Yang, Garcia Plan Joint Campaign Stops: Election Update

(Bloomberg) -- Former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and Andrew Yang, the one-time frontrunner whose campaign has slid in polling in recent weeks, will campaign together Saturday in Queens before holding a joint press conference in lower Manhattan, both campaigns said.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams holds the lead in a new poll on New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, with civil-rights lawyer Maya Wiley and Garcia battling for second.

Early voting ends June 20. Many voters remain puzzled over New York’s new ranked-choice voting system, which asks people to select their top five candidates rather than choose just one.

Key Stories:

NYC Mayoral Election Baffles Voters With City’s Revival at StakeRanked-Choice Voting Gets Its New York City Audition: QuickTakeNYC Fight Over Policing Intensifies With Park CurfewsAndrew Yang Hopes to Ride His Free-Money Plan to NYC’s City HallNYC Mayor Race Becomes Progressives’ 2021 Shot to Show Clout

Garcia and Yang to Campaign Together Saturday

Kathryn Garcia and Andrew Yang will campaign together on Saturday, with two stops in Queens and then a joint press conference in Lower Manhattan.

The potential tie-up could shake up the race in its final days, bolstering Garcia or Yang in the later stages of ranked choice vote redistribution at the expense of Adams as well as progressives like Wiley.

Yang frequently said that he would choose Garcia as his number two on the ballot. Garcia famously retorted, and was quoted in the New Yorker saying, “I’m not running for Number Two.”

That was then. This is now. And the simple math is that under ranked-choice voting, being second or even third, fourth or fifth choice is essential. That’s because voters can pick as many as five candidates to support, and if a top choice is eliminated then their vote switches to whoever they put second, and so on down the line.

-- Henry Goldman and Derek Wallbank

Yang Confronted With Housing

During a campaign stop at a flea market in lower Manhattan, mayoral hopeful Andrew Yang heard from a group of apartment-complex tenants who oppose a planned tower across the street they said would add congestion and block sunlight and views.

Stacey Shub told Yang that she and other residents of the neighborhood were united against construction of a tower at 250 Water Street and asked him what he would do. The developer, Howard Hughes Corp., agreed to reduce the height to 375 feet (114 meters) from 470, but neighbors say that’s still too high.

Yang, an advocate of more housing in New York, said he would look into it if he wins the election, while remaining non-committal about the issue.

“I’m someone who wants to see New York City build new housing,” Yang said moments later in an interview. “But at the same time, if community members have concerns about the nature of a particular project, you have to hear people out and be mindful of these concerns.” -- Henry Goldman

Adams on Stop-and-Frisk

Adams, a 22-year-veteran of the New York Police Department, took his campaign to Harlem Friday to rally with gun-safety advocates and advance his proposal to combat the surge in shootings in New York City.

With four days until the election, Adams sought to clarify his stance on stop-and-frisk. In the past, Adams had expressed support for the controversial policing strategy if used properly, but said he wouldn’t bring it back because it would be abused.

Rivals have pounced on his comments.

“I said this over and over again, I am not looking to bring back stop-and-frisk,” Adams said Friday. “I am not going to have a police department that will take tools and abuse them.”

Adams has called for a greater police presence on city streets and subways, an anti-crime unit to target gun violence, and the recruitment of minority officers. -- Skyler Woodhouse

Early Voting

This is the first time that New Yorkers can vote early in person in a mayoral election. More than 105,000 people had voted as of Thursday night, according to the elections board. The most early voters were in Brooklyn and Manhattan. There also were 200,000 absentee ballots requested for this primary.

New York City had about 3.8 million registered Democrats and 566,000 registered Republicans as of February.

More than 700,000 people voted in New York’s 2013 mayoral primary. -- Stacie Sherman

Read more here: NYC Mayoral Election Baffles Voters With City’s Revival at Stake

Last Emerson Poll

Adams was the first choice of 23% of likely Democratic primary voters in the final PIX11/Emerson College poll before the primary. Wiley, who has the backing of national progressives, had 18% while Garcia, who was endorsed by the New York Times and Daily News, had 17%.

The results show Adams steady and Wiley up one percentage point in a week, while Garcia had the largest jump, five percentage points.

Yang, an entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, was the first choice of 14% of respondents, down from 32% in early March. City Comptroller Scott Stringer has 9% and former Citigroup Inc. banker Ray McGuire had 3% in the poll conducted June 15-16. Former city Housing Commissioner Shaun Donovan and nonprofit executive Dianne Morales each had 2%, while 10% remain undecided.

Crime was the top issue for 31% of respondents. -- Skylar Woodhouse

Public Election Funds Soar

New York City’s Campaign Finance Board doled out its last round of public funds for the primary, bringing the total payments to candidates for mayor and other city offices to $110 million, the most in the program’s history.

Seven Democratic mayoral candidates and one Republican who participated in the matching funds program have received more than $39.2 million. Four -- Adams, Stringer, Yang and Garcia -- received the maximum $6.5 million.

The public funds outweigh $64.1 million that participating candidates raised in private contributions and $29.1 million in spending by political action committees.

In this last round, mayoral candidates received $6.9 million of public funds, with Garcia receiving the most at $2.2 million and Republican Fernando Mateo getting $2 million.

McGuire didn’t participate in the program. -- Martin Z. Braun

Wiley Pushes Subsidies for Poor

Wiley brought her progressive campaign for mayor to Hudson Yards’ office and residential towers in Manhattan to decry subsidies to wealthy developers and call for massive public investment on housing for the city’s working poor and homeless.

Wiley used the rally to promote her proposal to subsidize rents so that individuals making $42,000 or less a year and families of three earning $54,000 would pay no more than 30% of their monthly income on housing. -- Henry Goldman

De Blasio Says No Debate Winner

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday’s two-hour debate among his potential successors was “pretty uninspiring” and he remains undecided.

“No one won in my estimation,” de Blasio said Thursday during a virus press briefing. “I did not hear enough. I’m going to keep examining the candidates.”

The mayor said he is unsure whether he will make his choices public.

“By Tuesday June 22 I will figure out five people to rank,” he said. “That much I know.”-- Peyton Forte

Charter Schools Part of Adams Plan

Adams said his education priorities for the city include charter schools as well as public and private institutions.

”My vision is surrounding, lifting up excellence, if that means charter schools, public schools, private schools, let’s duplicate successful schools in our city,” Adams, 60, said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and a 22-year veteran of the New York Police Department, called for schools to pay more attention to non-academic issues such as nutrition and to allow private businesses to have a hand in developing curriculum. He called for more technology in the schools, including more wireless access. -- Skylar Woodhouse and Henry Goldman

Debate Takeaways

Wednesday night’s debate was marked by barbs traded between Adams and Yang, the former presidential candidate, who has fallen behind Adams in recent polls. Yang assailed the former police captain for not having the right answers to fight crime, and taunted him with the fact that the union representing New York Police Department captains endorsed Yang, not Adams. Adams said he never asked for their endorsement, but Yang said he did.

McGuire, who has spent the most on the mayoral race and is near the bottom of the pack in polls, squabbled with Morales over whether he spoke for minorities in the city. McGuire also took aim at Stringer and Wiley as he worked to distinguish himself from the pack. -- Henry Goldman and Skylar Woodhouse

Read more here: Adams, Yang Spar as McGuire Takes Shots in Final NYC Debate

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