Adrienne Adams runs for mayor

NY Post 

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams revealed Wednesday she’s tossing her hat in the race for mayor after weeks of speculation that she’d join the crowded field of Democrats looking to knock off Mayor Eric Adams.

“New Yorkers can’t afford to live here, City Hall is in chaos, and Donald Trump is corrupting our city’s independence,” she said in a scathing statement announcing her mayoral run. 

“It’s time to stand up. I never planned to run for Mayor, but I’m not giving up on New York City,” she added in the statement first shared with Politico. 

Adams, who has been a forceful critic of Mayor Adams, would be the first woman to lead City Hall if she came out top in a June primary and then the general election.

“Our city deserves a leader that serves its people first and always, not someone focused on themselves and their own political interests,” she said in her Wednesday statement. 

“I’m a public servant, mother, Queens girl and I’m running for Mayor. No drama, no nonsense—just my commitment to leading with competence and integrity.”

Queens man runs for mayor

  

 PIX 11 News

Andrew Cuomo announced he’s running for New York City mayor in the upcoming election after months of speculation. 

The former New York governor will take on incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in the Democratic primary. 

“We know that today our New York City is in trouble,” Cuomo said in a 17-minute announcement video posted to social media.

“These conditions exist not as an act of God, but rather as an act of our political leaders, or more precisely, the lack of intelligent action by many of our political leaders,” he continued.

Before Cuomo entered the race, many polls showed him as an early favorite for New York City voters. A February poll by PIX11 News, Emerson College and The Hill showed Cuomo was the first choice for 33% of Democratic voters. Some 10% of voters said Adams was their first choice for mayor. 

Cuomo served as New York governor from 2011 to 2021, when he resigned after an independent investigation found he had sexually harassed multiple women, including state employees. His resignation also came on the heels of criticism and investigations related to his handling of nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yes, 12,473 elderly people died but that's not why he resigned, he stepped down because he got too handsy and kissy with a lot a women he worked with and random women he met on occassions.

 

Party transfer crashers might effect August primary elections

 

 NY Post

The Democratic Party’s gerrymander debacle has created an extraordinary situation: New Yorkers are allowed to switch their party affiliation at the ballot booth on Aug. 23 to vote in another party’s primary elections. 

Under normal circumstances, a voter had a Feb. 14 deadline to change party affiliation for primary elections scheduled in June.

But since judges nullified the Democrats’ partisan gerrymandered district maps — which GOP critics labeled a Hochulander since Gov. Kathy Hochul signed off on them — for Congress and state Senate and ordered primary elections on Aug. 23 based on districts redrawn by a court special master, that deadline no longer applies.

Registered independent or unaffiliated voters can join a party to vote in a contested primary race and registered Republicans or Democrats could temporarily change their party affiliation and crash another party’s primary races for Congress or state Senate. 

For example, Republicans or independents could decide to re-enroll in the Democratic Party to vote in the contested primary between Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney and Suraj Patel in the 12th Congressional District covering the East and West sides of  Manhattan.

Or Republicans or unaffiliated voters could switch registration to Democrat to vote in the crowded 10th Congressional District primary covering lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. Candidates include Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, House impeachment lawyer Dan Goldman, Rep. Mondaire Jones, former Congresswoman and Brooklyn DA Elizabeth Holtzman and Brooklyn Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, among others.

 

It's Kathy Clown vs. Lee Ze in November

NY Daily News

Gov. Hochul sailed to victory Tuesday as she easily defeated a pair of Democratic primary opponents and took a step closer to becoming the first woman elected governor of New York.

The incumbent Democrat beat out Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Jumaane Williams, the city public advocate, in an early summer contest that saw exceptionally low voter turnout across the state.

The Associated Press called the race at 9:25 p.m.

“I stand on the shoulders of generations of women, generations of women who constantly had to bang up against that glass ceiling,” Hochul said Tuesday night, dressed in white in a nod to suffragists as she addressed supporters at a Manhattan celebration. “To the women of New York, this one’s for you.”

 NY Daily News

Rep. Lee Zeldin clinched victory in New York’s Republican gubernatorial primary late Tuesday, coming out on top after an acrimonious campaign against a field of challengers that included former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s son.

