We don’t need white men running the city any more,” adding that she “liked her platform on the police.” Lauren said she is for Wiley “very simply, because she’s a Black woman. Louise Lauren, a 29-year-old white woman, had just finished casting an early vote for Wiley - and none for the other top three candidates - when she rushed in to embrace her and pose for a picture. Whatever the term, Wiley seemed to be a magnet for people of all races during a street festival in Bed-Stuy on Sunday - at one point hula-hooping for the cameras. He touted her ability “to appeal to significantly African American and Latino communities that have often been left behind,” as well as “progressive communities all across the city of New York.” He resisted any comparison to de Blasio, however, describing this group of voters as “the Obama coalition.” “Maya Wiley is the only candidate in this race who had the opportunity to become the movement candidate,” Jeffries told reporters on Sunday during a campaign stop in Brooklyn. She has also amassed a substantial list of backers including SEIU 1199, the city’s largest union, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Jamaal Bowman, and perhaps the most coveted endorsement in New York City Democratic politics: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Wiley told Intelligencer during a campaign appearance in Brooklyn that she is “unapologetically progressive,” but was careful to describe those backing her as “a multiracial coalition that includes progressives,” while also touting their geographic diversity.īe it the result of circumstance, strategy, and/or skill, polls have shown Wiley surging in the final weeks of the campaign, after lagging behind better-known candidates for much of the race. Now she’s the only hope they have left to stop Eric Adams, Andrew Yang, and Kathryn Garcia, all of whom are center-left. Progressives had always liked Wiley, but they were lukewarm on voting for her. If she can do it, her path to victory in the Democratic mayoral primary would be the same one that propelled her old boss Bill de Blasio to victory against a splintered Democratic field in 2013, with 41 percent of the vote. Now Wiley is trying to pick up their rubble and cobble together a coalition that combines support from both white progressives as well as Black and Latino voters. Stringer had already lost many of his endorsers over a past allegation of sexual misconduct before a second accuser came forward early this month. Since then, Morales’s “beautiful mess” of a campaign disintegrated amid labor strife that led top staffers to resign and most of the left-wing hopeful’s endorsers to back away. Back then, Wiley was barely their second choice - the group urged people to rank either her or Scott Stringer second on their ballots. It was a major change from less than a month ago, when the group’s first choice for the Democratic nomination for mayor was Dianne Morales. After the service, the attendees were encouraged to text 20 friends each and tell them to “rank Maya #1.” Around her were several people in Wiley campaign gear, including her family’s rabbi. Maya Wiley stood under the arch of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn on Saturday evening as a light drizzle fell on her and over a dozen members of the group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, who were there to light a candle to celebrate the end of the Sabbath. Photo: Hilary Swift/The New York Times/REDUX Wiley has found herself in the position of being the last, best hope for the city’s left.

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