The water’s still cold, but everyone’s jumping in.
With City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ launching her 11th-hour bid Wednesday, the messiest New York City mayoral primary in living memory now pits an incumbent mayor against a former governor, a current council speaker, both a sitting and a former comptroller and a hodgepodge of progressives.
Who will bring order to the chaos?
Though formally in the hands of voters, Gotham’s real electoral power rests with the city’s special interests, and particularly with its unions.
The big players’ memberships number in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and their influence can decide who stays afloat and who’s dead in the water.
Kingmakers include 1199 SEIU, the health-care workers’ union; the 32BJ building-workers’ union; District Council 37, the largest municipal-employee union; the Hotel Trades Council, representing hotel workers; and the United Federation of Teachers.
Rank-and-file members have split from labor leadership and moved to the right at the national level, but in city races, union endorsements still make a big difference.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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John Ketcham is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Brooklyn Academy of Music