NYC Mayor/2021 Megathread

[Oryxslayer]

Is Giuliani actually going to try and run for the mayors office? If so, it smells like the beginnings of potentially the most elegant GOP grift campaign yet, topping Loomer's and Klacik's which already separate fools from their money at a shocking rate.

[Oryxslayer]

Surprised nobody mentioned this. Reflects the fact that no Republican can win in NYC these days, even when they try to imitate bloomberg and do the "I'm different" appeal.

https://twitter.com/erinmdurkin/status/1349832915211976707?s=19

[Oryxslayer]

Full ranked choice selection from a Gotham Gazette Poll.

https://twitter.com/TweetBenMax/status/1352382535272189958?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

I assume it's because the democrats are in power in D.C and it's not exactly an easy job but I'm always surprised at how relatively weak/low-key/inexperienced the democratic benches seem to be in every primary going back what 20-30 years?

Is there a reason for that?

Nationally or just in New York City?

New York City!

I guess it's probably related to people always going for the easier life that a safe NYC congressional seat gives you or the more powerful position state wide.

Its more a case that being elected as a big-city mayor with a constructive platform (rather than one of obstruction, such as when the official and the voters usual partisanship is mismatched) is a poisoned chalice. Outside of unelected positions like executive appointments, it is likely the end to your career. One ends up angering too many constituencies and you get little thanks for when things go well. So nobody with a seat on the parties bench will ever prefer the mayors office over something like a state legislative seat.

[Oryxslayer]

Yang will be the next Mayor.

That's my prediction and I am sticking with it.

It's possible, but RCV makes a Yang victory much less likely than if the old system was still in effect.

Yang could probably have gotten to the old-style runoff just on name rec alone. But RCV means people who don't like Yang/don't think he's experienced enough can coordinate in a way that would probably prevent him from getting 50% plus 1

This is a relatively small constituency.

Not really? there's definitely people who think it he's a little out of touch with average people (that whole line about "who would live in a 2 bedroom apartment with small children, right?" that became kinda viral on Twitter). But the larger constituency are those who just don't think he has the skillset to be a good mayor

I agree with your broader point, its just that the only RCV polls of this race (admittingly sponsored by the Yang campaign) found him getting nearly 50% of the vote transfers, which is enough to maintain his lead from the initial ballot.

[Oryxslayer]

This is probably an important facet of the poll that has yet to be mentioned:

Of the 842 likely primary voters polled, 84% have heard of Yang, while 66% have heard of Stringer and 60% know Adams by name.

Donovan, Wiley and Garcia are far less well-known, despite each having had experience in government, with Donovan having served as a former top official under President Obama, Wiley as one of Mayor de Blasio’s top legal advisers and Garcia as the city’s former sanitation commissioner. Despite their experience, they are household names to only 33% of those polled. Even fewer voters have heard of McGuire, a former Citigroup exec, and Morales, who headed a non-profit, with only 25% recognizing their names.

It's important, but perhaps not for the right reasons. The primary is in four months and the pandemic won't miraculously go away by then. More people will be vaccinated, but that won't be enough to hold the rallies and demonstrations low name-rec progressives need to get traction. Advertisements and activity on all platforms, TV, Social, and Viral, matters more than ever. So there is therefore no guarantee, with the expensive NYC market, that everyone will hit high name recognition. I have already seen one DSA activist basically put out a call for another candidate because Morales isn't apparently getting the money she needs to raise that name rec.

[Oryxslayer]

Maps for where various NYC candidates have received their financial support so far. No data on Yang yet unfortunately. 

https://www.nyccfb.info/follow-the-money/cunymap-2021/

[Oryxslayer]

The only endorsement I Care about is the DSA.

They're probably gonna endorse Morales, with an outside chance of Stringer? I'm not sure.

Morales - some chance. No chance they endorse Stringer, although many members will rank him in their top 5.

My guess is that DSA won’t endorse. They won’t see enough upside or a strong enough candidate to get behind.

I bet they'll give a list of 3-5 candidates and tell people to rank them at the top of their list. It prevents the DSA from throwing down a hard commitment on any imperfect candidate, it absolves them of any responsibility, and it shows they are committed to electoral reform.

[Oryxslayer]

I bet they'll give a list of 3-5 candidates and tell people to rank them at the top of their list. It prevents the DSA from throwing down a hard commitment on any imperfect candidate, it absolves them of any responsibility, and it shows they are committed to electoral reform.

