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Brian: The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This is our last show in the month of May, hope you all have a great three-day weekends coming up. One of the things we've done this month is interview all eight leading mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary on the theme of economic recovery from COVID meets economic justice. You can hear any of those segments on the Brian Lehrer Show webpage at wnyc.org, you'll see the Meet the Candidates button that will bring you to all three rounds of appearances really, by those candidates on the show this year.

I also was a co-moderator in the Republican primary debate this week, and some of you know and that's on our website too. Here's my last show in May question for you, New York City listeners. If you were undecided in the mayoral race on May 1st, where are you now on May 28th? 646-435-7280. Again, if you are undecided in the mayoral race on May 1st, where are you now on May 28th? 646-435-7280. Call us if you made up your mind at least on your first choice during the past month, or you can also call if you still haven't made up your mind.

It'll probably help other listeners even just to hear what has you conflicted at this point, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. In fairness to you who don't know who you'll vote for yet, undecided is still leading in the polls, ahead of the first tier of candidates, which now includes Andrew Yang, Eric Adams, and Kathryn Garcia. There is no shame in being undecided in such a crowded field. After you were probably exhausted by the 2020 presidential election, which we all were and which went on with all that drama and tragedy really through January 6th, and in a way beyond.

If you tuned out of electoral politics for a while, you've got a lot of company, and certainly, there's no shame in that, but now, here we are. Some of you already have your absentee ballots. Early voting in person begins June 12th, that's two weeks from tomorrow. Primary day itself is June 22nd, it's getting time to decide. If you are undecided in the mayoral race on May 1st, where are you now on May 28th? 646-435-7280. If you have picked a candidate, or if you want to just say out loud what's got you conflicted right now 646-435-7280.

If you'd rather do it in 280 characters you can tweet @BrianLehrer. Joining me now to help take your calls and give us the benefit of her ongoing great reporting on the race is WNYC and Gothamist Elizabeth Kim. Hi, Liz, thanks for coming back on the show.

Elizabeth Kim: Good morning, Brian.

Brian: We'll see what people have to say as they're making up their minds and as the calls come in. For my part, I want to touch on news involving four of the candidates during this segment. If we have the time and in among the phone calls, Andrew Yang, Catherine Garcia, Scott Stringer, and Dianne Morales, and I'm sure today many people want to know what's going on with the Morales campaign? It looks like some of her campaign staff is actually going on strike.

Elizabeth: Right. My colleague Brigid Bergin has been following Dianne Morales and she had a story late last night after speaking to Morales. At least eight people have left her campaign. Two senior staffers have quit, six have actually been fired, and basically, the issue is over workplace harassment. Now some of her workers are unionizing today, they're holding a rally at Bryant Park, and they plan to march to Dianne's campaign office in Midtown.

Her campaign is truly in a turmoil at this point, how does a candidate campaign when her staffers are basically waging a work stoppage? Like you said, we only have three weeks left, early voting starts on June 12th so this is going to be very challenging for her.

Brian: Is there precedent for unionized political campaigns? I don't know if you've had time to look into the history of this, I haven't, but these aren't ongoing workplaces, they're pop-ups for maybe a year or so while an election season is on. Have there been unionized campaigns before?

Elizabeth: That's not something that I know, but it's definitely something we were talking about because it seems as if this issue has suddenly exploded, we've been talking about workplace culture for a long time, but we haven't been talking about them in the context of political campaigns. If you think about it, campaigns are places where you think of the blurred lines between volunteers, interns, paid staffers, and these are all people who are working under tremendous pressure, and they typically work very long hours. It seems as if this reckoning in this type of sphere, it makes sense.

Brian: To that point, a question about the Scott Stringer campaign, because as most people know he lost a good number of high profile progressive supporters after Jean Kim went public with her allegation of sexual misconduct when she was a volunteer. She said intern, he said no adult volunteer, and she had a correct at least that much on his 2001 campaign. High-profile state senators like Jessica Ramos defected, Congressman Espaillat defected, the Working Families Party as an institution, which draws many Democratic primary votes and was a major, major supporter of Stringer had ranked him first and then dropped him.

