New York City mayoral rivals team up, aiming to weaken race's front-runner

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - In a move to shake up the race to become New York City's next mayor, former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and celebrity entrepreneur Andrew Yang campaigned together on Saturday (June 19) in each other's political strongholds.

The team-up aims to take advantage of the dynamics of the city's new election system - which allows voters to rank their choices - at the expense of the front-runner, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

The two gathered first to meet voters and then joined for a get-out-the-vote rally on the busy commercial streets of Flushing, Queens, home to the city's greatest concentration of Chinese immigrants. Mr Yang, the upstate New York-born son of Taiwanese immigrants, is popular there.

Later, Ms Garcia and Mr Yang held a news conference in Manhattan's Stuyvesant Town, a middle-class enclave of rent-stabilised housing, where polls show Ms Garcia running strongly.

The arrangement creates a novel partnership and strategic test of the first New York City mayoral election to feature ranked-choice voting. The new system, which has confused many voters, permits people to select as many as five candidates in order of preference rather than just one.

Mr Yang was much more effusive in his praise of Ms Garcia than she was of Mr Yang. While he repeatedly urged his supporters to include Ms Garcia's name on their ballots, she demurred against making a similar endorsement of Mr Yang.

"Anyone who's supporting me as their first choice, please have Kathryn Garcia on your ballot," Mr Yang said during the Saturday afternoon news conference. "She's a tremendous public servant, she's a good person, she will do everything she can to help us and our families."

When it was Ms Garcia's turn to speak, she explicitly refused to recommend Mr Yang. "I'm not co-endorsing," Ms Garcia said. "We're campaigning together. We're encouraging ranked-choice voting. We're making sure people get out to vote."

The highest praise she could muster for Mr Yang during the news conference was to tell reporters: "I do believe both of us are coming at this from a place of giving back to the city we love."

Saturday's meet-up, days before the June 22 Democratic primary, holds the promise of bolstering Ms Garcia more than Mr Yang, said Albany-based political consultant Bruce Gyory.

"Garcia wants to crack into Yang's support by gaining his backers' second choices under ranked-choice voting," Mr Gyory said. "Yang probably has more clout in sending a signal to Asian voters and non-ideological hipsters."

Gathering those Asian and youthful voters provides Ms Garcia with a late-campaign pathway to overcome a lead that polls now say is held by Mr Adams, a former New York City police captain who has made crime his focus after a year-long spike in shootings and homicides, said political consultant George Fontas, who has commissioned a series of polls during the campaign.

Mr Yang, while still intending to win, hopes at a minimum to put him and Ms Garcia at the top of voters' rankings, knocking out Mr Adams.

The strategy may also weaken the candidacy of civil rights advocate and MSNBC television commentator Maya Wiley, who has gained momentum with endorsements from nationally known progressives including US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mr Fontas said.

"It's a natural alliance in the face of a potential defeat for both candidates to the current front-runner, who is Adams," he said.

In a survey conducted in May, Mr Fontas found that Mr Adams had built such a broad multi-ethnic coalition that Ms Garcia would need to expand her base beyond White residents of Manhattan to have a realistic chance to win.

Mr Yang's loyal following among Asian voters represents that opportunity, Mr Fontas said in an interview.

Polls show Ms Garcia leading Mr Yang. Under ranked-choice voting, if Mr Yang trails Ms Garcia, and his voters have chosen her second, that support would go to her as if they had been first place votes.

Campaigning with Mr Yang may motivate the 2020 Democratic presidential contender's most fervent voters to include Ms Garcia on their ballots, too, instead of just voting only for him.

Mr Yang has shown animosity towards Mr Adams, who has ascended in the polls while Mr Yang's early lead has evaporated. Mr Adams has ridiculed Mr Yang's Universal Basic Income plan, calling it "U-B-Lie", and belittled Mr Yang's knowledge of the city.

The two have competed for support in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish communities, which usually vote as blocs. During last week's candidate's debate, Mr Yang taunted Mr Adams for failing to win the endorsement of the Captains Endowment Association. The union representing past and current NYPD commanders backed Mr Yang over one of its own. When Mr Adams said he did not seek or want any police union support, Mr Yang said Mr Adams was not being truthful.

"Garcia is seizing the animus between her two rivals to pick up more number two votes and potentially defeat Adams with Yang's imprimatur," said Mr Fontas.