentage points or less. No candidate more than 10 points behind in first-place votes wound up winning. Although many candidates in city races currently lead by more than 10 points, there are still many separated by 5 points or fewer, making them the most likely to see the lead change hands.
Absentee ballots, which still need to be counted, could change the calculus in some races before the vote tabulation begins, by widening or narrowing the gap between the top two first-round finishers.
None of this means someone who trails by more than 5 points can’t theoretically win. In the 2010 Oakland mayoral race, Jean Quan trailed front-runner Don Perata by 9 points among first-choice votes, only to win after the ranked results were calculated. It’s also likely that most races don’t feature eight major candidates and leave as many votes to be redistributed as the New York City Democratic mayoral primary did this year. – Rebecca C. Lewis
political party interests and partisan insurgents, with incumbent mayors in Albany, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse battling challengers who wanted to deny them another term in office.
Four-term Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown ignored his socialist opponent India Walton, who now has a significant 7-point lead over him. Twoterm Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan actually debated her opponent and cruised to victory. Two-term Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren had to deal with an array of scandals and lost in a landslide to Malik Evans, an upstart member of the City Council with no such political baggage. Firstterm Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh is a political independent who got to rest easy as Democrats and Republicans faced off for the right to run against him in November. The final results in the races will depend on absentee votes that have yet to be counted.
The vast majority of New York City Council seats were open this year, and over 300 candidates were filed to run across the city. After election night, much remained uncertain, but Council Members Carlina Rivera, Rafael Salamanca Jr. and Farah Louis were a few of the incumbents that won easy victories. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer appears to have a very good chance of heading back to her old council stomping grounds. However, Council Member Darma Diaz was far behind challenger Sandy Nurse. And Erik Bottcher could very well end up winning former boss Corey Johnson’s old seat.
Election Day had somewhat mixed results for progressives, many of whom were focused more on the council races than the mayoral in hopes of having an even more left-wing legislature to counterbalance a potentially moderate mayor. Only two of the six Democratic Socialist of Americabacked candidates led on election night, and roughly half of the candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party had the most firstchoice votes so far. A handful of the races were close, with the DSA or WFP candidate finishing in a close second that could flip thanks to ranked-choice voting – but the reverse was true as well, with some progressives holding tenuous leads as well.
– Eric Adams, explaining why he had a lead on election night
– Curtis Sliwa, after winning the Republican nomination for mayor, via the Daily News Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani enjoyed a warm welcome at Curtis Sliwa’s election night party, but he was also suspended from practicing law in New York last week.
RUDY’S UP AND DOWN WEEK
After weeks and months of perpetuating false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a New York judge revoked former Trump lawyer Rudy Guiliani’s license to practice law in the state. According to the judge, an interim suspension like he imposed on Guiliani is unusual and reserved for the most serious of misconduct. But the former Big Apple mayor was still feeling the love in his hometown, appearing on stage Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa on election night as he gave his victory speech. He was greeted by cheers and chants of “Rudy!” from an enthusiastic crowd of conservatives.
VERY HIGH TURNOUT
There will be an estimated 930,000 votes cast in the Democratic mayoral primary, once everything is counted. That would be the highest number of votes in a mayoral primary since 1.1 million Democrats came out in 1989 to help the city’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins, unseat the incumbent Ed Koch. And if anything, this year’s total is an underestimate, since more mail-in ballots are expected to trickle into the Board of Elections in the coming days, adding to the 111,119 received as of last Thursday. About 180,000 Democrats voted early, and about 641,000 did so on Election Day. But while the raw number of votes exceeded expectations, the percentage of Democrats that turned out wasn’t all that high, historically, given how much the party’s enrollment has grown over time.
A Q&A with Buffalo mayoral Democratic primary winner INDIA WALTON
I put together a coalition of the willing.
What sort of coalition did you put together? I put together a coalition of the willing – really people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, anyone who was ready for change – we brought them along. We had the support of the Working Families Party, so we were able to train ourselves up and bring home the win.
