Here’s Everyone Running for New York City Mayor (So Far)
Thirty-five and counting.
By
Caroline Spivack
Photo: Getty Images, Shutterstock
Are you running for mayor? No? You may be unique: More than six months before the primaries in June, the race is already brimming with candidates. Some 30 New Yorkers have filed campaign paperwork — ranging from career politicians to total newcomers — and several more are exploring bids for City Hall. Over the coming months, prepare yourself for a barrage of campaign speeches, debates, mailers, and ads from most, if not all, of these aspirants.
The Contenders
Scott Stringer
Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
Age: 60
Current job: City comptroller
Résumé high points: He represented the Upper West Side in the state assembly, then served as Manhattan borough president before he was elected as the city’s fiscal watchdog in 2013.
Pet issues: More than pushing for one big idea, Stringer has advocated for an array of causes like affordable housing, gun control, women’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, and campaign-finance reform. Lately it’s felt like his chief purpose in life is to
dunk on de Blasio, calling the mayor out with lawsuits, reports, and press releases for botched programs and initiatives.
Positioning: Steady moderate progressivism. He’s attempting to appeal to Democrats seeking an experienced politician while also looking for votes from the party’s progressive wing.
Controversies: Stringer has taken some heat for his record of approving large real-estate projects like Hudson Yards and the expansion of NYU’s campus.
Eric Adams
Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP/Shutterstock
Age: 60
Current job: Brooklyn borough president
Résumé high points: Adams, who entered politics after a 22-year career with the NYPD, co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care while he was an officer, a group that spoke out against police brutality from inside the force. (He himself was beaten by cops as a teenager.) In 2006, he was elected to the State Senate, repping neighborhoods such as Crown Heights, Brownsville, and Park Slope for four terms before becoming borough president in 2013.
Pet issues: While serving as the cheerleader-in-chief for Brooklyn, he has cultivated a reputation as a champion for immigrant communities and the needs of small businesses, and has been unabashedly pro-development — adapting former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill” line into his “Build, baby, build” mantra.
Positioning: As a former cop, he has nuanced views on police reform and can perhaps build a coalition of Black New Yorkers and more conservative white voters. His platform so far has zeroed in on public safety and revitalizing the economy.
What work-life balance? He literally lives at the office. During the early days of the pandemic, Adams set up
a makeshift crash pad at Brooklyn Borough Hall, sleeping on a mattress in front of his desk and schlepping in some fitness gear and his NutriBullet blender to make his
much-discussed morning smoothie.
Maya Wiley
Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Women’s Foundation
Age: 56
Latest job: Senior vice-president of social justice and professor of urban policy at the New School
Résumé high points: She’s a former top counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio and is a onetime civil-rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She’s also the former chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the body that weighs claims of misconduct against NYPD officers. She also gained a national reputation as a political and legal analyst for MSNBC.
Pet issues: Combating systemic racism and police brutality are her bread and butter.
Positioning: Wiley announced her exploration of a bid for mayor three months after the killing of George Floyd in May, and has positioned herself, a Black woman, as an avatar for addressing the city’s racial and economic inequities.
Allies: Wiley has received what is probably the only coveted Trump bump in the mayoral race: Mary Trump, who wrote a tell-all about her uncle, hosted an online fundraiser for Wiley earlier this month.
Shaun Donovan
Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP/Shutterstock
Age: 54
Latest job: Senior strategist to the president of Harvard University
Résumé high points: Donovan was secretary of Housing and Urban Development and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, and was the administration’s point man for Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts. In New York, he was commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.
Pet issues: Donovan has already put climate change at the core of his bid for mayor, issuing
a lengthy policy plan that seeks to double down on the city’s environmental policies. As the city’s biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions, new construction and how buildings are operated would see a spate of environmentally friendly changes under that plan.
Design cred: He did a stint as an architect in Italy and has an M.A. in architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
Kathryn Garcia
Photo: Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Age: 50
Latest job: New York City Sanitation commissioner under Mayor de Blasio
Résumé high points: Garcia has worn many hats in the de Blasio administration aside from her day job of overseeing trash and snow clearing: She was tasked with leading the city’s efforts to abate lead-paint exposure in children, named the interim chair and CEO of the New York City Housing Authority for part of 2019, and also served as the city’s emergency “food czar” this year to combat food insecurity for New Yorkers during the pandemic.
Pet issues: She’s credited with big reforms to the city’s sanitation system, such as overseeing an overhaul to the chaotic private carting industry (though the rollout of that new system has been delayed by COVID-19), as well as the creation of a curbside electronics-waste-disposal program and an expansion of composting.
Positioning: She’s casting herself as the “crisis manager” that New York City needs during its pandemic recovery.
A unique family: Garcia is adopted and comes from a diverse family; her parents also adopted her brother and another daughter, who are both Black, in addition to having a biological daughter.
Ray McGuire
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for The Jackie Robinson Foundation
Age: 63
Latest job: Vice-chair of Citigroup
Résumé high points: McGuire is a total newcomer to city politics. In order to run, he’s leaving his position as one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street.
Pet issues: He’s used his position to advocate on racial-justice issues within the corporate world and
has called on executives to do more in combating systemic racism.
Positioning: He’s counting on being seen as a financial expert who can steer the city out of a fiscal crisis, and not as a player in a banking system that has heightened economic inequality.
Where he spends his money: McGuire is a major collector of work by Black artists. He and his wife, Crystal McCray, are
among the top 200 art collectors in the world ranked by
ARTnews.
Loree Sutton
Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for David Lynch Foundation
Age: 61
Latest job: New York City Veterans’ Services commissioner under de Blasio
Résumé high points: The retired brigadier general served as the Army’s highest-ranking psychiatrist. She did a tour in Egypt and also served in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Back in New York, Sutton played a key role in growing the Mayor’s Office of Veterans’ Affairs into a full-blown city department under de Blasio.
Pet issues: She is an advocate for military veterans, with a particular focus on homelessness and boosting mental-health services.
Positioning: Sutton, who opposes defunding the police, is banking on attracting moderate Democrats and seeks to embrace business interests that have felt ignored as de Blasio has focused on underserved communities.
The proposal: Sutton proposed to her now-wife, Laurie Leitch, at the Pride Parade in 2015.
Zach Iscol
Photo: Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images for The Headstrong
Age: 42
Latest job: Founder and CEO of digital media company
Grid North Group
Résumé high points: Iscol is a Marine Corps veteran turned entrepreneur. He co-founded and served as the former chairman of the Headstrong Project, a nonprofit providing mental-health services for veterans, and also started Task & Purpose, a military-focused digital media company. He was also deputy director of the temporary hospital at the Javits Center this spring.
Pet issues: Supporting military veterans is his chief cause.
Positioning: He’s probably the most moderate of the candidates, and like Sutton, also seeks to attract middle-of-the road Democrats.
Associated glamour: He’s married to Meredith Melling, a former editor at
Vogue who’s considered one of the most influential women in the fashion industry.