I could go on down the list of other names, but I think people were expecting other shoes to drop. Other women would come forward with allegations as happened after the first Cuomo story emerged this year, 11 women now I believe. Also, people would come forward with corroboration. That hasn't happened, only the opposite from the progressive news site The Intercept which had unnamed sources, they were unnamed sources, but there were multiple apparently saying Miss Kim knew Stringer socially back in the '90s, and that they did have a casual consensual relationship.

Both of which backup Stringer's version and contradict Kim's. The headline of that story was that various of her claims unravel, so the truth is still unknown. The Intercept qualifies its story with the idea that it doesn't prove that the allegations are not true. My question for you as a reporter is, is anyone who dropped their endorsement or anyone else saying maybe they jumped to conclusions too fast on Scott Stringer?

Elizabeth: Well, I think what we do see is that a lot or many of his left-wing supporters have still not gone ahead and endorsed another individual. Someone like Jessica Ramos has been very open about saying that she felt that she could not endorse Scott Stringer, because it would be a distraction and what she feels is a very consequential election. At the same time, she says that she still believes that Scott Stringer is the most qualified person to be the mayor of New York City. That mixed message I think helps Scott Stringer stay in the race. He also has a lot of money. He's raised over $9 million, and the teachers union is still backing him. They're spending several million dollars helping him through a PAC.

Brian: All right, so that story, ongoing, the Morales story ongoing, we'll get to some of the other candidates with Elizabeth Kim from Gothamist, and WNYC News as we go. As we now start to take your calls if you were undecided in the mayoral race on May 1st, where are you now on May 28th? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Let's start with Ross in the East Village. Hi, Ross on WNYC.

Ross: Hi, Brian.

Brian: Where were you on May 1st, and where are you today?

Ross: I liked Andrew Yang on may 1st, but now I think I like Eric Adams.

Brian: What changed you?

Ross: Well, Eric Adams I liked from the past because I used to live in Brooklyn Heights. He used to come to the community meetings about the BQE reconstruction, but then I liked Andrew Yang's energy. Now I'd want somebody a little tougher on crime, I'm going to stick with Eric Adams for now and see what happens.

Brian: Thank you very much. Thanks for starting us off. We really appreciate it. Let's go next to Manny in Brooklyn. Hi, Minnie you're on WNYC.

Minnie: Hi, Brian. I was undecided. I was leaning towards Stringer, but my whole process evolved, first of all, eliminating people who I thought were really bad choices. I think that Yang is completely unqualified. He would be almost Trump-like in, "What's the latest shiny thing I should focus on?" He appears to be too closely aligned with Bradley Tusk who is a technocrat rich pulling the strings guy in the background. I just think yang would be a disaster at this moment I mean it would be a disaster anyway, but he'd be particularly a disaster now.

Adams is in my view much too closely aligned with developers and has some very questionable dealings in the past with both developers and with the IDC in Albany. I consider him to be a very very very bad choice. I was leaning towards Stringer, I was put off by the allegation, Jean Kim's allegation, but as you've said it's not a very clear-cut situation.

Stringer like everyone in these situations is entitled to due process which we don't have time for in this primary, but I don't consider her allegations to be sufficient to throw me off. As your guest quoted Jess Ramos was saying, he's clearly the most qualified person in the race. I am coming back to Stringer. I am planning to put Maya Wiley second because I like her positions the best.

I'm really disappointed to learn more about Dianne Morales who appears to be very much aligned with very wealthy people in the charter school movement who have been bankrolling her campaign and I was not aware of that. I think very few people were aware of that until some stories started coming out in the last few days about that. That also really put me off, I was planning to put her down as one of my choices, but I'm not anymore.

Kathryn Garcia, although I find her very uninspiring, I'm going to put her down third because she does seem to have some qualifications and she does seem to have some reasonable intentions. I certainly don't agree with her on everything, but she seems to have competence and at least an honesty that I don't see in some of the other candidates.

