An Early Look at the 2021 Mayor's Race

New York City’s mayoral election isn’t for another eighteen months, but several candidates are already testing out their messaging ahead of likely runs. So far, only Loree Sutton, the former head of the city’s veterans affairs department and a retired Army general, has officially declared her candidacy. However, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and City Comptroller Scott Stringer have all begun fundraising and are all widely expected to make runs.

In their January financial disclosures, Adams raised the most in the last six months, bringing in $437,000, and has a war chest of $3.1 million. Johnson came in second with $330,000 with about $692,000 in his campaign account, while Stringer raised $294,000 in the same period, but has $2.3 million in total cash-on-hand.

Shaun Donovan, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama and New York City’s housing commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg, will also reportedly enter the race. Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. was also widely expected to run, but announced in January that he would be retiring from public life when his current term ends after 2021.

Last week, both Eric Adams and Corey Johnson were speakers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day tribute. Johnson spoke about being “someone who came to New York City with big dreams,” repeatedly calling New York City “the greatest city in the world.”

Then, a few speakers later, Eric Adams took the stage and delivered a fiery speech against gentrification. Later that day, Adams would deliver controversial remarks at another MLK Day event in the same vein, telling gentrifiers, “Go back to Iowa! You go back to Ohio! New York City belongs to the people that were here and made New York City what it is.”

Adams’ comments drew condemnation from many media outlets and other politicians, but many of those seemed to be conflating two groups. As of 2018, only about 48% of New York City residents were born in the state of New York, according to NYU’s Furman Center. The immigrant population totals at 37% of the city’s residents. The remaining 15% of residents were born in the United States, but outside New York State.

This third, much smaller group were whom Eric Adams was predominantly talking about, meaning residents who moved here for or after college for jobs. This group is predominantly made up of the gentrifiers who Adams was talking about when he said, “black and brown people are being pushed out of the borough they made popular.”

In a city that is two-thirds nonwhite, Adams could be the only major candidate of color in the race, a possible advantage that was on display at BAM’s MLK Day tribute. Speaker Johnson received respectful applause throughout his speech and a particularly strong positive response to his mention of Fair Fares, a signature issue for him. Still, Borough President Adams’ anti-gentrification message elicited a much stronger reaction. With the caveat that the event was in Adams’ home borough and not Johnson’s, the juxtaposition of the two reactions

Another early dividing line between candidates has been whether or not to take real estate contributions. Speaker Johnson and Comptroller Stringer have both pledged not to take money from the industry, while Borough President Adams, as well as Sutton, have said they will accept the industry’s money.

Real estate contributions have often served as a dividing line for New York City leftists. In January 2018, now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “real estate is the currency of corruption in New York City.”

Diaz Jr.’s early exit means that Adams will be the only one out of the three candidates who have held borough- or city-wide office to accept real estate contributions. Diaz Jr. had been seen as a 

favorite candidate of the real estate industry.

This is just one example of how Adams appears to be charting a moderate course in the race. He’s a former NYPD Captain and an erstwhile Republican. Recently, he said he would carry a gun and eschew a security detail as mayor.

There could be a large constituency for Adams’ message across the city. For example, Southeastern Queens, which is predominantly black, voted strongly in favor of Melinda Katz in last year’s District Attorney primary, compared to gentrifying western part of the borough, which was Tiffany Caban’s base of support. Councilmembers Ruben Diaz Sr., Fernando Cabrera, and Robert Holden, among others, show that there are pockets of the city that may be nominally Democratic, but have conservative leanings, especially on social issues. These voters, combined with Adams’ home borough, which is the largest in the city, could be a formidable combination.

Johnson and Stringer both hail from Manhattan, meaning they won’t have the same automatic base of support from a home borough that Adams will likely have in Brooklyn, with the likely endorsement of the Kings County Democratic Party. The two Manhattanites will likely also be competing against each other for votes in the gentrifying enclaves of western Brooklyn and Queens.

If this mayoral election were taking place in 2017, Adams might be the odds-on favorite at the moment, given his immediate structural advantages. Bill de Blasio won in the 2013 mayoral primary with about 41% of the vote. However, in 2021, New York City will be using ranked-choice voting for the first time, after a charter revision was adopted in a 2019 ballot proposal.

This will mean that a candidate will need to reach over 50% to win the nomination, which will be unlikely to happen on the initial ballot in a crowded field.

Hypothetically, if this system were in place in 2013, the outcome might have been different. After de Blasio, his closest competitor was Bill Thompson, with 26% of the vote. The second through fifth candidates were Christine Quinn (16%), John Liu (7%), and Anthony Weiner (5%). In a ranked-choice system, Weiner’s votes would have been reallocated to his voters’ next viable option. For simplicity’s sake, say all Quinn, Liu and Weiner voters had Thompson as their second choice. Thompson would add their 28% to his 26% and could have won with 54% to de Blasio’s 41%.

A similar scenario could happen in 2021. Adams could win the most initial votes with around 40%, with Stringer at 30% and Johnson at 25%. Once Johnson’s votes are reallocated, assuming all his voters listed Stringer before Adams, Stringer would be the next mayor with 55% of the vote to Adams’ 40%.

In previous mayoral elections, two candidates running in the same “lane” as white, progressive Manhattanites could have severely hindered each candidacy. However, with ranked-choice, this won’t necessarily be the case. Johnson and Stringer could be competing with each other to be the first choice among the same pool of voters, but they will likely need each other’s supporters to rank them higher than Adams.

All of this is with the strong caveat that the mayoral primary is a year-and-a-half out, and a lot can change, including darkhorse candidates who could emerge. Alicia Glen, Maya Wiley, and Eva Moskowitz have all been touted as possible candidates.