NYC Mayor: Rancor Between Adams and Yang Marks End of Bruising Mayoral Campaign

[brooklynite]

New York Times

On the final full day of New York City’s mayoral primary campaign, the leading Democratic candidate, Eric Adams, called a top rival a “liar” and a “fraud.”

Only moments earlier, that rival, Andrew Yang, had suggested that Mr. Adams “cuts corners and breaks rules,” and that if Mr. Adams was to become mayor, his administration “would be mired in dysfunction and questions and investigation almost from Day 1.”

New York’s most important mayor’s race in a generation, whose victor will be charged with reviving a city broken by the pandemic, is ending on an ugly note. On the eve of Tuesday’s primary, the contest devolved into a rancorous spat between two of the race’s leading candidates and prompted fresh, if unwarranted, criticism of the city’s implementation of ranked-choice voting.

At issue for Mr. Adams was a late alliance between Mr. Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, continued to suggest, without evidence, that Ms. Garcia and Mr. Yang were conspiring to suppress the Black vote.

I'm reminded of an election ten years ago where African American churches refused to invite a liberal white candidate to events because Blacks had a "right" to the political office.