NYC mayoral candidate Kathryn Garcia gets new endorsement
Mayoral contender Kathryn Garcia made a push into rival Scott Stringer’s political turf Tuesday with the announcement that former candidate Loree Sutton is endorsing her City Hall run.
The move came as Garcia unveiled a new TV ad and as a wounded Stringer continued to fend off allegations that he sexually abused a woman who worked on a political campaign 20 years ago.
Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, and Sutton, Mayor de Blasio’s former head of veterans affairs, appeared on the Upper West Side — a Stringer stronghold — and used the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Riverside Park as a backdrop to illustrate Garcia’s vision for bringing back the city.
“Today is another day for citizens and public servants to step up — and in this case, save our city,” Sutton, who dropped her own mayoral run in March, said in front of the graffiti-scarred Civil War memorial. “That’s why I’m here today.”
In lending her support to Garcia, Sutton made the case that the next mayor of New York City should be a woman.
Aside from serving as sanitation commissioner, Garcia worked as head of de Blasio’s effort to rid the city of lead, helmed the city housing authority and spearheaded efforts to deliver food during the pandemic. She also served as chief operating officer in the city Department of Environmental Protection under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“We need a proven leader. We need someone who has been there, taken the 3:30 in the morning calls,” Sutton said.
Sutton delivered her stamp of approval hours after Garcia released her first TV ad, which depicts her breaking out of a glass box that reads “In Case of Emergency Break Glass.”
Garcia hammered home the idea of being boxed in by her opponents — two of whom, Yang and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, have suggested she’d make a good deputy mayor — as well as the impediments women face in her appearance with Sutton.
“Women belong at the highest ranks of every organization,” said Garcia, who was raised in Brooklyn. “We’re leaders — not help mates, not handmaidens. We’ve been doing the hard work of defending our nation, running the city for a long time — and we are pretty damn good at it — as my opponents have so helpfully pointed out.”
After speaking to reporters, Garcia told the Daily News that what voters are looking for right now is authenticity and delivered a glimmer of it just moments before.
Asked about graffiti on the monument behind her, and if she had her own tag as a kid growing up in the 1970s, she revealed she had something in common with many kids from the time.
“I did, though never on a subway train. It was LIDA,” she said. “It was only ever in a drawing book.”