Zeldin, a Long Island Republican and one of former President Donald Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress, was declared the winner by the Associated Press around 10:30 p.m. as early state Board of Elections returns showed him leading runner-up candidate Andrew Giuliani by a wide margin.

 

Apathy leads New York primaries

AMNY 

New Yorkers trickled in to polling stations over the weekend to cast their ballots for the first of two primary elections this summer.

Early voting started on Saturday, June 18 for state political offices, such as the governor, lieutenant governor, state assembly members, judges, and party positions.

For the first day, only 10,035 people cast their ballots in the Five Boroughs, according to the city’s Board of Elections, down from 16,867 on the first day of early voting during last year’s primaries for mayor and other city positions.

 June Primary Election – Day 1
New York – 3,400
Bronx – 1,364
Brooklyn – 2,578
Queens – 2,122
Staten Island – 571
Total Number of Early Voting Check-Ins 10,035
*Unofficial as of Close of Polls

Thanks to the state’s redistricting, voters can cast their ballots in two primaries this summer, with another vote coming up on Aug. 23 for the U.S. House of Representatives and the state Senate.

“It’s confusing,” said Manhattanite Caroline Miller after voting at a polling station inside a senior center in Two Bridges. “It seems to be disruptive.” 

 NY Daily News

Early voting in the Big Apple will run through Sunday. Polling places will be shuttered the following Monday and will reopen at about 1,200 sites throughout the city on Tuesday, which is the final day to cast ballots in person.

The city’s Board of Elections provides information about early voting, but Ken Sherrill, professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College, suggested that hasn’t done the trick.

He said low turnout in the city over the weekend shows there’s little to no voter education happening when it comes to early voting.

“The television campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor don’t mention when primary day is, or when early voting begins,” he said. “In other words, there is absolutely no voter education going on by any of the candidates or political parties — or virtually none.”

Fauxgressives are eating their own

Brooklyn Post 

A podcaster and well-known Democratic Socialist from Astoria has thrown the progressive wing of the Democratic party into disarray by announcing she plans to run for the District 59 seat in the state Senate.

Nomiki Konst announced Tuesday on “The Majority Report” talk show—a daily political podcast–that she plans to run for the newly formed District 59 seat that covers Astoria, Long Island City, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and parts of Manhattan.

“I want to announce that I’m running for state senate in District 59—a brand new district that encompasses the community I live in.”

The new district was created mid-May, when a special master drew up the electoral maps for the state senate, after a supreme court judge tossed out the maps drafted by state Democrats on the basis that they were unconstitutional.

Konst joins other candidates such as Elizabeth Crowley and Kristen Gonzalez in the race. However, her announcement has upset many progressives who believe she will cut into the vote for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, a progressive who lives in Long Island City, has already garnered the support of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the NYC-DSA, the Working Families Party, Make the Road, New York Communities for Change, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, Councilmember Tiffany Cabán and many other left leaning officials and organizations.

Gonzalez announced she was running months ago, when most thought Long Island City was going to be part of Senate District 17—a district that was eliminated by the special master last month. That district would have included Long Island City, Woodside, Ridgewood, Maspeth, Glendale and Greenpoint—although not Astoria.

Konst said she decided to run after the boundaries of District 59 were drawn– which include Astoria.

 

Tish calls it quits

 

 Queens Crap

New York Attorney General Letitia James has suspended her campaign for governor and is running for re-election.

The news was broke via Twitter with Capitol reporters getting the news that her campaign was being ‘suspended’.

.@ZackFinkNews with the scoop that @TishJames is no longer running for Governor. In the last Siena Poll Tish got 18% and Hochul got 36%. @GloriaPazmino reporting Tish will run for re-election.

— Susan Arbetter (@sarbetter) December 9, 2021

James shed some light on the decision, which took most of New York’s political scene by surprise on Thursday.

“I Have come to the conclusion that I must continue my work as attorney general. There are a number of important investigations and cases that are underway, and I intend to finish the job. I am running for re-election to complete the work New Yorkers elected me to do,” the statement from her gubernatorial campaign said.

The decision appears to have come after some internal reflection by the Democratic Party, which sees a challenging year on the horizon if there are hotly contested primaries.

 

NEW: @TishJames is suspending her campaign for Governor.

— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 9, 2021

*Jay Jacobs is also calling on New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Rep. Tom Suozzi to drop their primary challenges to Gov. Hochul as well.

— Nick Reisman (@NickReisman) December 9, 2021

Return of the Avella

For all the huffing and puffing the "no IDC" people did years back, it certainly didn't stick very long in the 19th Council District in northeast Queens. You had Richard "Baby Bear" Lee get buoyed by the Andrew Yang vote and Austin Shafran with the biggest unions backing him but former State Senator Tony Avella, the council member prior to Dan Halloran, bested them both. Dem voters in this district sought the familiar rather than a newcomer and didn't give much of a shit about progressive conspiracy theories. Avella will meet Vickie Paladino (R) and John-Alexander Sakelos (C) in the general election.

In a nutshell...

I'm not sure who this person is, but I thank him for 100% getting what's going on here and painting this picture in just a few words. If it's not clear by now that fauxgressives are the real estate industry's biggest weapon, I'm not sure what will convince you. The orange is pretty much a map of where woke Whites invaded and gentrified the piss out of once affordable neighborhoods.

One of Ronald Reagan's famous quotes says to be wary of people from government who claim they are here to help, but what should terrify regular New Yorkers is people from other states who think they know how to fix New York City.

Candidates from elsewhere are downright terrifying. They're the ones behind Planning Together, anti-car zealotry, defunding the police, bail reform and all the other dumb ideas that are supposed to bring about a socialist nirvana but really only succeed at screwing taxpayers' quality of life. This crap doesn't fly back where they come from so they bring it here and for some reason, we go along with it. It's time to wake up already.

You can closely match NYC's demographics & candidate they voted for

Adams gets most Black & Brown outer borough neighborhoods

Wiley does well in the gentrifying areas of the BK/Queens

Garcia gets libs in Manhattan who read the NYT

Yang get most Asians and Jews in BK/Flushing pic.twitter.com/j4eIX60nVJ

— Elad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) June 23, 2021

#JuanAnon post mortem

Yesterday we saw Borough President Donovan Richards expose himself as a sore winner. Today, let's highlight a sore loser.

This was published on social media after the June 22nd election by 30th District City Council candidate Juan Ardila:

Well first off, it looks like Holden absolutely slayed you in the absentee ballot count because his lead over you grew to more than 900 votes from 541:

Middle Village receives the most resources? What proof is there of that? Maybe you can point us to where you found this evidence so this injustice can be corrected. Or maybe you're saying this because you don't know where the district actually begins and ends...

Now, if by "failing to reach these voters in a meaningful way" you mean you marched through their neighborhood with a bunch of out-of-district gentrifiers so you could scream "racism" after your opponent introduced legislation to repeal an unconstitutional law, you'd be correct. That's a really big reason why you lost, along with cheering on the ripping of American flags off houses. It also didn't help that you enlisted snarky gentrifier bros to run your campaign and they expressed repeated disdain for older home-owners who have lived there for decades. The most avoidable mistake was your campaign manager sending out a fact-challenged email expressing support for noise. If you had been paying any kind of attention, you would have realized this was the number one quality of life issue throughout Queens for most of the spring.

Blaming your loss on gerrymandering is a stretch because the last redistricting was approved by the Dept of Justice during the Obama administration. (Literally the commission drew the lines the current way to protect the interests of Latinos in neighboring districts because so many gentrifiers moved into Bushwick.) Saying the will of 90% of the people is being ignored is an obvious falsehood since more people district-wide voted for the other guy.

Also, it goes without saying that crying discrimination when you have racist, sexist and homophobic crap on your own social media makes you look like a big hypocrite. When no one has ever heard of you, that's a pretty rough way to introduce yourself to the electorate.

But what probably brought it home for Holden was your complete silence on vandalism at the church that many in the district are members of (including you), the defacement of the Queens Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and repeated attacks on the Asian community who naturally backed Holden in large numbers. The incumbent outshined you on every issue in the last few weeks of the campaign - and got legislation passed, to boot - while you were busy taking selfies.

But, hey, it's not all doom and gloom. Your former boss, Brad Pander, is probably hiring.

Schulman bests Gagarin - thank God!