Brian: Thank you so much. We really appreciate your call and the level of detail that you're able to articulate about your thinking. Liz Kim, there was really so much in those first two calls, even just in Minnie's call that I want to follow up on a few of those things with you. First, she said it's come to light recently that Dianne Morales is being bankrolled in part by powerful people in the charter school movement. Do that to be true?

Elizabeth: There's been reporting that Dianne Morales has actually been involved in starting a charter school. From the beginning, she has said that her position on charter school it's not exactly black or white that she does feel in certain instances that a charter school can serve the needs of a community, but that certainly raises questions with more progressive less leaning voters who see charter schools as basically the privatization of public school education.

Brian: By the way, a couple of people tweeting about the question of precedent for unionizing campaigns. One listener writes, "Yes, Virginia campaigns have unions. Brad Lander as union staff and Bernie's campaign was union, a nascent area for organizing." Another listener also tweets about Bernie Sanders having had a unionized presidential campaign. There's at least some precedent for that apparently.

Let's see what else. Minnie also referenced Garcia as not being inspiring. Now, as she rises in the polls to basically tied for first and always with a disclaimer that polls are just snapshots in time, they're not predictions of who's going to win and in a crowded field like this and not a lot of money into the polling operations they're very imperfect, but there does seem to be something happening because it's happened in multiple polls.

With Kathryn Garcia on the way up, is that the challenge for her? If we look at her and Andrew Yang as opposite candidates, a lot of people find him inspiring, even though they talk about the gigantic holes in his knowledge. A lot of people respect the gigantic knowledge base that Kathryn Garcia has, but is her campaign maybe going to rise or fall now on whether she can be an inspiring politician as well as a competent one?

Elizabeth: Those two candidates are very interesting foils for one another. I think in the beginning Andrew Yang drew a lot of interest because he was seen as this very optimistic cheerleader for the city and that was something that the city would need for its recovery, but because of some of his gaffes I think that a lot of voters are starting to think about competency and who's a good manager and she did, after all, receive the endorsement from the New York Times and Daily News editorial boards.

People are now giving her a harder look and that's very interesting. Typically, it's interesting as Minnie said she's not inspiring. Typically, you think about mayoral races being about a contest of sweeping visions. That's not Garcia. Garcia is your nuts and bolts government official, but she has managed more than 10,000 people in city government and no one else on the campaign kit can say that.

Brian: Another listener, apparent Garcia supporter tweets, "The listener had some good points, but uninspiring Garcia has the most hands-on experience in handling million-dollar budgets large teams and tackling huge challenges." At least that listener does find that inspiring. It's all, of course, in the eye of the beholder in a political campaign. Chris in Greenpoint you're on WNYC. Hi, Chris.

Chris: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Elizabeth. I guess I'm the opposite of the prompts for this call in that at the beginning of the month I was pretty much all in for Dianne Morales. With the events the past couple of days I feel like I don't know who to vote for at all. I'm so uninspired by the candidates.

I can't believe that in eight years this is the best we came up with out of this city. I think Minnie covered-- Did a very good job on covering most of the candidates, but I don't feel inspired to vote for anyone at all. I will. I was excited for rank choice voting. Now I just feel kind of like not sure who to rank number one or if I'll even have a number two.

Brian: Chris still undecided on May 28th. Listeners, we're taking your calls in this segment here on our last show in the month of May. If you were undecided in the New York City mayoral primary on May 1st where are you now? In our last show in the month of May on May 28th 646-435-7280. Our lines are full, but Chris's line is opening up there as his call just ended. You can tweet us @BrianLehrer, name the candidate who you're now leaning toward more than you were at the beginning of the month, or like Chris just did talk about why you are still undecided. There is no shame in that. Amy in Harlem you're on WNYC. Hi, Amy. Thanks for calling in.

Amy: Thanks. I guess I feel like I was undecided at the beginning of the month and I'm still somewhat undecided, but my plan is Maya Wiley first because she probably-- Well, actually Dianne Morales maybe even more so, but both of them are probably closest to my views to really liberal. I think Dianne Morales has effectively taken herself out of the race. Maya Wiley and then I think I'm going to rank Kathryn Garcia second because I think she is really competent.

