Just a day before voters get their last chance to select New York City’s next mayor, the top four contenders continued to trade punches over ranked-choice voting, with Eric Adams taking to the airwaves to attack rivals Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia for campaigning together in the race’s homestretch.
Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, appeared Monday morning on CNN to reiterate the kinds of criticisms he and his surrogates leveled over the weekend when they decried the last-minute alliance as aimed at disenfranchising Black voters.
Adams would not go as far as his surrogates, who’ve said that the Yang-Garcia alliance amounted to an attempt at voter suppression, but he refused to close the door on such rhetoric Monday.
“It sent the wrong signal and the wrong message,” Adams said of the ranked-choice alliance. “I can say this: that African-Americans are very clear on voter suppression. We know about a poll tax. We know about the fight that we’ve had historically — how you had to go through hurdles to vote. And so they feel based on their perception that it suppressed the vote, then I respect their feelings. It’s not for me to interpret their feelings.”
During a campaign event in Bensonhurst, Yang said Adams and his supporters were engaging in “race-baiting.”
“It’s hard to characterize people getting out the vote as anything other than positive. We need people to make their voices heard. We need people to express their preferences for more than one candidate,” the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate said when asked about Adams’ remarks. “I have a hard time seeing where he’s coming from. I will say that the last thing New York City needs is a mayor who uses race-baiting any time he is criticized.”
Source: NYC mayoral contenders clash and campaign one day before election