Well folks, this one has flown kind of under the radar on this blog, but in the 29th Council District, Machine pick Lynn Schulman bested DSA's Aleda Gagarin, and it was actually the right call. I don't know how much info you have on the Gagarins - but they are bad news. Mel Gagarin is a frequent candidate for office (and it doesn't matter which one), and now the wife has joined in on the fun. Back in 2009, Mel was all about stopping overdevelopment. Last year, the former Weiner staffer called himself "a stay at home dad and community organizer" and ran a joke of a DSA campaign against Grace Meng for congress. This year, fellow fauxgressive Aleda was pimping hard for the real estate industry, pushing for legalization of cellar apartments and ADUs while being endorsed by fellow fauxgressives Jimmy Van Bramer and Brad Lander.

No, just no. It's also good to see an older candidate do well because the needs of seniors are being increasingly ignored by the social media superstars running for office these days.

After suing others off ballot, Scala knocked off by Singh

And as of now, he can't run in November, either.

Singh will face Republican Joanne Ariola and Kenichi Wilson, who Scala sued off the ballot.

Eric Adams wins primary, Curtis Sliwa drops first salvo

 

NY Daily News

Eric Adams declared victory in the city’s Democratic mayoral race Tuesday after holding on to a razor-thin lead in a pivotal ballot update, putting him on track to become just the second Black mayor in Big Apple history after running a centrist campaign focused on fighting crime and appealing to blue-collar voters.

Adams, Brooklyn’s current borough president and a retired NYPD captain, led former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by just 8,426 ballots — or 1% of the total — after more than 120,000 absentee votes were added to the Board of Elections’ unofficial tally of ranked-choice results.

The Associated Press called the race for Adams after the absentee ballot drop, and the 60-year-old Brooklyn BP took his long-awaited victory lap shortly thereafter.

“The results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City,” Adams said in a statement. “Now we must focus on winning in November so that we can deliver on the promise of this great city for those who are struggling, who are underserved, and who are committed to a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers.”

 Looks like a lot of fauxgressive shitlibs are going back to Ohio.

After the release of today’s vote totals, it appears the #NYC #Mayor race will be Curtis Sliwa vs. Eric Adams this November

The choice couldn’t be more clear

I will deliver real improvements to our city, while Eric Adams will deliver corruption & de Blasio policies: pic.twitter.com/B7zZ8F1LWe

— Curtis Sliwa for NYC Mayor (@CurtisSliwa) July 6, 2021

The AOC Strategy

 

THE CITY

 At least 1 million New Yorkers — nearly three of ten registered voters — participated in the primary election, a far stronger showing than when the mayor’s job and most City Council seats were last up for grabs.

Board of Elections figures show about 27% of active Democrats submitted ballots that included the 13-way contest for mayor, whose outcome will remain unknown for weeks as the new ranked choice voting process unfolds.

Just 11% of Republican voters cast ballots, overwhelmingly opting for media personality and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who earned a spot on the GOP ticket.

With races from City Council to mayor remain up in the air, turnout patterns suggested an ongoing AOC effect energizing voters in progressive pockets of Queens while some residents of areas hit hardest by COVID struggled to get to the polls, an analysis by THE CITY found.

Overall, nearly 850,000 New Yorkers, including 191,000 people who cast ballots at the polls during 10 days of early voting, voted on the June 22 primary day and another nearly 130,000 had returned absentee ballots as of Sunday.

Which way will JVB's voters break?

Well now, this is shaping up to be quite a nailbiter!

Elizabeth Crowley may be the comeback kid after the dust settles. But it all depends on which way Van Bramer's #2s are distributed.

Stay tuned.

Curtis Sliwa locks up Republican nomination for Mayor

 

 SI Advance

 Curtis Sliwa has declared victory in the Republican mayoral primary Tuesday night.

It’s one of the first races to have a winner in this primary season, because with ranked-choice voting and only two candidates appearing on the ballot, the counting process was easier than some of the more crowded races.

Sliwa, originally from Canarsie, has been a presence in the five boroughs for more than 40 years. He founded the Guardian Angels patrol group in 1979, and has been a talk radio presence since the 1990s — his program has been on hiatus since March due to his mayoral run.

At 11 p.m., Sliwa led opponent Fernando Mateo, a business owner and activist, with 69% of the vote, according to tallies from the New York City Board of Elections (BOE). More than 40,000 votes had been counted with 88% of precincts reporting.

