Andrew Yang's New York City Mayoral Campaign

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Part of a series on Andrew Yang. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Andrew Yang's New York City Mayoral Campaign refers to the run of businessman and former Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang for mayor of New York City in the 2021 election to replace Bill DeBlasio. A Schenectady, New York native, Yang officially launched his campaign in January of 2021 and drew scrutiny for several gaffes that caused New Yorkers to question his understanding of the average New Yorker's life.

Background

After Andrew Yang bowed out of the Democratic Presidential Primary in February of 2020, he attracted speculation for a 2021 New York City Mayoral run.^[1] After strong polling suggested he could win the race,^[2] Yang filed paperwork in December of 2020,^[3] and on January 13th, 2021, he officially declared his candidacy on Twitter (shown below).^[4]

Developments

The early days of Yang's campaign have been marked by several gaffes in the eyes of New Yorkers who questioned his credibility. On January 11th, Yang explained to the New York Times^[5] that he would run for mayor while not living in the city full time. One of his quotes from the article read, "We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan… can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment and then trying to do work yourself?" This struck New Yorkers on Twitter poorly,^[6]^[7] as many have been attempting to do just that throughout the pandemic (examples shown below).

On January 15th, Yang tweeted a video himself in a convenience store, writing "New York City loves its bodegas! The 14,000 bodegas are vital to our city – let’s support them and keep them open."

This prompted criticism from New Yorkers who felt the store Yang was in was too nice to be classified as a "bodega," recalling the Bodega controversy on Twitter from the previous November. User @MrModina^[8] joked, "Sir, that's a 7-Eleven" over the video (shown below, left). User @ElieNYC^[9] joked about the ways people from various boroughs might interpret the video, gaining over 130 retweets and 900 likes (shown below, right).

Yang's campaign website explicitly states that he wants to bring TikTok "hype houses" to New York City to "help create artist collectives that utilize new technologies." Taylor Lorenz tweeted about the campaign goal on January 13th, 2021 (shown below).^[10]