By MATT HIRSCH
With Election Day rapidly approaching, and thousands of early votes for Mayor already cast, New Yorkers are waiting and watching.
About 72,500 early votes have already been tallied, per the New York City Board of Elections, Democratic nominee Eric Adams sits firmly in the lead with 61 percent of likely voters, compared to Republican contender Curtis Sliwa’s 25 percent, according to a recent Emerson College poll.
The Mayoral candidates met for their final pre-election debate on Tuesday. The hottest topic was crime, an issue that 34 percent of voters said should be the incoming Mayor’s top priority, according to the Emerson College poll. Shootings nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 in NYC, rising from 650 incidents to 1,271 according to NYPD Compstat. In 2021, there have already been 1,298 shootings.
Adams criticized — up to a point — “stop and frisk,” the Bloomberg-era policy that was declared unconstitutional because it disproportionately targeted minorities. “In this city, we had a predetermined number (of stops) that we were telling officers to do every day, and they were targeting black and brown communities,” said Adams, a retired New York City Police Department captain who during his policing years was strongly critical of many policing policies.
“That is an abuse of a tool. A tool that is abused is no longer a tool, it’s a weapon.”
Adams thinks officers should still, however, have wide latitude in protecting the public and being able to reduce violent crime in the city;
Sliwa, for his part, lashed out at Adams, saying Adams has met with “gang leaders with bodies,” a slang term for those who murder. Adams has expressed disgust with Sliwa’s attacks on him and has refused to engage directly with Sliwa in debates. Sliwa during the Tuesday debate said he believed stop and frisk should be used on known gang members.
Other important positions on the ballot this coming Tuesday are Manhattan District Attorney and Brooklyn District Attorney. Both offices play significant roles in tackling crime in the city.
Running for Manhattan DA are Democrat Alvin Bragg, who served as Chief Deputy Attorney General, and is projected to win the election, and Republican Thomas Kenniff, a veteran of the Iraq war who served as U.S. Army Judge Advocate General. Of note, the incoming Manhattan DA will continue the prosecution of former President Donald Trump’s company and continue the tax fraud investigation into Trump himself.
Notably, incumbent Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez is running unopposed.
In addition to the Mayoral and District Attorney races, a special election for New York State Senator for District 30, which encompasses most of northern Manhattan, will also be held. It will fill ex-State Senator Brian Benjamin’s seat. The seat was vacated after Benjamin was appointed Lieutenant Governor by Governor Kathy Hochul.
The candidates in that Senate race include: Democratic nominee Cordell Cleare, who served as the Chief of Staff for Senator Bill Perkins from 2006 to 2016; Republican nominee Oz Sultan; and independent Shana Harmongoff, who represents Hope For New York, a nonsecular organization that raises funds for non-profit charities across New York City.
The position of New York City Comptroller is also up for grabs. The Comptroller oversees city’s finances and will play a pivotal role in Gotham’s economic recovery.
Running for the office of Comptroller are Brad Lander, who won the Democratic primary election and served as councilman for District 39 in Park Slope, Brooklyn; Republican Daby Carreras; Conservative Party member Paul Rodriguez, a Wall Street stockbroker; and Libertarian John Tobacco, a financial analyst who has regularly appeared on Newsmax.
That seat is being vacated by failed mayoral candidate Scott Stringer, who is term limited and cannot run for it again.