Absolutely not — this is not how DSA electoral strategy works. They want endorsements to mean something in terms of volunteers and cash flowing in, so that the pol really owes their election to DSA and will owe them something once in office. Qualified, tepid citywide endorsements of multiple candidates that "absolves them of any responsibility" is the exact opposite of that strategy. At that point, the endorsement is basically meaningless, so why do it at all?

Because your activists, and there are a lot of them in the gentrifying east side of the Hudson, demand that you don't leave the Progressive mayoral candidates out to dry even though they are getting electorally squeezed. As previously noted the more important races for NYC Progressives right now are for city council, but endorsing in a lower race and ignoring candidates like Morales because of poor polling seems designed to confuse a lot of the limited voter pool.

[Oryxslayer]

I bet they'll give a list of 3-5 candidates and tell people to rank them at the top of their list. It prevents the DSA from throwing down a hard commitment on any imperfect candidate, it absolves them of any responsibility, and it shows they are committed to electoral reform.

Absolutely not — this is not how DSA electoral strategy works. They want endorsements to mean something in terms of volunteers and cash flowing in, so that the pol really owes their election to DSA and will owe them something once in office. Qualified, tepid citywide endorsements of multiple candidates that "absolves them of any responsibility" is the exact opposite of that strategy. At that point, the endorsement is basically meaningless, so why do it at all?

Because your activists, and there are a lot of them in the gentrifying east side of the Hudson, demand that you don't leave the Progressive mayoral candidates out to dry even though they are getting electorally squeezed. As previously noted the more important races for NYC Progressives right now are for city council, but endorsing in a lower race and ignoring candidates like Morales because of poor polling seems designed to confuse a lot of the limited voter pool.

Do you think Morales is doing better than polls suggest?

I think a lot of things about polling are uncertain if Yang screws up and loses all hype, but her poor polling right now is likely real. The issue that I see is if you are going to endorse a ton of lower level primary candidates but just ignore the progressives in the main race because they can't keep up with Yang, tends to send the message of electoral gamesmanship when your brand is supposed to be  ideological purity.

[Oryxslayer]

Apologies if someone already posted this, but I just read that Andrew Yang apparently endorsed Nina Turner.

Not surprising, he's kinda progressive leaning in a way.

Not a fan of him endorsing Saira Rao though, we all know how she is........

Yang has a clear set of policies he is personally committed to, but beyond those lines he is really a blank slate. He has demonstrated as much by more or less promising every faction a perk or town, as long as they come before him on the campaign. That's part of his positivity: everyone can see something nice in him because he'll promise them things, even though he really doesn't care about there vision. His endorsements in that regard reflect a campaign that seeks electoral success rather than any sort of ideological alignment.

Kinda like Trump's 2016 campaign, and that's not the only thing structurally comparable between the two.

[Oryxslayer]

Yang's candidacy in a nutshell:

https://twitter.com/hjessy_/status/1381264339009740800?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/GloriaPazmino/status/1382152274110210052?s=20

Speaking of demographics/electorates that are locked up behind a candidate.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/JCColtin/status/1382721427376324608?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

I’m really curious how effective these “second choice” endorsements actually end up being, if supporters generally stick by them or just do their own thing. I also am curious if it’s pretty obvious who X candidates supporters go to or if it’s just a scramble

FWIW, the next-largest city that uses RCV for its mayoral elections - SF - saw Mark Leno & Jane Kim enter into such a deal in the city's 2018 special, a deal which ended up being remarkably effective for Mark Leno in the final round math-wise. The only problem for Leno was just that more people who supported neither him nor Kim turned out for other candidates, & enough of them evidently ranked London Breed ahead of Leno for the final round, but apart from that, the RCV cross-endorsement - in terms of seeing the vast majority of Kim's voters rank Leno as their 2nd choice - worked incredibly for Leno.

I mean it's not a good comparison because Leno and Kim's deal was more of mutualistic campaign than an endorsement. The two appeared and spoke at events togeather. Their task was additionally facilitated because they were both campaigning for the same electorate; the cities progressive vote mostly found in the north-of-twin-peaks semicircle from the Haight-Ashbury to Bernal Heights. We'll never know the counter-factual where they don't campaign together, but it's likely their targeted electorate was always going to put the two progressives at the top of their ballot. The most meaningful result may have been to ease and facilitate the dissemination of this information. Progressives would therefore have already had all the information about their vote, not need to do more research, and more voters would actually put a second place candidate and not leave their tickets blank after their first preferred candidate.

