In Crowded N.Y.C. Mayor's Race, Zellnor Myrie Needs a Breakthrough

New York Times

01-05-2025

He has a back story that, at one time, seemed right for New York.
Zellnor Myrie, a state senator running for mayor, is Afro-Latino in a city where 51 percent of residents identify as Black or Latino. He is well regarded by his colleagues in the State Legislature, where he has championed left-leaning proposals like the John R. Lewis New York Voting Rights Act and legislation that allows the state and individuals to sue gun manufacturers.
He grew up in a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City, attended its public schools and is a rabid New York Knicks fan — a loyalty he seems keen to highlight. (He has been a guest on a Knicks podcast, been pictured in the back seat of a sedan watching a Knicks playoff game on his laptop and has appeared outside the Garden, asking that free tickets be given to working-class fans.)
All of it is meant to further the idea that New York deserves a mayor who understands ordinary New Yorkers' struggles — much as the city's current mayor, Eric Adams, suggested he did four years ago. Mr. Myrie, 38, firmly believes that he is the person to properly fulfill that legacy, and that the race's front-runner, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is not.
'One has to wonder how you can be the person to fix our affordability crisis when you have no clue whatsoever what it's like to struggle to pay your rent,' Mr. Myrie said at a recent news conference outside the Sutton Place apartment building in Manhattan where Mr. Cuomo now lives. 'You need a mayor that understands that struggle, that is living it. I'm on the subway every day. I got student loans like everybody else.'
His mayoral platform includes proposals to build one million new homes over the next decade and provide free universal after-school care.
Yet Mr. Myrie's messaging has yet to translate into voter support. Recent polls show him firmly ensconced among a group of second-tier candidates far behind Mr. Cuomo and the closest runner-up, Zohran Mamdani, a left-leaning state assemblyman from Queens.
Many in the political establishment assumed that Mr. Myrie would run a high-energy, insurgent campaign like Mr. Mamdani has, challenging the moderate Democratic orthodoxy represented by Mr. Adams.
Mr. Mamdani has leaned hard into his democratic socialist roots, promising free buses and a freeze for rent-stabilized apartments, But Mr. Myrie has been more interested in demonstrating how the city could be better managed and has been less focused on being the progressive candidate — even though his bona fides include sponsoring the Clean Slate Act, which sealed criminal records for millions of people.
Asked at a recent forum whether he would support a rent freeze, Mr. Myrie gave a winding answer about the importance of appointing qualified people to the Rent Guidelines Board. He talked about how his mother lives in a rent-stabilized building where the elevator frequently breaks down and highlighted his fight for tenant protection legislation.
'So you're not committing to a rent freeze?' asked Ayana Harry, a reporter for NY1 and the event moderator.
'That's right, that's right,' Mr. Myrie said to jeers from some in the audience. He later said that he supports a rent freeze this year but would have to examine the data each year before making a decision.
He also remains relatively unknown. Standing recently in the pulpit of City Tabernacle Seventh Day Adventist Church in West Harlem, Mr. Myrie laid out a vision to fight President Trump, build more housing and tackle gun violence as the crowd gave its approval with nods and amens. As the noise died down, one parishioner in the pews leaned forward to ask another a question: 'What's his name again?'
Liz Krueger, a state senator from Manhattan who has endorsed Mr. Myrie as one of two candidates to include on a ranked-choice ballot, said she is not surprised he has struggled, given voters' familiarity with Mr. Cuomo and the allure of Mr. Mamdani's social media skills.
'Zohran has clearly figured out how you use your personal charisma and controversy to build attention to himself,' Ms. Krueger said. 'Andrew Cuomo just has so much name recognition, and he's in the newspapers twice, three times, every day.'
With less than eight weeks until the June 24 Democratic primary, Mr. Myrie remains hopeful. He recently received the endorsement of the left-leaning Working Families Party and was ranked third in a group endorsement by District Council 37, the city's largest municipal union.
