¡Sal a votar! NYC mayoral candidate Eric Adams meets with Latino voters in Brooklyn
With just a week until the primary election, mayoral candidate Eric Adams is pushing the campaign into the home stretch.
Leading in the polls ahead of the Democratic mayoral primary, the Brooklyn borough president worked the crowd in Sunset Park on Tuesday in a “Get Out the Vote” push to reach the city’s Hispanic voters.
A mariachi band serenaded Adams after he strode down the steps at the park’s western corner, and the former NYPD captain promised to strengthen New York City’s status as a so-called sanctuary city for immigrants if elected.
“I am going to ensure that the sun never sets in Sunset Park,” said Adams, flanked by Mexican-American community leaders at a news conference in the neighborhood, which has a significant Latino population. “This is not an English-only speaking city.”
The battle for Latino voters has intensified in the final stretch of the Democratic race that’s expected to pick the next mayor of deep-blue New York City. Hispanic voters accounted for nearly a fifth of all voters in the city’s high-stakes 2013 Democratic primary, according to exit poll data.
Adams had spent less money than a trio of hopefuls — Dianne Morales, Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia — to advertise on the two leading Spanish-language TV stations, the news outlet The City reported on Monday.
“This is the week where you really want to spend your money,” Adams said on Tuesday when questioned about the report. “And you’re going to see that we’re going to have unprecedented spending in our Spanish-speaking community.”
Adams made the visit to the 25-acre park in the bustling neighborhood a day after one of his most outspoken supporters, City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, repeatedly noted in a news conference that Garcia is not a Latina.
Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, is white and doesn’t claim otherwise. Her ex-husband, Jerry Garcia, is of Puerto Rican descent; the pair wed in 1995 and raised two children.
“Those were not my words,” Adams said of Rodriguez’s remarks. He insisted that he’s not focused on the ethnicity or gender of his opponents.
In a Marist College poll released Monday and conducted between June 3 and June 9, Adams captured 22% of the first-choice votes from Latino voters, leading the field. Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor de Blasio, scored 17% of the top-choice votes from the bloc, and Garcia picked up 16%.
Adams emerged as the clear leader overall in the poll, picking up 24% of the first-place vote. He led Garcia (17%), Wiley (15%) and Yang (13%). Election Day is scheduled for next Tuesday.
Though the survey — along with others released in recent days — showed Adams as the frontrunner in a competitive race, Wiley appears to have surged into the top tier after consolidating progressive support.
Garcia, meanwhile, has attempted to frame the race as a two-person battle between herself and Adams. Both are relative moderates.
Contenders will have a chance to grill each other and make their final pitch to voters in a two-hour TV debate set for Wednesday night. On Tuesday, Adams expressed confidence about his readiness for the WNBC-TV showdown.
“When I’m on that stage, that’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Adams boasted. “I sit there, and I’m so at peace.”
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