When Karen Bass took office as Los Angeles mayor with a mandate to tackle homelessness, Venice Beach was at the top of her agenda. By late 2022, more than 100 people were living there in wall-to-wall tents alongside seven-figure bungalows, a shop selling $180 linen pillowcases and the Gold’s Gym that Arnold Schwarzenegger made famous. […]
Read MoreTag: Elections, Mayors
Chinese Magnate Admits to Making Straw Donations to N.Y. Politicians
A Chinese business titan pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges that he made more than $10,000 in straw donor contributions to political candidates — including, a person familiar with the case said, to a New York congressman and Mayor Eric Adams. Hui Qin, 56, of Old Westbury, N.Y., who was once listed on Forbes […]
Read MoreSan Francisco Mayor London Breed’s Predecessor, Mark Farrell, Seeks to Unseat Her
Famously liberal San Francisco is irritable these days. Poll after poll shows its residents aren’t confident in the future of their city and don’t support their leader, Mayor London Breed. They lament that their downtown isn’t coming back after the pandemic as quickly as other cities’ cores, that drug overdose numbers continue to skyrocket and […]
Read MoreEx-NYPD Associate of Eric Adams Admits to Illegal Donations Scheme
Dwayne Montgomery, a retired police inspector who was once friendly with Mayor Eric Adams, pleaded guilty on Monday to misdemeanor conspiracy, saying that he had directed straw donors to contribute to the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Mr. Montgomery was indicted in July by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, accused of a scheme to funnel campaign contributions […]
Read MoreNew Jersey Political Races, Often Raucous, Are Bananas This Year
New Jersey’s first lady is running for U.S. Senate. A former governor who resigned in disgrace is trying to make a political comeback, as a mayor. Two members of Congress and a half-dozen other political luminaries are preparing to campaign for governor. The state’s senior U.S. senator and his wife are charged with taking bribes, […]
Read MoreElection Fraud Is Rare. Except, Maybe, in Bridgeport, Conn.
Two months ago, Joe Ganim received the most votes in the race for mayor of Bridgeport, Conn. This week, the city will vote again — to decide if he should even be the Democratic candidate. The unlikely and confusing situation arose after a judge ruled that there was enough evidence of misconduct in the Democratic […]
Read MoreRuth Bader Ginsburg’s Collars, Captured by Camera
Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at an exhibition of photographs of the collars that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wore. We’ll also look at a Manhattan Democrat whose City Hall hopes were dashed in 2021 but who is now looking into challenging Mayor Eric Adams in 2025. In the soft stillness of a museum gallery, […]
Read MoreScott Stringer Explores Run Against Eric Adams for N.Y.C. Mayor
Scott M. Stringer, the former New York City comptroller and 2021 mayoral candidate, said on Thursday that he would form an exploratory committee and begin raising funds for a possible primary challenge against Mayor Eric Adams next year. The move caught much of the city’s Democratic establishment by surprise and signaled the start of a […]
Read MoreBloomberg and Other Billionaires Donated to Eric Adams Legal-Defense Fund
A defense fund for Mayor Eric Adams raised $732,000 in less than two months to pay for legal expenses related to a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising and possible illegal donations from the Turkish government, according to a filing submitted Tuesday. The contributors to Mr. Adams’s defense comprised an array of wealthy players in […]
Read MoreFormer Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt Toys With Running for Mayor of Florence
Schmidt is not a typical candidate of the right. In an interview with the Rome daily La Repubblica last month, Schmidt described himself as a moderate, a distinction that would appeal to centrist voters, insisting that he “was and remained antifascist” and “anti-Nazi.” Brothers of Italy, the party Schmidt would run for, was born from […]
Read MoreJohn Whitmire, a Moderate Democrat, Wins Runoff for Houston Mayor
John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat who has served in the Texas State Senate since 1983, won a runoff election on Saturday to become mayor of Houston, according to The Associated Press, defeating Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a prominent congressional Democrat, in the nonpartisan race. Mr. Whitmire had been considered a front-runner from the moment he […]
Read MoreMayor Adams’s Swagger Is Diminished. His Foes Are Ready to Pounce
If Mayor Eric Adams were in search of evidence that his recent spate of troubles had cost him some standing in New York, he would not need to look far. The city comptroller, Brad Lander, recently restricted the mayor’s spending powers on the migrant crisis, and has playfully alluded to the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. […]
Read MoreRepublican Voters May Decide Mayor’s Race in Democratic Houston
Leonard Wickers, a 73-year-old carpenter, took a break from building a new house in South Houston to cast a ballot during early voting this week for the city’s mayoral runoff election. Like most at the polling site in a largely Black neighborhood, Mr. Wickers, who is Black, said he backed Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a […]
Read MoreCharleston Elects Republican Mayor for First Time Since 1870s
The City of Charleston this week elected a Republican mayor for the first time since the mid-1870s, signifying a new chapter for the centuries-old southern city. The new mayor, William Cogswell, a former state representative and real estate developer, won a tight runoff election on Tuesday against Mayor John Tecklenburg, a Democrat who was seeking […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Raided Homes of Second Adams Aide and Ex-Turkish Airline Official
As F.B.I. agents searched the home of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser earlier this month for evidence his campaign conspired with Turkey, separate teams executed warrants at the residences of two others with ties to the mayor and that country, several people with knowledge of the matter said. In addition to the home of the […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Seizes Eric Adams’s Phones as Campaign Investigation Intensifies
F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a criminal inquiry into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers. The agents approached the mayor after an event in Manhattan on Monday evening and […]
Read MoreCody Smith Wins Uvalde Mayor Race
Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter was killed last year in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, lost a special election to become mayor of a city that has struggled with divisions in the aftermath of the tragedy, The Associated Press reported. Cody Smith, a former mayor of Uvalde, will return to the […]
Read MoreCherelle Parker Elected Mayor of Philadelphia
Cherelle Parker, a longtime state and local elected official who promised Philadelphia residents that she would aggressively tackle the city’s crime woes, was elected mayor Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, making her the first woman voted into the city’s highest office. Viewed as more moderate than the other candidates in the Democratic primary in […]
Read MoreCherelle Parker Elected Mayor of Philadelphia
Cherelle Parker, a longtime state and local elected official who promised Philadelphia residents that she would aggressively tackle the city’s crime woes, was elected mayor Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, making her the first woman voted into the city’s highest office. Viewed as more moderate than the other candidates in the Democratic primary in […]
Read MoreWho is Brianna Suggs, Eric Adams’s 25-Year-Old Chief Fund-Raiser?