I think she would actually be a good mayor. I don't share all of her views, but she's certainly okay. Still, I guess Scott Stringer probably third. Then, I guess, Ray McGuire. Eric Adams who I had really liked at the beginning, I liked him as a borough president, and the more I found out about his ties with real estate developers and serious pro-cop attitude I was really put off, but I definitely [crosstalk]

Brian: For now let me jump in and follow up on it. Thank you for your thoughtfulness. Let me follow up on a couple of things that you said. You're the second caller in a row to say you respect Garcia's competence, but you don't agree with her on all the issues. Can you give me an example of one of those?

Amy: No, I'm pretty hardcore liberal and the city has those like "meet your mayor" quiz things and you fill out all these questions that I always match with Morales and Wiley. Kathryn Garcia is not a hardcore liberal, but I think she'd be a good mayor.

Brian: Amy, thank you for your call. Thank you for all of those. Elizabeth Kim, you want to follow up on that when people are saying Kathryn Garcia is not as liberal as some of the other candidates. Is it clear what they're referring to?

Elizabeth: Yes, she's a moderate. Kathryn Garcia is not going to defund the police when it comes to something like handling or addressing desegregating the city schools. She's in favor of removing admission screens for three-year-olds at the middle school level, but not at the high school level. That's a position that you can also describe as moderate. She's not taking real estate money, but at the same time she has said that she does not feel that the industry deserves to be demonized in any way and she's willing to work with the industry.

Those are all positions in which it's fair to categorize her as a moderate. Liberals are facing this very interesting conflict because you can see in Amy's voice that she's already conflicted because no, Kathryn Garcia is not hardcore liberal, but she's competent. That's a very interesting question because we're at a crisis point now. I think people are having to make a certain trade-off like, "This person may not represent my ideology, but maybe this person might be the best one to help deliver the services that can bring the city back." That's a tough question for I think a lot of New York City voters who tend to be very ideological

Brian: It's interesting to watch our Twitter feed go by now because a lot of the Twitter feed is turning out to be people reacting to what some of the callers are saying on the air. Here's one that says, "How does the call a reconcile calling Garcia uninspiring while ranking Stringer number one? When did Stringer become Obama?" These are coming in from many points of view and we will continue with Elizabeth Kim from Gothamist and WNYC News. More of your calls on if you were undecided in the mayoral race on May 1st, where are you now on May 28th? Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we're taking your calls on the question, if you were undecided in the New York City mayoral race on May 1st where are you now on May 28th? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Helping us fill in the gaps in our knowledge is Elizabeth Kim who's doing such a great job covering the race for Gothamist and WNYC News. Let me digress for just a second because listeners and Liz you can help us with this too, today's the last day to register to vote in New York City for next month's primaries, you can download a registration form.

You can't register online, but you can download a registration form and get it postmarked by today or you can deliver one in person to the board of elections office in your borough if you want to seek that out and find it. Remember since this is a primary that you're registering in time for, don't forget to register in a political party. Only registered Democrats can vote in a Democratic primary and et cetera for the other parties. If you are already registered to vote in New York, what you cannot do is change parties today.

It's too late for that, but if you're not registered at all you can register to vote by today and choose a party if you want to vote in these primaries the mailing address that I have if you want to take this down real quick, if you want to download the registration form and then drop it in the mail. The citywide one is Board of Elections 32 Broadway seventh floor New York, New York 10004. Board of Elections 32 Broadway seventh floor New York, New York 10004. Liz, anything to add to that about this registration deadline?

Liz: No, I think that's really important that you gave that information

Brian: There are-- I do have it here. Let's see if I have it here. I don't. It would take too long anyway. It would be too boring, but there are addresses. There's one location as I see it in each borough. There's that one in lower Manhattan. There's one in forest Hills. There's one on the Grand Concourse. You'd have to look up the exact addresses if you actually want to go and deliver your last-day registration in person before they close today. Certainly, the easier way is to just see that address and drop it in the mail in time to get a postmark for today. There you go on that. Jake in Park Slope you're on WNYC. Hi, Jake.

