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Public advocate race was popular for candidates, if not for voters

Public advocate race was popular for candidates, if not for voters
Public advocate race was popular for candidates, if not for voters

NEW YORK — There were so few voters at the normally busy Public School 163 on the Upper West Side on Tuesday that the Manhattan borough president, Gale A. Brewer, and Jumaane D. Williams, the Brooklyn councilman she endorsed for public advocate, realized they were in need of a higher-traffic location.

They quickly decamped to the subway station at West 96th Street and Broadway, to shake hands, hand out flyers and remind people of the special election that Williams, along with 16 other candidates, was participating in.

“When I vote in the morning, there are usually 100 or more people who voted before me. Today, there were 28,” Ms. Brewer said. “This is going to be a low-turnout election.”

That was clear from the moment Mayor Bill de Blasio called a special, nonpartisan election in the middle of winter to fill the seat vacated by Letitia James when she was elected New York state attorney general.

Whatever the turnout, the race to become the city’s public advocate has been an unpredictable, quirky and expensive contest.

By the time polls were to close at 9 p.m., the city Board of Elections was looking at spending upward of $15 million to stage an election that is expected to draw one of the lowest voter turnouts in city history. The Campaign Finance Board delivered $7.1 million in matching funds to candidates — twice the amount of the office’s $3.5 million budget, for a position that some people have called to be abolished.

So why all the fuss?

The position serves as an ombudsman to the city, and is second in line to succeed a mayor departing before the end of their term. It is also seen as a launching pad to higher office; de Blasio went from being public advocate to becoming mayor. So winning this citywide election, even a low turnout one, could make the winner an instant contender for City Hall.

“I would call this race an education in New York City civics,” said a Democratic political strategist, Lupe Todd-Medina. “It had money, politics and sex. It’s a case study.”

At times, the contest was a referendum on de Blasio’s policies, the state of the city’s subways and a failed plan for Amazon to build a campus in Long Island City. And in the campaign’s final days, Williams’s decade-old arrest after an argument with his girlfriend at the time also came into play.

Candidates have also made an issue of the lack of racial and gender diversity among the city’s leadership; in a remarkable display of diversity not normally seen in city elections, 12 of the 17 candidates are women or minorities, including one of the perceived front-runners, Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former City Council speaker.

Although Mark-Viverito, who posted a picture of herself on Twitter voting in relative solitude, enjoyed more name recognition than many of her opponents, the election was the first test of her citywide appeal.

Williams, who ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, said that the voters he met with Tuesday did not raise the issue of the past arrest. The charges in that case were dropped and the case was sealed.

Indeed, some people who spoke with Williams brought up his other arrests, during protests of issues such as criminal justice reform. And he met a man who served as a juror on his trial for blocking an ambulance during an immigrants rights protest. Williams was found guilty of disorderly conduct and sentenced to time served.

“I want to leave it to people’s judgment,” Williams said. “And people’s judgment is telling them that there’s nothing there.”

The candidates consisted of multiple City Council members blocked from running for their seats again by term limits and state Assembly members looking for a bigger stage. Other hopefuls included activists, lawyers and first-time candidates.

“The low turnout will favor those who already have a base,” said Todd-Medina. “So if you are already in elected office, that fares well for you.”

The large number of Democrats in the race could also help one of two Republicans in the race: Erich Ulrich, a councilman from Queens, who held positions contrary to most candidates in the race.

He was an unabashed supporter of the Amazon deal, is against congestion pricing and not in favor of closing the Rikers Island jail complex. He criticized de Blasio more vocally than his fellow candidates, and also obtained the endorsement of the city’s two tabloid newspapers.

“He’s the one to watch,” Todd-Medina said about Ulrich, “because there are so many Democrats in this race.”

With de Blasio openly flirting with a run for the Democratic nomination for president, the public advocate role may be more important than people know, said Jeanne Zaino, a professor of political science at Iona College.

“Any time you see a mayor eyeing something bigger on the horizon, this is a natural position from which you will get a major candidate,” she said. “That’s why it’s sad that there is not more interest in this race and higher turnout.”

The good news for those who missed out on voting? The winner is only guaranteed to hold the seat for 10 months. Petitioning started Tuesday for a June primary that will be followed by a general election in November, to fill the remainder of James’ term, which ends in 2021.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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