He has raised more than $3.5 million, including public matching funds, and has $2.8 million on hand. His campaign believes that a deluge of paid advertisements in the next few weeks will help improve his name recognition.
His first television ad, released on Tuesday, highlighted his working-class roots, with one of his public-school teachers reciting his accomplishments and listing a few of his proposals, including increasing affordable housing and creating after-school programs for all.
As Mr. Adams did in 2021, Mr. Myrie argues that a mayor should have firsthand knowledge of the struggles New Yorkers face. The son of Costa Rican immigrants who were undocumented when he was born, he says he understands the fears immigrants are facing under the federal threat of mass deportations.
Like many New Yorkers, he says he worries that he and his wife, Diana Richardson, a former assemblywoman, will struggle to purchase a home. He talks about being in therapy.
He has also sought to underscore how he is anything but a staid, button-down politician. Mr. Myrie is an avowed sneaker head who wore a pair of black, purple and teal Air Jordan Six retro sneakers to a recent forum. He served as the D.J. at a recent fund-raiser. His friends call him 'Z.'
He was the only boy on his middle-school step team and performed his old moves at a mayoral forum in February while he was promoting his plan for universal after school.
Mr. Myrie has tried to convey some of that personality on social media, emulating a bit of Mr. Mamdani's successes there. In one video, he jokes about how he would be the first person with the astrological sign of Scorpio to become mayor. He joked recently that as mayor he planned to unify the way New Yorkers pronounce DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn.
'My experience with Zellnor is that the more you get to know him, the more you're impressed by him,' Representative Dan Goldman of New York, one of Mr. Myrie's earliest and most prominent endorsers, said. 'He is a very smart, creative, thoughtful, and pragmatic elected official who's gotten a lot done in Albany and has really lived the true New York City experience.'
There is another quality that some have ascribed to Mr. Myrie: his apparent nerdiness. Mr. Adams, appearing at the annual Inner Circle charity event in April, sardonically referred to Mr. Myrie as Steve Urkel, the geeky character from the 1990s television show 'Family Matters.'
Mr. Myrie sometimes embraces that image. After his news conference calling for free Knicks tickets, he held a trivia night fund-raiser which he advertised by calling himself a New York 'history nerd.'
Chi Ossé, who represents Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and is the youngest member of the City Council, has created a series of social media videos about why things don't work in the city. He recently announced a group endorsement of three candidates, including Mr. Mamdani, but not Mr. Myrie.
Mr. Mamdani's videos are 'digestible, witty and entertaining' and pull the audience in, allowing viewers to feel a deeper connection with the issues being addressed, Mr. Ossé said.
'Nerdiness doesn't translate as well on social media,' he added.
A major part of Mr. Myrie's campaign strategy was to be built around the idea that his legislative record demonstrated a level of competence that he said Mayor Adams lacked. But Mr. Cuomo's late entry in the race has complicated Mr. Myrie's bid to run on competence.
'There's no question that from an experience standpoint, Andrew Cuomo has the most in terms of managerial and executive experience,' Mr. Goldman conceded.
Mr. Myrie's advisers point out that a significant chunk of voters are still undecided, and that late-stage surges have been common in previous mayoral campaigns.
'I'm hustling very hard. I'm in churches, I'm at subway stations. I go to community events. I hop all around the city,' Mr. Myrie said in an interview. 'I'm doing all of the things that you need to do to build up that name recognition.'
And he is doing what he can to turn voters away from Mr. Cuomo. He launched a website tracking the days since Mr. Cuomo had last spoken against Trump policies, and another counting the number of times Mr. Cuomo had taken questions from reporters.
At a recent Black Agenda Forum in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, Mr. Myrie took the stage in a blue suit and neon green Nike sneakers.
'We got to stop letting people come in our space, asking for our vote when they have not been here for our struggle,' Mr. Myrie said, in a clear but unnamed reference to Mr. Cuomo. He delivered the two minute-long broadside with vigor, drawing only a smattering of applause in front of a crowd that was friendly to the former governor.