It looks like New York City will have a law-and-order mayor
Ex-cop Eric Adams has been declared the winner of the NYC Democratic primary. That probably makes him the next major of the city. But Eric Adams, who is black, is somewhat conservative (by NYC standards) despite being a Democrat. He certainly is conservative compared to predecessor de Blasio – but then, so are most people.
Just before the race was called, Adams said in a statement that “while there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, 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.”
“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,” he said.
I don’t know that New York has been affordable for a long time, but prior to de Blasio’s tenure it was relatively safe.
This was a ranked-choice vote, marked – and marred – by the erroneous (or purposeful) counting of 135,000 invalid “test” votes that led Adams to successfully question initial results. The present tally is uncomfortably close, but gives him the requisite over-50% in order to avoid futher tallying in which the last-place winner is thrown out and the ranked-choice votes re-counted.
Adams’ GOP opponent will be a familiar name to some: Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels over 40 years ago:
In May 1977, Sliwa created the “Magnificent 13”, a group dedicated to combating violence and crime on the New York City Subway. At the time, the city was experiencing a crime wave. The Magnificent 13 grew and was renamed the Guardian Angels in 1979. The group’s actions drew strong reactions, both positive and negative. Membership of the Guardian Angels showed 80 percent of them were either Black or Hispanic in ethnic origin. Unarmed, the group required training in karate and fulfillment of legal requirements for citizens’ arrest for all members before they were to be deployed.
Adams, who is heavily favored to win, was a state rep from Brooklyn and more recently that borough’s president. Here’s a quote from his policing days back in 1999:
Lying is at the root of our training. At the academy, recruits are told that they should not see black or brown people as different, but we all do. We all know that the majority of people arrested for predatory crimes are African-American. We didn’t create that scenario, but we have to police in that scenario. So we need to be honest and talk about it.
Interesting. Very interesting.
Adams was a Republican between 1997 and 2001, but has been a Democrat ever since. He was an opponent of “stop-and-frisk” but now supports it. Then again, he and several other state legislators “wore hooded sweatshirts in the legislative chamber on March 12, 2012, in protest of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.” His record is a mix of more liberal and more conservative positions, but in running for mayor he has declared himself an opponent of “defund the police.”
In addition, Adams (or a ghostwriter) recently wrote a book about how he became a vegan and improved his health immensely after being diagnosed with Type II diabetes.
Adams’ primary victory is an indication that New Yorkers are fed up with the increasing crime in their city. Then again, he won the primary by a small margin:
In a tally by the New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday, Adams held a slim 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent lead over [ Kathryn] Garcia after holding a 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent lead last week.
If you look at the graph in this article, you can see how ranked-choice works. It looks to me as though Adams won handily if only first-choice votes had been counted, but in the recurrent rounds of recounting the gap narrowed considerably between Adams and Garcia.
It seems to me from reading this endorsement of Garcia in The Daily News (the right-leaning NY Post endorsed Adams) that Garcia was hardly the most leftist alternative to Adams, either. So the results generally appear to be a victory for more moderate Democrats.
That NY Post endorsement mentions two more elements of Adams’ law-and-order program:
Adams would reinstate an anti-crime unit to crack down on guns and gangs.
He’d also push Albany — where he served as a state senator — to reform the no-bail law to allow for judges’ discretion to lock up dangerous, recidivist criminals.
In other words, he plans to stop some of the slide that New York has experienced as a result of far-left policies. I wish him luck.
At the barest minimum it’s safe to say that Adams is going to be far better than de Blasio… but in fairness that’s such a low bar that you’d still have to look down at it from the bottom of the Mariana Trench. A Welsh Corgi in a hat could do a better job as mayor than de Blasio.
If I was less cynical I might be hopeful that this is the beginning of a greater sea change.
Looks like this fellow is a decent person and a breath of fresh air.
Someone who wants the city and ALL its citizens to flourish instead of trying to destroy it.
IOW, the anti-de Blasio.
Good luck to him.
Tom Selleck should run.
A former NYC cop myself, Adam’s has been a fairly radical and controversial figure for a long time. Even as a cop, he’s been an outspoken racial arsonist. I’m glad to see he’s tempered his rhetoric somewhat. But he is no conservative by any standard.
I’m assuming that Adam’s nomination is the kabuki theater the Democrats have decided they need given the backlash on ‘defund the police’. Given the way the rank choice primary was run, he was ‘chosen’. Don’t expect any change, because there won’t be any. The City Council will carefully guard the left flank in NYC. Adams will spout the right words to keep the rubes in order and the big businesses dozing. Yes, I am cynical but…
Looks like Yang voters are the ones that put Adams over the top.
I have read that he has some corruption issues that we might see in the general election.
I thought I had read that the Democrat powers that be wanted Garcia to win, and are not happy about Adams. But despite questions about Adams, he can hardly be worse for the city than De Blasio.
There were roughly 500,000 votes cast and “This was a ranked-choice vote, marked – and marred – by the erroneous (or purposeful) counting of 135,000 invalid “test” votes”.
Nah, there was no vote fraud in 2020!
Oops, my error. Total vote was 941,000.
But the “error” in test ballots uncleared from machines before the election shows how easily fraud is or can be accomplished…
I see I’m not the only one skeptical that Adams will be a change for the better. I’d love to be wrong but I suspect not.
Perhaps Adams will stress the need for more ‘sensitive’ training. Police can first act as councilors, lending an empathetic ear to criminals.
Hey! If first time criminals were offered a universal and ‘sustainable’ income, one tagged to inflation of course, they’d have no need to rob and steal… right?
