The June Democratic primary is just 10 weeks away, and in this heavily Democratic city it is likely to determine New York’s next mayor. The field is crowded, with eight serious candidates.
Four are considered, based on polling and the money race, “top tier”: Andrew Yang, the businessman and former presidential candidate; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Scott Stringer, the current city comptroller (and the only Jewish candidate in the race); and Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and a former MSNBC analyst.
The other candidates are Shaun Donovan, the former Obama housing official; Kathryn Garcia, NYC’s former sanitation commission; fair housing activist Dianne Morales; and Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive.
All the candidates are being pressed on how they will lead the recovery of the city post-pandemic, while dealing with a host of persistent challenges only exacerbated by Covid-19: affordable housing and homelessness, changes in policing following last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, and a lingering sense of racial and economic inequality.
These are all topics important to the city’s diverse Jewish community, along with some issues of particular concern: combating prejudice and anti-Semitism; relations with a haredi Orthodox community buffeted by high Covid rates; and maintaining quality of life after a year in which some heavily Jewish neighborhoods have seen residents moving out of the city.
(Elsewhere we have reported where the candidates stand on the Boycott Israel movement and a simmering debate over yeshiva educational standards.)
We sent all eight candidates seven questions in all (we already published their responses on the lessons they drew from Passover). All but Andrew Yang’s campaign responded; we will publish his responses if and when we receive them.
Below are links to their responses.
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