On Staten Island, 10,727 votes were counted for Sliwa by 11 p.m., and 4,425 for Mateo. Those more than 15,000 votes were the most cast in any borough for the Republican mayoral primary.

Sliwa will face off against the winner of the Democratic mayoral primary, and Staten Islander Bill Pepitone, who is running on the Conservative Party line.

With all the shit talking that's going to go down between Sliwa and likely Adams combined with the continued rise of felonious crimes, this is going to be the most volatile #SummerofNYC of all time.

o·ver·con·fi·dent / (adjective) excessively or unreasonably confident.

The result:

Y'all are pathetic

Early voting complete! Day 9
•Manhattan - 60,649
•Bronx - 20,590
•Brooklyn - 65,516
•Queens - 35,361
•Staten Island - 9,081
Total Number of Early Voting Check-Ins 191,197
*Unofficial and Cumulative as of close of polls

— NYC Board of Elections (@BOENYC) June 20, 2021

Van Bramer flack behind group backing his replacement for City Council while his volunteers are engaging in cheap campaign chicanery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIC Post

A group of western Queens community leaders has come together to help Amit Bagga break away from a crowded field to win the 26th District council seat.

The group, dubbed 26 for 26, is co-chaired by Matthew Wallace, the chief of staff for the term-limited council member Jimmy Van Bramer, and Clara Oza, a public school parent coordinator from Sunnyside.

They hope to get Bagga elected in District 26, which encompasses Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City and parts of Astoria.

“I’ve seen firsthand just how much our kids and families have suffered through the pandemic, and we need a leader who [will] not just fight to bring us back, but deliver real results,” said Oza, a Community Board 2 member. “Amit is the only candidate with a proven track record of having done so.”

Wallace, who endorsed Bagga last month, says Bagga is someone who will not only be a part of the progressive wing of city council, but has the policy chops to lead it.

“No one else has proposed anything even close in terms of having the legislative prowess that Amit has shown. That really means something,” Wallace said.

The group also includes Deborah Tharrington, who is the director of constituent services for Van Bramer, plus Community Board 2 members Osman Chowdhury and Anatole Ashraf.

The other members include Dan Hochman, Laura Dadap, Zach Job, Dominic Stiller, Jean Cawley, Marco Barrios, Joe Oza, Jake Cohen, Judith Sloan, Brian Romero, Louis Wellington, Amanda and Max Lefer, Annie Seifullah, Sam Goldsmith, Hugh Baran, Ayaz Ahmed, Samina Wasti, Neha Gautam, Erin Koster, Rob Bass, Patti Pion, Natalie Fuertes and Adeline Medeiros.

Nick Berkowitz, a spokesperson for the Bagga campaign, says the group comes from a diverse array of occupations, ages and backgrounds, which is representative of the district’s makeup.

“These are just folks who understand what the stakes are of this election and are willing to do what it takes to get him elected,” Berkowitz said.

Breaking News: This particular race has just got a little bit more cutthroat. Pity the poor fauxgressive.

  

Queens Post

A campaign poster battle has erupted in the crowded District 26 City Council race just weeks before Election Day.

The saga began after a volunteer for Amit Bagga allegedly put up a campaign poster on top of rival candidate Julie Won’s poster. This allegedly has happened on two separate occasions, according to photos uploaded to Twitter.

A former part-time staffer and current volunteer with Won’s campaign tweeted the image of a Bagga poster on Wednesday with the corner peeled up to reveal a Won poster beneath it. The posters were hung up on a storefront at the corner of 48th Avenue and 47th Street in Sunnyside.

The same campaign volunteer tweeted a photo on May 16 of a Bagga poster also covering Won’s.

Won retweeted the photo taken yesterday and questioned if Bagga was trying to erase her candidacy.

“This has been flagged 3x where we’ve seen @amitsinghbagga’s team poster over ours,” she said. “shows character of candidate when you campaign this way. Does your team feel insecure about your candidacy? Are you trying to erase my candidacy as an AAPI immigrant and woman?”

Instead of apologizing on twitter, maybe Bagga should dissociate himself from Jimmy's flack.

 

Richard Lee wants to be your Baby Bear

Welp, I never thought I'd see a candidate play off the Goldilocks story, but here we have it.