Closing in on the New York City Mayoral Race
Photo via Allison Meier/Flickr
By Izabella Packer
The mayoral race in New York City typically generates excitement, especially as election day approaches. However, this year’s mayoral race feels a bit sleepy.
This may be in part because of the lack of interest among younger voters in the campaign.
A recent CrowdWisdom post claims that while Republican Curtis Sliwa’s campaign has been garnering more attention than Democrat Eric Adams’, it is still highly unlikely that he will become the city’s next mayor.
As of October 25th, Adams held a forty-point lead in polling over Sliwa. While Adams will rack up large margins in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Central Brooklyn, Sliwa will carry only a few neighborhoods in South Brooklyn and Queens.
In the spring, Democratic voters raced to vote for their favored candidate in the primary. Adams narrowly prevailed over Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, and trounced more familiar political figures including Andrew Yang and Scott Stringer.
Out of five St. Joseph’s College students interviewed, just two – a sophomore who has not yet declared a major and a first-year student majoring in biology – were voting. These two students had chosen to vote for Adams, and had based their decisions mainly on his party alignment.
Charity, the biology major, also likes Adams’ call for more affordable housing. “I don’t know much about it,” she began, “but from what I’ve heard, I really like his opinion on housing, and what he wants to do.”
As explained on his campaign website, Adams intends to implement aggressively affordable housing plans with the intention of lessening the burden that paying rent can pose as well as hopefully prevent the homeless population from growing exponentially.
Although housing is one of Adams’ most-popular policies, the hardships faced by city residents will increase as federal relief efforts amid the pandemic (the eviction moratorium, the stimulus, additional food stamps, and unemployment) begin to stop.
Sliwa doesn’t seem to be generating much excitement among SJC students. But one of his proposed solutions for housing focuses on improving conditions in NYCHA, and he’s also calling for expanded workforce training for public housing residents.
In the recent debates, neither Sliwa or Adams emphasized their housing policies. Rather, they mainly spoke about vaccination mandates for school students and police reform.
Policies like these did not interest any of the five young voters interviewed, and it’s doubtful that New York City will see a large number of young voters this year.