Jake: Hey, Brian? Hey, Liz? How are you guys doing? Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I've been going back and forth, I think the fact that we have so many choices among the candidates and you can rank them makes it harder, but I've been looking at a few factors and I like the fact that if I can pick a few I'd be happy with whoever wins. Adams to me has a lot of baggage with being registered Republican and things like that, but he's a diverse voice and we need that in city hall right now I think more than ever.

I've looked at that as a plus factor if you will not a deciding factor. Second for me would be probably Garcia. Some of the other callers commented that-- This is what I told your screener, I think she's a good city manager. If you want the streets plowed, if you want the garbage picked up, she's the woman for that. Third from me now would be Stringer and that's an ideological plus factor for me.

I just align more with him ideologically. The allegations notwithstanding, I think those need to be looked into. That's a difficult thing, I may have to revisit that, but I look at those plus factors. There's Adams with the diversity, Garcia with the competency, and Stringer with the ideology and that's how I've been looking at it so far.

Brian: Jake really helpful. Thank you very much. Let's go to Anna in Stuy town, Stuyvesant town lower Eastside Manhattan. You're on WNYC, Anna, hi.

Anna: Hi, good morning. I was undecided in early May, but however, the New York Times endorsement clean slate for me for Kathy Garcia because I knew all along I wanted a manager, somebody who would know what to do to run a big city. For this reason, of course, somebody like Andy Yang was out of the question. We saw what happened with Trump having somebody who has no idea what he was doing for the job.

We don't want to repeat that in New York City. Adams, I consider him. I didn't know very much about him, but his pro-gun position really disturbed me. When I heard the comment that he was planning to carry a weapon in city hall, that cleans it for me there is no question I'm going to support this man. I think Kathy will be a good manager, she knows the job and it's an advantage, we're going to have a woman running the city. A qualified woman what more can we ask? I am considering Maya Wiley and Stringer for two and three, but that's how far I'm going to go. I'm not going to go down the whole slots, there's no point there.

Brian: Anna thank you so much for that. No matter where they land this is not an endorsement of any candidate in any way, but we're getting such thoughtful callers who've thought through their choices and have all these various criteria. Really, really interesting. Liz, about the Kathryn Garcia campaign, several callers have now mentioned the New York Times endorsement and with her rising basically to a tie for first in the polls, since the times endorsement came out a few weeks ago at the time people tended to say the Times endorsement doesn't matter as much anymore. Do you think it has actually mattered a lot now in this race, or are there bigger factors in Garcia coming on strong?

Elizabeth: I think it has mattered because, first of all, as a lot of the callers have mentioned, it's a very large field. There are eight leading candidates. I believe there'll be 13 on the Democratic ballot. When you have such a large field-- Voters are being asked to do a lot. They're not just being asked to choose one they're asking to choose as many as five and they have to do a lot of research. What happens in a race like this is an organization or even an individual that has influenced like the New York Times that endorsement can mean more than in a typical year where maybe you just have a handful of candidates. You see that. It's offering some clarity at a moment where voters really need that.

Brian: When the last caller talked about Adams being pro-gun certainly he has said that he would carry his own gun. He's a former police officer. He has a licensed weapon presumably. That he would carry his own gun in city hall for protection, but is he "Pro-gun" in the way we think of NRA positions and things like that?

Elizabeth: No, he's not pro-gun in that respect. Adams has been known to make some controversial comments. I guess you can say he later clarified that comment to say that he would only carry a gun if he felt there was an immediate threat to him. I think the damage was already done because it was very disturbing for a lot of New Yorkers to hear that the mayor of New York City was going to be armed.

Brian: Steve in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Steve.

Steve: Hi, thanks for taking my call. In May I was definitely undecided, but I think I was being driven by the need to stop two candidates, one Andrew Yang, and two Eric Adams. I think a lot of the callers have discussed some of my concerns with Adams, but I want to raise one more, which is with my experience dealing with Borough Hall both personally and previously professionally. Borough Hall under a Borough President Adams is not well run.