How did the WFP specifically help? Everything from planning our media strategy and attracting national media, to our fundraising campaign, to our field game – you name it – the Working Families Party was very involved and super helpful to every single part of this campaign. We could not have done it without them.
A lot has been said about how your opponent underestimated you. Was this a “Tortoise and the Hare” situation? I did see the race this way. From day one, I was running to win and put everything in it. I resigned from my job and the Working Families Party knows what works politically. I have 39 years of institutional knowledge about Buffalo. We put that together and ran a very exciting and successful campaign. The mayor was especially vulnerable this year, after four terms, after his lack of an active response to the uprisings after the murder of George Floyd and after the lackluster pandemic response.
Socialist candidates downstate have appeared to do better with relatively high-income white voters and less well in communities of color. How does your campaign reflect or refute that? I would be interested to look at the numbers, but anecdotally, I can tell you that I spent a lot of time at voting sites yesterday and we did pretty well among Black primary voters in Buffalo. People are just ready for a change.
You will also be the first female mayor of Buffalo. How significant is that? We have made history on so many levels. It’s incredible. Turnout was low, but those who did turn out voted for me. For once, we don’t have to be voting against something. We’re voting for hope, for change and for a bright future for our city.
A lot of idealists end up changing once they are in office. How will you avoid that? I am begging my people to hold me accountable when promises are not being delivered in a timely manner. I want the protesters to come out and bang on my door – not my own door – but my office door. City Hall is going to be open and accessible. – Zach Williams
Our Perspective
As Pandemic Recedes, Appreciation for Essential Workers Must Not
By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW Twitter: @sappelbaum
In June, as COVID infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths in New York hit new lows and vaccination rates rose above 70 percent, what had appeared to be a light at the end of the tunnel blossomed into a sunny summer day. Nearly all remaining restrictions on businesses and social gatherings were eliminated, and sights we hadn’t seen since early last year — crowded restaurants, full bars, and sold-out full-capacity concerts and sporting events at arenas — once again became commonplace in New York.
As the pandemic hopefully continues to recede, the debt and gratitude we owe to our essential, frontline workers should not. These workers — among them, thousands of RWDSU heroes — stepped up to provide essential services for all of us when we were locked down during the worst public health crisis in our country in a century. These working men and women were thrust into a battle they did not choose, but it’s a responsibility they courageously accepted. These essential workers in food processing, health care, pharmacies, supermarkets and retail stores and more were there for us throughout this crisis — often at great personal cost to themselves and their families.
For a brief while, as the pandemic raged, our society and employers recognized the sacrifices essential workers were making. An emphasis was placed on making workplaces safer, with proper PPE provided, and workplaces being kept clean and sanitized to an unprecedented degree. And many employers agreed to “hero pay” for their workers; additional hourly pay that recognized workers’ contributions.
As infection rates continue to drop and vaccination rates continue to rise, it’s important to not lose sight of how important these essential workers are to our economy, our society, and our families. The way we view these workers needs to permanently change for the better, and so does their treatment. Essential workers deserve the higher pay and appreciation many of them received last year, and they deserve greater emphasis on the health and safety of their workplaces.
At the RWDSU, we’ve always recognized the importance of these workers, and fought for greater pay and benefits and safer workplaces to protect them. During the pandemic, we’ve been a leading voice for hero pay as well as proper protection for workers so that they can do their jobs safely and go home to their loved ones. In our latest contracts for retail workers at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s in New York, covering thousands of working men and women, language was included not only to protect workers and consumers from COVID-19, but also any future pandemics we may have to fight through. The lessons we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic will not be forgotten.
It’s no exaggeration to say that RWDSU members — and all essential workers — earned the title of “heroes” during the COVID-19 pandemic. We owe it to all of them to continue to fight for safer workplaces, better pay, and better benefits for the essential work they do not only during times of crisis, but every single day. www.rwdsu.org