The choice was unconventional: Eric Adams, the candidate who would go on to win the 2021 election for mayor of the nation’s financial capital, had picked an inexperienced 23-year-old to run his campaign’s fund-raising operation. Ostensibly, the fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, did her job. Thanks in part to her work, the campaign would spend more than […]
Read More‘I’m Not Superwoman’: Philadelphia’s Likely Mayor Urges Teamwork
As one urban gardener after another beseeched Cherelle Parker to prevent the green spaces that they had spent years nurturing from being gobbled up by developers, she furiously took notes in her trademark spiral notebook and barely said a word. Eventually, Ms. Parker, the Democratic nominee for mayor, did address the neighborhood groups that had […]
Read MoreEven in a City Used to Voting Scandals, This One Is a Doozy
Residents of Bridgeport, Conn., are preparing to cast their ballots in what may be the most confusing election in the country. A judge this week tossed out the results of the Democratic mayoral primary, citing surveillance video that appears to show significant voting irregularities. He ordered election officials to hold a new primary but had […]
Read MoreDid Fake Donors Give the Mayor Real Money? The F.B.I. Wants to Know.
It is a type of scheme that took down New York’s lieutenant governor last year, and sank the 2013 mayoral campaign of a top Democratic contender: the use of so-called straw donors to funnel illegal contributions to candidates from secret sources. Now, for the second time, the campaign of Mayor Eric Adams is being scrutinized […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Raid of Adams Ally Brings Corruption Question to Mayor’s Doorstep
Even as Eric Adams completed his rise in New York City politics and became mayor, questions remained over ethical issues and his ties to people with troubling pasts. His fund-raising tactics have repeatedly pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws. His relationships with his donors have drawn attention and prompted investigations. Some donors and […]
Read MoreElection Day Guide: Governor Races, Abortion Access and More
Election Day is nearly here, and while off-year political races receive a fraction of the attention compared with presidential elections, some of Tuesday’s contests will be intensely watched. At stake are two southern governorships, control of the Virginia General Assembly and abortion access in Ohio. National Democrats and Republicans, seeking to build momentum moving toward […]
Read More‘We Still Don’t Have Answers’: A Uvalde Mother Is Running for Mayor
On a recent Saturday morning, a day after what would have been Lexi Rubio’s 12th birthday, dozens gathered in the Texas city of Uvalde for a run in her honor. Blasting Lexi’s playlist, Kimberly Mata-Rubio, her mother, took off from under a towering mural of Lexi, one of 19 children and two teachers killed in […]
Read MoreRunning San Francisco Made Dianne Feinstein
When I was interviewing Senator Dianne Feinstein in 2011 for a book about San Francisco’s tumultuous history from the 1960s to the ’80s, she suddenly began to tear off her microphone and terminate the exchange. My offense? I asked about her decision as mayor of the city to veto a 1982 ordinance that would have […]
Read MoreLevi’s Heir Daniel Lurie to Challenge San Francisco Mayor London Breed
Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss clothing fortune, announced on Tuesday that he would run against Mayor London Breed of San Francisco next year, at a time when the city is struggling to overcome a number of crises in its downtown core. Mr. Lurie, 46, planned to launch his campaign Tuesday at a […]
Read MoreJim McGreevey, Who Quit Politics Amid Scandal, Eyes a New Job: Mayor
James E. McGreevey, a former New Jersey governor who resigned two decades ago in scandal, has built his career on reinvention. So much so that when he enters a classroom filled with newly freed felons hoping to make the most of their own second chance, they are not sure what to call him. “Governor!” the […]
Read MoreChristine Quinn Still Wants to Be Mayor. Will Her Work Stop Her?
Christine C. Quinn was impatient. The leader of New York City’s largest provider of shelter for homeless families with children, she peered over her fuchsia reading glasses at her team, assembled in a conference room, and rattled off a list of instructions. It was a few weeks after she had helped persuade the City Council […]
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