Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking member of New York’s delegation, endorsed Maya Wiley for mayor on Sunday vowing to hit the stump with her through the final month of this heated primary battle to ensure New York City joins the ranks of cities across the country where Black women lead.
“Chicago has Lori Lightfoot. San Francisco has London Breed. Atlanta has the great Stacey Abrams. Los Angeles has Congresswoman Maxine Waters. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has Vice President Kamala Harris and in New York City, we're going to deliver Maya Wiley for such a time as this,” Jeffries said joining Wiley at Restoration Plaza in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn, standing beneath portraits of President Barack Obama and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the nation’s first Black president and the first Black woman elected to Congress.
With a month to go before voting begins in the primary, candidates are making their final pitch as voters begin to tune into the race in earnest. Campaigns are pressing on all fronts, fundraising, street-level campaigning, and snapping up endorsements from people who can move votes. Jeffries, whose district slices through parts of Brooklyn and Queens, said he had been in conversations with several of the candidates, but that his decision to support Wiley crystallized over the weekend, buoyed by her aggressive debate performance on Thursday night.
“He made me work for this y'all,” Wiley said, explaining it took time to persuade Jeffries to endorse her, despite Jeffries mother stopping Wiley on a street in downtown Brooklyn to say she had her support. The congressman said his phone started to blow up when the encounter was shared on social media. “All I can say is that I'm standing right here now and God works in mysterious ways,” he said.
On matters of policy, Jeffries is seen as more of a moderate Democrat than Wiley, as she has positioned herself in this primary field. Asked about her plans to reduce the New York City Police Department’s budget by $1 billion, which she says she will use to pay for both $5,000 care grants to family caregivers and community-based gun violence protection initiatives, Jeffries said he trusted Wiley was the right person to balance the needs of “public safety and justice.”
“I'll leave the decisions as it relates to the municipal budget to her, other than saying that we're going to continue to fight to send resources from Washington, D.C. to City Hall,” he added.
Wiley had already been endorsed by Brooklyn Congressmembers Yvette Clarke and Nydia Velazquez. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district snakes down the west side of Manhattan into portions of Brooklyn, has already endorsed New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. That means none of the borough’s congressional delegation has backed Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who has consistently led the field in fundraising while polling among the top two.
Candidates face a crucial deadline on Monday, which marks the end of the latest fundraising period that started on March 12th. Campaigns must file their disclosure reports with the New York City Campaign Finance Board by Friday, which may show if any big endorsements or critical coverage have affected a candidate’s ability to fundraise. Candidates who qualify for public matching funds will receive their next payment based on this filing on May 27th.
Much of the mayoral field fanned out across the city visiting Sunday to raise their profile with voters at morning worship services and glad-handing in areas with high foot traffic.
Kathryn Garcia, who scored a second major newspaper endorsement with a nod from the NY Daily News editorial board just days after she was endorsed by the New York Times, spent the morning greeting voters at a greenmarket on the Upper West Side. Dianne Morales was also meeting voters as she toured small businesses near East Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue in the Bronx with State Senator Gustavo Rivera.
Several candidates visited churches to make their pitch to local congregations, a standard part of any citywide campaign. Before picking up her endorsement from Jeffries in the afternoon, Wiley was in the Bronx at Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church near Crotona Park. If elected, she pledged to spend $10 billion dollars to create 100,000 new jobs, a reference to her "New Deal New York" plan which envisions creating those new jobs over five years.
Andrew Yang began his day at the Coney Island Cathedral in Brooklyn where he told worshippers he wanted to bring the movement he started as a presidential candidate -- based on the need for a universal basic income -- to his bid for City Hall.
“I'm running for mayor of New York City to help make poverty a thing of the past here in New York City. I want to be the anti-poverty mayor,” Yang said. As a presidential candidate, Yang proposed giving all adults one thousand dollars a month. His proposal as a mayoral candidate is to spend $1 billion to provide a half million of the neediest New Yorkers with an annual grant of $2,000.
Shaun Donovan spoke at the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Brooklyn where he talked about his plan to ensure all New Yorkers have access to quality jobs, schools and green space within 15 minutes of their home. He was welcomed to the church by a man he calls a mentor, Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, who's led a movement to build owner-occupied homes in East New York.
“All of us stand on the shoulders of those who have guided us. I stand on Bishop Johnny Ray Youngblood's shoulders today and forever,” Donovan told the congregation.
Scott Stringer started his day in the far-flung Rockaways making his first stop at an early service at Macedonia Baptist Church in Arverne. Stringer used the moment to talk about the need for experience at City Hall and equity in policy-making, with the most vocal response to his proposal to bring two teachers to every kindergarten through 5th grade classroom.
Scott Stringer at Macedonia Baptist Church in Arverne.
Stringer also urged the worshipers to think about him in the context of ranked-choice voting, the new system that will allow primary voters to select up to five candidates in order of preference.
“I would ask you to consider me ranked first,” said Stringer. “Now if you can't rank me first, you could rank me second. I don't want to be third or the fourth. It gets to be a little much, you know,” he joked.
