Southeast Queens voters contemplate crowded field for mayor
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Rochdale resident Michael Holley said he has yet to determine who he will vote for in the race for New York City mayor. Eagle photo by David Brand
By David Brand
One by one, shoppers stopped outside a Key Food in Rochdale Saturday morning to talk with Ray McGuire, the Wall Street executive running for New York City mayor.
And one by one, residents of the predominantly Black middle class community, well known for its reliably high voter turnout, walked away saying they were impressed by McGuire but had not yet decided who they will be backing in the Democratic primary.
“I’m open to listening to everybody,” said Michael Holley, an employee with the city’s public hospital system. “I’m going to give everyone a shot and hopefully when I go into the ballot box I’ll know what to do.”
With less than three months to go before Election Day, “undecided” leads the formal polls, as well as an informal canvass of voters outside a Rochdale shopping center and a popular church across the street. About 20 voters interviewed Saturday — teachers, city workers, retirees and unemployed New Yorkers looking to get back to work — said they did not yet know who they would pick to lead the city.
“A lot of people would know by now, but COVID took precedent,” said Jackie McFarlane, a District 75 teacher and member of the United Federation of Teachers.
To McFarlane, the most important issue is COVID safety inside schools. She and her friend Camilla Comrie, another teacher and UFT member, said they know only who they won’t choose: entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who has criticized the teachers union for delaying the resumption of in-person classes. “Once you come after us, we can’t support you,” Comrie said.
To Holley, the city worker leaving Key Food, there are several key issues for the next mayor to address: affordable rents, better local jobs and reliable public transportation.
“As you can see, once you get past Jamaica, there’s no subway here,” he said. “The buses out here are crowded. There’s something that has to be done.”
He said he wants to see businesses like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods set up shop in Southeast Queens. He also cares about public safety and ensuring an adequate number of cops in the area.
“The police are overworked,” he said, while standing in a parking lot a couple hundred feet from the 113th Precinct.
McGuire on Saturday discussed his opposition to “defunding” the police and said his business bonafides are proof he can jumpstart the local economy.
“I think of all the candidates out there who have created businesses, who have helped businesses grow, there is no one in this election who has a real life sense of what it takes to keep businesses and help them grow,” McGuire said as he walked from the grocery store to the church.
“It’s about time we get somebody in there who understands the language of the streets and the language of the suites,” he added.
McGuire, who is Black, grew up working class before earning multiple degrees from Harvard and rising to the top of Citigroup, where he became the longest-serving executive on Wall Street.
Several voters Saturday said those experiences have inspired them to learn more about the candidate filling their mailboxes with campaign literature.
“I read his bio and he seems grounded. He’s impressive,” McFarlane said. “But it feels too early right now.”
As election day approaches, McFarlane can expect to see more campaign stops from mayoral hopefuls like McGuire.
Candidates have continued to converge on Southeast Queens to court the voters so crucial in past elections.
“April is about persuasion,” said veteran political strategist Martha Ayon, who is working with two candidates for city council in Southeast Queens.
Ayon said she expects voters in the region will favor a Black candidate for mayor, like McGuire, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams or attorney Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio. New Yorkers tend to vote along ethnic and racial lines in Democratic primaries, but de Blasio, who is white, won most of Southeast Queens in the 2013 mayoral primary.
Ayon said the more moderate politics of Shaun Donovan, the white former Housing and Urban Development secretary, will appeal to voters, too.
“I think people can relate to Eric,” she said. “Ray, and Shaun, are these people we want our kids to grow up to be.”
She said she has heard residents describe McGuire, Adams and Wiley favorably while she petitioned for signatures on behalf of council candidates.
More often, though, she heard about issues and policies.
“I think what’s most emerging is what voters don’t want,” Ayon said. “Southeast Queens voters are conservative. They don’t want a candidate who isn’t talking about public safety, quality of life, housing.”
Michael Lambert, a political consultant from Queens Village, said voters are most familiar with Adams and still learning about McGuire and most of the other candidates.
“Lines in Southeast Queens are shaping up between who already knows Eric and the candidates who are trying to build new relationships in the neighborhood,” Lambert said.
Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, is well known in the district, but not very popular, he said. Yang has name recognition and is buoyed by “covert energy” among some voters in the area, Lambert added.
He said progressive Southeast Queens voters have gravitated to Wiley, who scored a major endorsement from the 1199SEIU labor union. But moderate residents are reluctant to pick her as their top choice for mayor, he said.
“The first thing everyone says is ‘Maya is brilliant.’ The second thing that everyone says is, ‘But she’s more left-leaning than Jumaane [Williams, the public advocate],’” Lambert said.
If voters are undecided, so too are most of the local elected officials. Or, rather, they’re not yet ready to tip their hands.
So far, three Southeast Queens lawmakers have endorsed three different candidates: Councilmember I. Daneek Miller is backing Adams, Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson is supporting Wiley, and Assemblymember Vivian Cook is stumping for McGuire.
Other leaders have yet to weigh in. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, State Sens. Leroy Comrie and James Sanders Jr., Assemblymembers Alicia Hyndman and Clyde Vanel and Councilmember Adrienne Adams have not made an endorsement.
Neither has Rep. Greg Meeks, chair of the Queens County Democratic Party.
The county party declined to endorse a candidate during a meeting last month, but Meeks said members would likely reconvene as Election Day nears.
Several people with ties to Meeks say he favors McGuire, and people close to the campaign expect him to back the Wall Street executive in the coming months. Democratic party members have said a McGuire endorsement would make sense after Meeks backed Michael Bloomberg, the moderate former mayor, for president last year. Meeks did not respond to requests for comment.
“Just read the tea leaves,” said one Democratic insider with ties to the county party.
But many political consultants and Democratic party members with Southeast Queens connections see Adams as the likely pick among most voters, particularly union members.
“They’re going with Eric,” said one consultant, who asked to remain anonymous because of their connections to various candidates.
Adams grew up in South Jamaica and frequently highlights his local roots in visits to the area. He has been laying the groundwork for his candidacy for several years and has attended events hosted by party leaders, like a July 2020 rally against gun violence in Roy Wilkins Park.
A few hours after McGuire’s visit to Rochdale Village, Adams was back in Queens too. He stopped by a supermarket in Cambria Heights before rallying with 32BJ union leaders and members in St. Albans. The union endorsed him earlier this month.
Miller, the councilmember in District 27, took the mic to praise Adams, a former cop who he said will fight foreclosures and foster respectful and responsive policing.
“We’re going to be true to somebody who has been true to us,” Miller said.
For the first time, however, voters won’t have to choose one single candidate in the large field.
Thanks to the new ranked-choice format, New Yorkers can select a handful of candidates who appeal to them.
Ayon said the results of a special election in Council District 31 show that local voters will likely use their ballots to rank several candidates. Selvena Brooks-Powers won a majority of the votes in that race after appearing as a second, third, fourth or fifth choice on more than 1,000 ballots.
“I think people will rank. The question is what are they going to do?” Ayon said.
