New Yorkers Elect Mayor Who Loves BLM and Vaccine Mandates... What Could Possibly Go Wrong!?
Democrat Eric Adams was elected mayor of New York on Tuesday as the nation’s largest city faces concerns about an uptick in violent crime and economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, was heavily favored over Republican Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels anticrime group. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city’s five boroughs by a six-to-one margin, and the Associated Press projected Mr. Adams as the winner shortly after polls closed.
He will become the city’s second Black mayor when he takes office in January. He has said his victory in June’s Democratic primary over several progressive candidates was an affirmation of centrist party policies.
Mr. Adams has said his personal story—including attending college at night and suffering police abuse as a teenager—has resonated with New Yorkers.
“New York has chosen one of our own,” he said during a victory speech. “This is proof the people of this city will love you if you love them.”
Mr. Sliwa, who started the Guardian Angels in the 1970s, centered his campaign around hiring more police officers. While campaigning Tuesday in Brooklyn, he asked for support by saying, “We need to improve—and not to move.”
Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has said he would push for policies to achieve public safety without vastly expanding the department. He has pledged to revive a unit of plainclothes police officers that was disbanded in the weeks after George Floyd’s murder by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. Mr. Adams said the unit should focus on targeting illegal guns.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York didn’t make an endorsement in the general election, but Mr. Adams was one of three candidates that the union urged its members to support in the June primary, according to an email sent at the time.
Business leaders have cited crime rates as a problem as they encourage firms to bring more of Manhattan’s 1.2 million office workers back to their desks. City officials have encouraged a return, which they say is essential to helping restaurants and other small businesses. Less than a third of the New York metro area’s office workforce had returned as of Oct. 20, according to swipe-card data analyzed by Kastle Systems.
The candidates have also clashed over pandemic management policies. Mr. Adams said he supported two of Mr. de Blasio’s policies that require public employees to be vaccinated and require patrons of restaurants and entertainment venues to show proof of vaccination upon entry. Mr. Adams said Tuesday that he would work with union leaders to determine the fate of unvaccinated employees. Mr. Sliwa said he encourages people to get vaccinated but opposes both mandates.
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