New York City's once-powerful Democratic bosses sit out mayor's race
NEW YORK — When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled Queens party boss Joe Crowley in 2018, it marked a new low for the local Democratic machines that once held sway over New York City politics.
Now, the party organizations in the city’s boroughs can’t even get behind a candidate for one of the most important mayoral contests in recent memory.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a leading candidate among more than two dozen people seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor, made a hard sell for the Queens party nod. Borough pride be damned, Adams stared into the camera on a recent weeknight and declared himself the “Queens candidate.”
“We have heard reported over and over again that there is not a Queens candidate running for mayor. That is not true. I am the Queens candidate,” Adams, who grew up in Queens, told its Democratic county organization at a virtual forum earlier this month. “This is a borough that is dear to my heart.”
Two weeks later, Rep. Greg Meeks, who runs the Queens Democratic party, announced the organization’s district leaders had not reached consensus around a single candidate and would skip endorsing in the race to replace outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio. His counterparts in Brooklyn and the Bronx are charting a similar path — all three so far declining to get behind any of the contenders four months before the June 22 primary.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/28/new-york-democrats-mayor-race-471800
Intra-party politics are always more complicated than inter-party politics.
