New York’s Mayoral Primaries are Just Weeks Away — Here’s What to Look Out For
As the twilight months of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s reign of anti-intellectual terror continues to draw near, a significant amount of attention has shifted to the mayoral primaries taking place on Tuesday, June 22, and the crowded field of Democratic candidates looking to succeed him.
Eight major candidates are currently vying for the Democrats’ nomination, which is tantamount to a coronation in the royal-blue East Coast metropolis.
Among those appearing on the ballot are Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, early Obama-era Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, business executive Raymond “Ray” McGuire, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley, and businessman and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Three clear front-runners — Yang, Adams, and Garcia — have emerged over the course of the primary, all of whom are considered relatively moderate in comparison to the rest of the field. Both Yang and Adams have publicly voiced support for the Israeli government amid ongoing attacks on civilians by Hamas, as well as for the NYPD amid growing calls from the left for the nationwide defunding of policing.
This is not intended to make the case that either candidate’s record on any of these issues is perfect — or even ideologically sound, for that matter — but certainly, a grade above the sentiment that elected Democrats are expected to parrot by their base.
Most mainstream attention, however, has primarily been concentrated on what is shaping up to be the race between Yang and Adams.
While Yang had consistently enjoyed a substantial polling advantage going into the race, undoubtedly due at least in part to name recognition, recent polls have shown both Adams and Garcia either chipping away at or outright seizing the 2020 candidate’s formerly insurmountable lead.
These gains were aided substantially by the complete collapse of the campaign of Scott Stringer, who earlier this year consistently polled in third place, amid a sexual harassment scandal that saw the majority of his public endorsements being recanted.
Adams in particular has seen a substantial gain in the polls amid an increase in mainstream media coverage characterizing him as a moderate. Despite his unabashedly leftist agenda, he has received an endorsement from the right-leaning New York Post and drawn the praise of Fox News host Tucker Carlson for speaking bluntly on issues of crime and economic failure that have come to be seen as synonymous with the five boroughs. Adams, a former NYPD officer (as well as a former registered Republican) has not only stated that he would personally carry a gun while in office, but has also pledged refusal to accept the personal security detail that comes alongside the keys to Gracie Mansion.
The June 22 primary will also be the first held after the city’s implementation of ranked-choice voting (RCV), a system that automatically triggers multiple rounds of voting as voters select multiple candidates in order of preference and those votes are reapportioned accordingly as low vote-getters are eliminated.
The implementation of an RCV system could substantially affect the outcome of a primary race whose outcome is already far from easily predictable.
Regardless of the race’s outcome, it is abundantly clear that there has been a shift in the sentiment of voters in New York, and that the ramifications of de Blasio administration policies, notorious for their basis largely being in Keynesian economics and critical race theory, have seen at least some degree of public blowback.
As the past seven years have quite effectively demonstrated to the detriment of the city’s political infrastructure, Bill de Blasio governed from the hard left.
However, it is increasingly likely that his successor — at least to an extent — will not.
Content syndicated from TheLibertyLoft.com with permission.
