What NYC’s Voters Really Want: It’s Not What AOC and Other Uber-Progressives Would Have You Believe
In 2017, after winning a landslide reelection as mayor, Bill de Blasio hailed the “beginning of an era of progressive Democratic administrations.” The next year, a bartender named Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez upset a congressional bigwig, sending dictionary searches for the word “socialism” soaring by more than 1,500%. Her fellow progressives rode the wave, upsetting politicians from Albany to the Bronx, and setting their sites on the mayorship. “I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to have an outsized influence on who our next mayor is going to be,” declared progressive state Sen. Jessica Ramos.
But nothing is inevitable in politics. A Manhattan Institute poll released Monday shows that while Maya Wiley, AOC’s handpicked endorsee, is surging, most long-time frontrunners in the crowded race for mayor are moderate Democrats, rather than progressives. These findings coincide with deep turmoil in the progressive lane, which has begun to resemble the “world’s most inclusive circular firing squad.”
A second Manhattan Institute poll, released Tuesday, homes in on specific issues that drive voters’ decisions — and the results offer an even starker contrast to the loftiest of progressive predictions. In the face of rising crime, last year’s calls to “defund the police” have become tone-deaf. Instead, issues like public safety and economic recovery are top-of-mind. New Yorkers want safer neighborhoods, better places to call home and more options for a good education.
New York City’s violent crime spike is hitting low-income and minority neighborhoods the hardest: places like Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Harlem and the South Bronx. The number of shooting victims is up 300% in Brownsville over the past two years. According to our survey, New Yorkers are taking note. More than half of New York voters rate public safety and crime rates as “poor” or “very poor”; more than half cite “public safety and crime rates” at the top of their to-do list for the next mayor, including many self-identifying progressives; and nearly half of respondents said they’d prefer a larger police presence in their neighborhood than what currently exists. In addition, more than seven in 10 registered voters, including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, support empowering cops to be more responsive to quality-of-life issues.
The candidates appear to be listening: “The truth is that New York City cannot afford to defund the police,” said Andrew Yang after a shooting in Times Square. Meanwhile, Eric Adams is calling for a community policing model and relaunching the NYPD anti-crime unit, which specialized in getting guns off the streets.
Next to public safety and crime, the economy and housing were two of the top priorities for 40% of voters for New York’s next mayor. Nearly two in three support allowing more apartments, houses, and condos to be built in the city. These results come on the heels of a past decade in which New York City allowed just 0.3 new housing units for every new job created, suggesting a colossal mismatch between supply and demand. Both Kathryn Garcia and financier Ray McGuire have pointed out that housing cannot become more affordable without becoming more available and easier to build.
New York City’s suffered among the highest rates of job loss in the country during the pandemic, and even today has the highest share of unemployment in the Empire State. In spite of this reality, or perhaps because of it, the city has experienced an entrepreneurial renaissance — particularly in Black neighborhoods. Cutting regulations and eliminating registration costs for small businesses was popular across the city, with only 12% opposing it. And nearly every candidate in the race for mayor has put forth a plan for helping the city’s small businesses, most notably Garcia’s proposal of a “simple, streamlined” city permit for new businesses, an idea also endorsed by Yang.
New Yorkers also want options for their children’s education. Following a year of debates over school closures, advanced courses, standardized testing and selective schools, a plurality of New Yorkers rated the quality of the city’s public schools as “poor” — but they understand solutions exist. Seven in 10 registered voters (including eight in 10 parents) favor expanding charter and specialized public schools. Adams, Yang, and former Garcia have taken note.
The typical voter in New York City is not AOC. While the city’s voter base heavily skews Democratic, only 18% of the voters we polled consider themselves “very liberal.” Nearly a third identify as moderate. And concerns over public safety and the economy are high. All of these findings suggest that whatever the priorities of elected officials, the city’s electorate is not in lockstep with an alleged “DSA wing.”
The new mayor will inherit a Big Apple that’s been hit hard by COVID-19 and rising crime; policies surrounding recovery will be more important than ever. But New York is nothing if not resilient — and its voters are as unpredictable as ever.
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Michael Hendrix is the director of state & local policy at the Manhattan Institute
This piece originally appeared in New York Daily News