Something similar might be happening here when it comes to the progressives. So many progressive organizations doing some combination of "Stringer, Morales, A rotating third" will inform their voters that these are the progressive candidates. These voters were always going to put the progressive candidates near the top of their ballot, but mutual group endorsements inform the voters and eases the ranking process. It may be why Stringer is starting to do decently in the rcv transfers cause all the Progressives now know who to put at the top of the list and not leave it blank.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/GloriaPazmino/status/1387830985794981892?s=20

On one hand, he should answer for his moral actions. On the other hand, she wants his (former) voters.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1387959844263665667?s=20

New Poll, albeit conducted before the Stringer affair so probably not entirely useful.

[Oryxslayer]

Stringer argues that the only reason she is coming forward was to damage his candidacy and...

https://twitter.com/GloriaPazmino/status/1388136590837534726?s=20



Adding ethnic insensitively/assumptions onto the pile wasn't smart.  

[Oryxslayer]

This is mostly before the scandal, but we can see Stringer was then surging. I expect a collapse to single digits when new polls emerge.

There's also the thought that Stringer still has a decent floor, but lost almost all potential transfers.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1391897869137887234

May help him with the Jewish vote at the expense of the pro-Palestine leftist voters who probably wouldn't have voted for him anyways because he's "muh closet republican" and has gotten support from Trump voters (including the Naked Cowboy street performer might I add).

Jewish voters do not vote as a bloc based on a candidate's rigidity on the Israel issue.
This tweet won't change any minds, other than Palestinian Americans' who may feel alienated.

Yes, but the Brooklyn Orthodox do vote as a block depending upon community endorsements, and Yang's campaign has decided to reinforce the loyalty of the rabbis.

[Oryxslayer]

In an interview, the candidates was asked what the median price of a home in Brooklyn was, and some of the answers were completely disqualifying: https://www.newsweek.com/nyc-mayor-candidates-shaun-donovan-ray-mcguire-think-average-brooklyn-home-costs-100k-1590464

Correct answer: $900k

Wiley: $1.8 million
Stringer: $1 million
Yang: $900k
Garcia: $800k
Adams: $550k
Morales: $500k
Donovan: $100k
McGuire: $90k

IMHO, McGuire and Donovan are the only answers that are disqualifying. Donovan was HUD secretary??

Stringer, Yang and Garcia of course are best, though Yang probably just got lucky in getting closest.

I dont consider Adams and Morales disqualifying since its quite possible that the median 1-2 BR coop price is around 500-600K, while the average is weighted by single family houses.

Wiley probably thinks Brooklyn means  Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights, but many Manhattanites do.

Yang actually is rather good on this stuff, surprise surprise that the math candidate can easily memorize the numbers that a staffer probably presented to him at one point:

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/Gothamist/status/1392567282640068611?s=20

Meaningless in the bigger picture, but it totally makes sense that Yang would be the type of person who actually enjoyed High School English Class.

[Oryxslayer]

Nice NYT map of individual donations to candidates. Yang and Morales lead, and they lead in the areas one would expect them to lead in. Interestingly, Garcia's best area by percentage of total donations is Staten Island.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/22/nyregion/nyc-mayor-donors-map.html

[Oryxslayer]

This is what happens when you get too terminally online.

There's terminally online, and then there's terminally online with polling data to counteract the narrative. This leads to two destructive phenomenon's. First, the campaign and its activists live inside a self-reinforced bubble via the web. Any complaints occur outside the bubble, and any dissent or problems with the campaign are ignored until its too late. However, polling data is one of the few things that can pierce and burst the bubble, and when it does activists are often unable to square the web with reality. The second issue is that activists often come on ones campaign believing it to be the only 'good' one - all the others are pretenders that insufficiently address the activists issues...or lack a marketing campaign geared towards activists. So when data emerges that the campaign isn't gathering momentum, everyone starts pointing the finger. Those usually blamed are other organizers/campaign strategy/marketers, because the candidate and their policies are without fault - after all just look at how popular they are on the web. This all breeds infighting and destruction.

[Oryxslayer]

Bowman follows suit and goes for Wiley.

It seems we are likely heading for a Adams-Garcia-Wiley photo finish, which will then be decided on transfers. Which is remarkable given the common wisdom just a month ago. Ironically, the revelation of every candidates flaws probably is what hurt Yang the most. Forced consolidation because ones initial choice was trash unintentionally raises said new candidates profile and visibility, hurting Ynag's name recognition campaign. Yang still has a monopoly on the East Asian vote, but he probably won't ever see the large number of second or third place rankings he'll receive in Manhattan and the Orthodox communities, since he might be eliminated before those voters first place candidates.