纽约——距离决定下一任纽约市长的民主党初选还有不到六周的时间，这场初选已经进入了一个不可预测的新阶段。
前总统候选人杨安泽仍处于领先地位，而市审计长斯科特·斯金格则否认了一项不当性行为指控。
布鲁克林区区长埃里克·亚当斯(Eric Adams)是一名前警官，也是一个执法改革团体的创始人，他的地位在对20世纪90年代枪击事件激增的担忧中上升冠状病毒大流行——包括在时代广场打伤三名旁观者的枪击事件。
《纽约时报》对一位支持率一直处于中位数的候选人给予了令人垂涎的支持:凯瑟琳·加西亚，前城市卫生专员，也是其他几个城市部门的资深人士。
连任有限的比尔·白思豪市长也是民主党人，他的竞选持续了几个月，许多纽约人都被冠状病毒大流行和2020年总统选举搞得焦头烂额。
但随着6月22日民主党初选的临近，电视广告开始播出，候选人在网上竞选一年后越来越多地亲自会见选民，这种流行病现在引起了更多的关注。
在参加竞选的二十多名候选人中，八名顶级候选人将于周四参加他们的首次电视辩论。
除了杨，亚当斯，斯金格和加西亚，他们是民权律师玛雅威利，前花旗集团行政雷麦奎尔，前奥巴马住房部长肖恩多诺万和前非营利组织行政戴安莫拉莱斯。
更复杂的是，初选将是纽约市的第一场市长竞选，由排名选择投票决定，这一系统允许选民挑选多达五名候选人，并按照偏好对他们进行排名。
在这种制度下，如果有足够多的人选择他们作为第二选择，在第一轮计票中落后的候选人仍然可以赢得比赛。
杨在大多数民意调查中以微弱优势领先，支持者支持他的全民基本收入提案，但他也受到了左派的批评。
美国众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯(Alexander Ocasio-Cortez)本周在一条推特上抨击了他，他在推特上说，他“与受到激进组织哈马斯轰炸袭击的以色列人民站在一起”，但没有提到以色列报复性袭击的巴勒斯坦受害者。
在大多数选民调查中，60岁的亚当斯都落后于杨，但在过去10天公布的两项民意调查中，亚当斯略微领先。
亚当斯是一名说话强硬的前警察侦探，也是一名黑人男子，他自己在年轻时也是警察暴行的受害者，后来成立了改革组织“执法中的100名黑人”。
亚当斯在周六枪击事件后的时代广场竞选活动中说:“如果我们回到过去，看到暴力，特别是枪支暴力的增加，我们就不会恢复城市的面貌。”。
亚当斯的信息是否在这座城市引起共鸣还有待观察。去年明尼阿波利斯警方谋杀乔治·弗洛伊德后，黑人的命也是命抗议活动引发了这座城市的动荡，但在一年的封锁后，亚当斯对犯罪和混乱感到恐惧。
这场竞选中最大的转折涉及对斯金格的不当行为指控。斯金格自1993年以来一直担任州议会议员、曼哈顿区长，现在是市审计长。
当游说者让·金(Jean Kim)在4月下旬指控他在2001年为他不成功的公共倡导者竞选时进行不必要的性骚扰和性挑逗时，61岁的斯金格似乎越来越得势。
斯特林格否认了这一指控，并表示两人曾有过短暂的、双方同意的关系。
支持斯金格的当选官员和组织匆忙撤回支持，尽管包括美国教师联合会在内的一些工会坚持支持他。
皇后区民主党参议员杰西卡·拉莫斯(Jessica Ramos)表示，她取消了自己的支持，尽管她不知道斯金格或金是否说了实话。
拉莫斯说:“对我来说，这里的问题是，我们在谈论20年前发生的一件事，这件事可能不会有任何结论性的调查——当然不会在初选的时间框架内——我坚信这件事将永远停留在他说她说的话上。”“对我来说，这是关于纽约人应该有一个不受丑闻干扰或损害的市长，尤其是像这样大的丑闻。”
对一些人来说，不当行为指控表明需要更多的女性担任高级职务。与芝加哥、亚特兰大、新奥尔良或旧金山等其他美国城市不同，纽约市从未选举过女性市长。纽约州也没有女性州长。
“毫无疑问，对一名女市长来说，这是一个漫长的过程，这种与候选人有关的性骚扰指控只会让你更积极地点头:是的，我们需要一名女市长，我们需要女性担任高级行政职务，”前市议会议长克里斯蒂娜·奎因(Christine Quinn)说，她在2013年民主党市长初选中输给了德·布劳西奥(de Blasio)。
2021年竞选市长的女性中，没有一位进入了候选人的最高层，杨、亚当斯和斯金格在每一项民意调查中都名列前茅。
前MSNBC分析师、德·白思豪政府律师威利寻求将自己标榜为女性的捍卫者，得到了格洛丽亚·施泰纳姆(Gloria Steinem)和女权政治行动委员会(女权政治行动委员会)的支持。
加西亚长期以来被誉为市政府的问题解决者，她发布了一则电视广告，显示她在一个标有“紧急情况下，打碎玻璃”的红色盒子里在广告中，她列举了一些自己的管理资历，并说，“当出现危机时，有时你不得不打破玻璃来解决它。”提到女人打破玻璃天花板是很清楚的。
纽约市长竞选往往不可预测。在2013年的初选中，由于他的混血儿子丹特和前国会议员安东尼·韦纳的性丑闻，德·布劳西奥在竞选广告中一举成名。
斯特林格似乎致力于继续竞选，竞选日程繁忙，包括上周日在五个教堂停留。有人认为他还有机会。
“我们知道斯科特是谁，我们已经见过他30年了，你知道，作为一名议员，一名区长，一名审计员。他已经确立了自己的身份，现在他必须回去为自己辩护，”锡德·大卫杜夫说，他是一名律师，也是纽约市长约翰·林赛的前助手。
杨最近得到了来自皇后区的民主党众议员和来自布朗克斯的民主党众议员Ritchie Torres的支持，前者是第一位从纽约州当选国会议员的亚裔美国人，后者是第一位公开同性恋身份的国会议员。喜剧演员在过去的一周里也支持了杨。
