Andrew Yang drops $1.5M on first TV ad as Eric Adams chips away at his front-runner status
Andrew Yang began airing his first mayoral campaign television ad Thursday on the heels of a new poll showing him losing grip on his front-runner status for the first time since entering the race.
With the June 22 primary election looming just seven weeks away, Yang is hoping to make a big splash with the ad, dishing out an initial $1.5 million for it to air on both cable and broadcast TV, his campaign said in a statement.
“I am sick and tired of hearing what we cannot do New York City!” Yang says in the 30-second ad, which features footage of the candidate taking the subway, chatting with voters across the city and even at one point riding the Cyclone roller-coaster in Coney Island. “We need new leadership. We need new ideas. Hope is on the way.”
Our first TV ad: Hope. pic.twitter.com/VjwUFA4IZu
— Andrew Yang🧢🗽🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) May 6, 2021
The glitzy ad dropped one day after a new poll showed Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams leading the mayoral race for the first time since Yang launched his social-media-savvy campaign in January.
The survey, conducted by Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm GQR and first reported by Politico, had 21% of voters picking Adams, with Yang trailing just behind at 18%.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who’s embroiled in a scandal over sexual harassment allegations, clinched 15%, according to the poll, which surveyed 500 Democratic primary voters over three days last week.
No other candidates in the crammed primary race mustered double-digits, though 11% of the surveyed voters said they remain undecided.
Yang, who entered the race with significant name recognition thanks to his 2020 presidential campaign, has consistently placed at the top of the pack in the polls, often by a sizable margin.
The razor-thin margin between Adams and Yang in the GQR survey suggests the race is tightening as election day nears.
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