NYC Mayor/2021 Megathread

[pikachu]

I don't get the appeal of Yang for Mayor. He's an interesting guy, but none of his core ideas make sense on a municipal level and he's never shown an interest in NYC-specific issues. Guy seems much more suited to be in Congress (tbh he should take on Maroney in 2022).

Anyway, from my limited research, I like Johnson the most, but also lord knows what the city's going to be like this time next year. Gonna be a really dynamic race.

[pikachu]

Just in the way the campaign's went so far, I see more of a GOP 2016 thing playing out more than DEM 2020. Yang, like Trump, is the shiny object drawing the media's attention and has been teflon despite a lot of perceived weaknesses (gaffes, outsider, lack of strong policy chops on local issues, etc). Whereas the defining part of Biden's 2020 primary campaign imo was the ability to keep a consistent lead despite never really getting media love until Super Tuesday. Ofc, both lead to the same place.

[pikachu]

The best thing Andrew Yang could do if he really wants to win is to stop tweeting everything that comes into his brain the moment it comes into his brain

This is why I made the Trump 2016 comparison, but is there anything in the polls which has shown that his tweets have hurt him? Maybe this is the one, but until we see otherwise, idk if there's a reason to assume the guy's anything but a teflon candidate.

[pikachu]

The best thing Andrew Yang could do if he really wants to win is to stop tweeting everything that comes into his brain the moment it comes into his brain

This is why I made the Trump 2016 comparison, but is there anything in the polls which has shown that his tweets have hurt him? Maybe this is the one, but until we see otherwise, idk if there's a reason to assume the guy's anything but a teflon candidate.

Democrats don’t vote like Republicans though. Republicans don’t care about Trump’s tweets. If given the right amount of sunlight, Yang’s tweets could hurt him. Maybe I’m totally wrong and they won’t ever end up hurting him, but it feels like Yang benefits from the fact that people don’t know anything about him beyond what he wants people to know about him.

I mean, this isn't the first time that Yang's tweeted something which got people mad or betrayed a complete lack of understanding about what the Mayor actually does, and he's still as strong a frontrunner despite everything. At the end of the day, the fact he's a likable figure with an aura of celebrity around him has managed to overshadow these problems, which imo feels Trump-y to me. Someone upthread also made the Biden 2020 comparison, which I didn't love because the backgrounds and reasons for support are very different, but the argument against him winning (basically his past and gaffes will catch up to him) does feel pretty similar and leads me to be skeptical of the anti-Yang argument. If Yang does end up losing, I feel like it'll come more from someone else catching fire at the right time and consolidating the rest of field vs his problems catching up to him.

(Also, imo, I think an overfocus on Twitter distracts bit from Yang getting positive coverage from other sources - there have been decently positive profiles in The Atlantic and the NYT in the past week.

[pikachu]

Exciting to see a fellow New Jersey transplant elected mayor if nothing else.

[pikachu]

^The above take’s a bit negative on the left/liberal showing imo. Fundamentally, Garcia and Wiley were weak candidates on paper compared to Adams, who had way more institutionally support and relationships with minority voters compared to the other two making their first run for public office. Yes, the media wanted Garcia to win, and yes, the left coalesced around Wiley, but Garcia had nothing else going for her vis-a-vis institutional support and the Wiley consolidation happened very late. That they came so close to beating Adams in the first place is impressive. A somewhat stronger left-liberal candidate (a Scott Stringer type w no scandals or competent Yang?) likely wins.

[pikachu]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Grace4NY/status/1456284647781019652

Seems like Adams lost a lot of Asian ADs

[pikachu]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Grace4NY/status/1456284647781019652

Seems like Adams lost a lot of Asian ADs

Big deep dive in The City about Silwa's performance among Chinese voters. Silwa got 44% of the vote in precincts where more than half of residents are Asian, which is a better performance than enclaves for every other group. Lot of focus on issues like SHSAT and crime, ofc, but there's a foregrounding of fights over homeless shelter and jail locations which remind a lot about fights over similar issues in LA's Koreatown and Irvine.

[pikachu]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Grace4NY/status/1456284647781019652

Seems like Adams lost a lot of Asian ADs

Big deep dive in The City about Silwa's performance among Chinese voters. Silwa got 44% of the vote in precincts where more than half of residents are Asian, which is a better performance than enclaves for every other group. Lot of focus on issues like SHSAT and crime, ofc, but there's a foregrounding of fights over homeless shelter and jail locations which remind a lot about fights over similar issues in LA's Koreatown and Irvine.

Progressive Dems are blaming this on "misinformation on WeChat" now are totally missing the boat. The campaign is not misinformation, it is a legitimate message against the de Blasio administration which has embraced as its official policy just about every bullet point on that Sliwa poster. It's no wonder Asians in NYC are turning against them, and if the Dem candidate were not Eric Adams, who is not progressive and has disavowed many of de Blasio's stances, on Stuyvesant HS and policing in particular, the hemorrhaging would have been even worse.

I noticed there was some Twitter pushback against some of the statements in that pro-Sliwa Chinese-language poster. The Chinese equivalent to “Racial preference, discrimination, divide America” literally contains the phrase “black people first, Asian people last”- which is itself incredibly divisive and an affront to the Asians (Chinese or otherwise) who backed Adams in the primary.

But I agree with your overall point. There was always going to be some level of pushback against the local Dems among the Chinese enclaves regardless of who was on the ballot.

Generally agree with this, but also want to add that some of the things on that poster don’t really have an easy answer for Dems progressives and though I’m far from an expert on Chinese-American politics, reflect real divisions within the community beyond the activist-normie divide that’s discussed so much. E.g. just considering the demographics of all immigrant communities in NYC, I’d have to imagine that lenient policies towards illegal immigrants have a strong pull for some Asians. Same with homeless shelters and similar battles over the development of ‘undesirable’ projects which have to go somewhere assuming you want to exist (jails, needle exchange sites, pot stores, etc.).