初选的获胜者将非常有可能在11月的大选中赢得压倒性的民主党城市的大选，但也将有一场由守护天使创始人柯蒂斯·斯利瓦和商人费尔南多·马特奥(Fernando Mateo)参加的共和党初选。
在纽约市的初选中，选民投票率往往较低，因此相对较少的人可以选择谁来领导这个城市摆脱百年一遇的流行病。
在2013年的初选中，大约有70万纽约人投了票，占登记的民主党和共和党的20%。
NYC mayoral race heats up with 6 weeks to go before primary
NEW YORK -- With less than six weeks to go, the Democratic primary that may decide the next mayor of New York City has reached a new stage of unpredictability.
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang is clinging to front-runner status while City Comptroller Scott Stringer fights off a sexual misconduct allegation.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police officer and founder of a law enforcement reform group, has seen his standing rise amid concern over a spike in shootings during thecoronaviruspandemic — including gunfire that injured three bystanders in Times Square.
And The New York Times has given its coveted endorsement to a candidate who has been polling in the mid-single digits: Kathryn Garcia, a former city sanitation commissioner and veteran of several other city departments.
The race to succeed the term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, chugged along for months with many New Yorkers too consumed by the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential election to notice.
But it is grabbing more attention now, with the June 22 Democratic primary looming, television advertisements starting to air and candidates increasingly meeting voters in person after a year of campaigning online because of the pandemic.
Eight top-tier candidates, of the more than two dozen who entered the race, were set to participate in their first televised debate Thursday.
In addition to Yang, Adams, Stringer and Garcia, they are civil rights attorney Maya Wiley, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, former Obama housing secretary Shaun Donovan and former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales.
Adding to the complexity, the primary will be New York City's first mayoral race to be determined by ranked choice voting, a system that lets voters pick up to five candidates and rank them in order of preference.
Under the system, a candidate who trails in an initial round of vote tallying could still win the race, if enough people selected them as their second choice.