I have concerns that if the Borough president can't run a 90 person office with a budget in the single-digit millions, that person's really not going to be qualified to run the city of New York. I think Yang is just manifestly unqualified for this job. A cheerleader is great, but right now I don't want to cheerleader running my city. I think I want someone like Kathryn Garcia, who actually knows what's going on, can run the city, has run much of the city.

Right now I'm not being driven by ideology. I think the last eight years, while there have been tons of de Blasio successes, especially UPK, PK, the ideology I think has gotten in the way of actually managing things and that's been an issue for me. Right now I'm heavily leaning towards Garcia, but my two and three, I really don't know. I think the caller from Stuy Town, four and five are not really an issue for me. I just want to figure out how to stop Adams and Yang and I would really want to figure out how to [unintelligible 00:33:40] Garcia to be mayor.

Brian: Steve, thank you very much. On the strategy of that, Liz, no matter who the candidate is that an individual supports, if they really feel strongly about their number one, should they not engage in rank choice voting and list two, three, four, five, and listeners, quick little rank choice voting reminder. You don't have to list more than one candidate. If you do, you don't have to list as many as five. You can just list two or three, but you don't have to do rank choice at all beyond choosing one candidate. Is there a strategy that the rank choice voting experts tell people to follow if they're really determined to get their number one candidate in?

Elizabeth: The risk of just doing what they call bullet voting, which is just voting for one candidate means that it's very possible that your ballot might not count if that candidate doesn't make it very far to the last decisive rounds. That's actually not going to be very helpful in terms of, I think, making your opinions heard on this very consequential race. Then, we know that in rank choice voting the number two choices, the number two, and the number three choices matter. If your first-place candidate gets eliminated, your second choices will then be redistributed to the remaining candidates who are still alive. That's a really good compelling reason to at least consider ranking your top three.

Brian: Just as a matter of political analysis with our selection of callers here today having mentioned Garcia many times and listeners, if you know this show, you know that we say when we do call-ins like this that this is an informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific Brian Lehrer Show calling call-in poll. We just have 10 lines, we have a relatively handful of people who even get to have a voice. It's a little bit random in terms of who gets through. It certainly doesn't represent the electorate, but a number of people in this call-in, which we're now going to wrap up, have cited Garcia, either as a number one or a number two. You did a story, didn't you Liz recently how Kathryn Garcia hopes to ride rank choice voting to city hall?

Elizabeth: Right. We've heard it through your callers. Andrew Yang and Eric Adams tend to be kind of polarizing figures. We've heard many callers who have said that they're considering Kathryn Garcia for if not the first spot, the second or third spot, so that can catapult her to victory. If she gets enough number twos and number threes and if enough voters don't rank Andrew Yang and Eric Adams on their ballot at all. She does have this like very surprising path to victory that I don't think any experts could have predicted earlier in the race.

Brian: For what it's worth very unscientific sample thoroughly and scientific sample, but Garcia is rocking our board this morning, I got to say. Right now eight out of 10 of the people who are holding on who we're not going to get to would be ranking Kathryn Garcia first. If it indicates anything, Liz, it least indicates that there's a group of people out there who've recently gotten passion for Kathryn Garcia.

Elizabeth: Right. She's doing this without a lot of money. That by itself says something she's not a conventional candidate.

Brian: I should say somewhere in their top three, the eight out of 10, not necessarily first. I don't want to overplay what I'm seeing on the board as I'm gazing through the short summaries and these 10 boxes really quickly. Yes, at least in their top three. Eight of the 10 are mentioning her right now. We're going to leave it there. This goes on. Listeners we're going to continue covering the race most days or maybe every day between now and June 22nd, and we'll keep helping you make up your minds.

You can listen to our meet the candidates segments. We've done three rounds with the candidates for the Democratic primary this year on the show. Those are all at the meet the candidates button on the Brian Lehrer Show page at wnyc.org. You can also go to gothamist.com click on the link called Election 2021 to see Liz Kim and her colleagues' great campaign coverage. We leave it there for now. Liz, thanks a lot. I have a feeling we'll talk once or twice between now and June 22nd.

Elizabeth: Yes, I hope so. Thanks, Brian.

 

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