Ranked choice voting schemes are the worst. A bad system designed by losers in hopes of turning themselves into winners. My issue? I don’t have a list of candidates longer than one for which I am willing to cast a vote. The more complicated you make it, the more open to fraud voting becomes. Which, I suspect, is the point.
Total vote was 941,000.
I believe there are around 5 million eligible voters in NYC, most of whom are registered Democrats. Granted it was only a primary, but since the CW is that it will determine the next mayor, it seems that around 20% of the electorate bothered to participate. That doesn’t show a lot of enthusiasm for this miserable crop of candidates.
It’s too early in the season to be casting aspersions at golems, but folks of good cheer and common sense will be stocking up on barcaloungers, beer, and popcorn.
Zaphod:
Folks of wisdom will already have stocked up on ammo.It’s coming!
So what happens if he really tries law&order?
What happens if he really tries law and order is that Godfather Chuck and his army of DA Bitches will eviscerate him 6 ways from Saturday.
Ranked choice voting schemes are the worst. A bad system designed by losers in hopes of turning themselves into winners.
They’re not, and they weren’t.
I believe there are around 5 million eligible voters in NYC, most of whom are registered Democrats. Granted it was only a primary, but since the CW is that it will determine the next mayor, it seems that around 20% of the electorate bothered to participate. That doesn’t show a lot of enthusiasm for this miserable crop of candidates.
The Census Bureau estimates there are 5.47 million citizens past their 18th birthday in the Five Boroughs. What’s interesting is that the state board of elections reports there are 5.586 million registered voters in the City, of whom 593,000 are ‘inactive’. So, they’re claiming 91% of the eligible population is registered and active. (About 70% were registered when I was active in local politics in Monroe County). IOW, there is almost certainly a 7 digit population of registrants who are not eligible, long gone, or bogus. It didn’t used to be that way. Monroe County’s population has increased by about 6% in the last 35 years, but the number of people registered to vote has increased by more than 80%. This is just appalling.
All but one of the candidates running in the Democratic primary for Manhattan DA were garbage candidates. The non-garbage candidate won 4.4% of the vote. The winner is a man who manifests the black population’s worst impulses.
“Granted it was only a primary, but since the CW is that it will determine the next mayor, it seems that around 20% of the electorate bothered to participate. That doesn’t show a lot of enthusiasm for this miserable crop of candidates.” – Jimmy
Voters are rational.
If they believe that the “fix” is already in to put the establishment preferred candidate over the top, why waste any time voting?
Now, we have to decide between John Fisher’s view that Adams is a Trojan Horse, or that Adams was an unexpected upset of the plan to elect Garcia.
“They’re not, and they weren’t.” – Art Deco
I suspect there is some reading behind your assertion; what’s the argument / study / article that persuaded you?
I lived in NYC in 1979 and was always happy to see the red berets of those Guardian Angels on the subway.
Sliwa is an interesting character. I was surprised to learn that he lives in a very small apartment (320 square feet, he says) with his wife and… 15 cats!!
I suspect there is some reading behind your assertion; what’s the argument / study / article that persuaded you?
See the work of Donald L Horowitz on the utility of the alternate vote. While you’re buttonholing me, you might ask the original poster to explain himself. (He won’t in any coherent way).
Again, the problem here is corrupt and incompetent elections administration. The preparation of the register, the criteria for approving the use of postal ballots, the distribution of postal ballots, the processing of such ballots on receipt, the sort of equipment purchased for tabulation, the ordering of the electoral calendar, the corporate organization of political parties, designation of candidates for ballot &c. It all needs improvement and some of it needs radical surgery. Instead of addressing the actual sources of the problem, you have people kvetching about ranked-choice.
“…Donald L Horowitz on the utility of the alternate vote” – Art Deco
Nothing came up directly from searching with that phrase, but I did find another article of his which was interesting.
https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1139&context=schmooze_papers
“The Rule of Law in Factionalized Societies”
I read through the Wikipedia article, but didn’t find what I was looking for, namely, what are the benefits ascribed to Alternative Voting, compared to having run-off elections; what are the downsides; and are they commensurate or lop-sided in one direction or the other? Most of the examples are from countries with more of a parliamentary system than the US has.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
The only constant to voting systems: no matter which one is used, somebody is going to be unhappy.
Three years ago, my eldest son was robbed at gunpoint in New Jersey, where he dwells just across the river from Manhattan. He’s not alone in this experience from supposedly gun free New Jersey. Whosoever becomes the new mayor of NYC, they will have to fix this little problem if they expect tourism to return post COVID.
I read through the Wikipedia article, but didn’t find what I was looking for, namely, what are the benefits ascribed to Alternative Voting, compared to having run-off elections;
The alternate vote allows each voter to declare his preferences in detail. The run-off election allows modal preference to constrain everyone else’s statement of preferences. That aside, with the alternate vote, you require only one popular ballot rather than two and the expression of preferences is not influenced by the vagaries of turnout in special elections.
First-past-the-post is a satisfactory system in (1) contests where there is a single victor and (2) you have only two candidates. If you’re 3d candidate is a negligible figure, as is commonly the case in American elections, 1st past the post will pass. The trouble is, it’s used for bloody everything in this country – for elections to courts, for seats on conciliar bodies from multi-member constituencies, in multi-candidate races &c. There isn’t any reason for that other than inertia.
The only constant to voting systems: no matter which one is used, somebody is going to be unhappy.
That’s true of any public policy you adopt.
Art Deco – Thanks for the reply.
“That’s true of any public policy you adopt.”
Indeed.