Yang has narrowly led in most polls, lifted by supporters who like his proposal for a universal basic income, but has been criticized by the left.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed him this week over a tweet in which he said he was “standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks" from the militant group Hamas, but didn't mention Palestinian victims of retaliatory Israeli strikes.
Adams, 60, has trailed Yang in most voter surveys, but two polls released in the past 10 days have shown Adams slightly ahead.
Adams is campaigning as both a tough-talking former police detective and a Black man who was himself victimized by police brutality as a youth and later founded the reform group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.
“We’re not going to recover as a city if we turn back time and see an increase in violence, particularly gun violence,” Adams said at a Times Square campaign event after Saturday’s shooting.
It remains to be seen whether Adams’ message resonates in a city that was convulsed by Black Lives Matter protests following last year’s murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police but is fearful of crime and disorder after a year of lockdown.
The biggest twist in the race has involved a misconduct allegation against Stringer, who has held elective office since 1993 as a state Assembly member, Manhattan borough president and now city comptroller.
Stringer, 61, appeared to be gaining ground when lobbyist Jean Kim accused him in late April of unwanted groping and sexual advances when she was working on his unsuccessful campaign for public advocate in 2001.
Stringer denied the allegation and said the two had had a brief, consensual relationship.
Elected officials and organizations that had endorsed Stringer rushed to withdraw their backing, though some unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, are sticking with him.
State Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Queens Democrat, said she rescinded her endorsement even though she doesn't know whether Stringer or Kim is telling the truth.
“For me the issue here is that we’re talking about an incident that took place 20 years ago that will likely not have any sort of conclusive investigation — certainly not within the time frame of the primary election — and I strongly believe will forever be stuck in a he said-she said,” Ramos said. “To me it’s about New Yorkers deserving a mayor that is not distracted or marred by a scandal, especially one of this size.”
For some, the misconduct accusation points to the need for more women in high office. Unlike other American cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans or San Francisco, New York City has never elected a female mayor. Nor has New York state had a female governor.
“There’s no question it’s way over time for a woman mayor, and something like this allegation of sexual harassment as it relates to a candidate only makes you nod your head more aggressively that yes, we need a woman mayor, we need women in high executive positions,” said Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker who lost in a 2013 Democratic mayoral primary to de Blasio.
None of the women running for mayor in 2021 has cracked the top tier of candidates, with Yang, Adams and Stringer taking the top spots in every poll.
Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst and de Blasio administration lawyer, has sought to brand herself as a champion of women, with endorsements from Gloria Steinem and the feminist political action committee EMILY’s List.
Garcia — long lauded as a problem solver in city government — released a TV ad that shows her inside a red box labeled “in case of emergency, break glass.” In the ad, she lists a few of her managerial credentials and says, “When there’s a crisis, sometimes you’ve got to break glass to solve it.” The reference to women breaking the glass ceiling is clear.
New York City mayoral races are often unpredictable. De Blasio vaulted over a large field in the 2013 primary thanks to campaign ads featuring his biracial son, Dante, and former congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal.
Stringer appears committed to staying in the race, with a busy campaign schedule including stops at five churches last Sunday. Some think he still has a chance.
“We know who Scott is, we’ve seen him for, you know, 30 years as an Assembly member, a borough president, a comptroller. He’s established who he is, and now he’s gotta go back and defend himself,” said Sid Davidoff, a lawyer and former aide to New York City Mayor John Lindsay.
Yang recently picked up endorsements by Rep. Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat who is the first Asian American to be elected to Congress from New York, and Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who is the Bronx’s first openly gay Congress member. Comedian Dave Chappelle also endorsed Yang this past week.
The winner of the primary will be strongly favored to win the November general election in the overwhelmingly Democratic city, but there will also be a Republican primary featuring Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa and businessman Fernando Mateo.
Voter turnout tends to be low in New York City primaries, so a relatively small number of people could pick the leader who will guide the city out of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
About 700,000 New Yorkers voted in the 2013 primaries, or 20% of registered Democrats and Republicans.
