With The Mayoral Primaries Coming This June, Several Candidates Make Their Push For The Upcoming Election

By: Christian DiBuono

The 2021 NYC mayoral election primaries will be on June 22, 2021. Meanwhile, the general election will be on November 2, 2021. Credit: the city.nyc

The 2021 New York City Mayoral Election may not be at the top of everyone’s minds after everything that happened in 2020, but it is important to pay closer attention to the men and women who may or may not become the new political figures of New York City. 

The ballots for this election will give the city a new mayor, comptroller, four new borough presidents, and new City Council members. 

Aside from the importance of this election, there are several key candidates who have a decent chance to land in the mayor’s office. 

Here are five candidates that are considered be major contenders for the upcoming primaries: 

Eric Adams 

Born: September 1, 1960 

Home: Brownsville, Brooklyn 

Education: He received an associate degree from the New York City College of Technology,         a B.A. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and an M.P.A. from Marist College. 

Current Job: Borough President of Brooklyn

Former Job(s): Adams served 22 years as an officer for the NYC Transit Police and NYPD. 

Political Background: After serving as an officer in the NYPD, Adams was elected to the New York State Senate in 2006 and was re-elected in 2008 as a Democrat and a member of the Working Families Party (WFP). 

As senator, he voted in favor of New York’s Marriage Equality Act in 2011, was criticized for supporting former senator Hiram Monserrate who was convicted of a misdemeanor assault on his girlfriend at the time, opposed the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy, and served as co-chair of New York’s State Legislators Against Illegal Guns in 2012. 

In November 2013, Adams became the first African American to be elected Borough President of Brooklyn. 

Ray McGuire 

Born: January 23, 1957

Home: Dayton, Ohio 

Education: He graduated from Harvard University with a A.B. degree in English. 

Current Job: Before he left Citigroup to pursue the NYC Mayoral office, McGuire was the Vice Chairman. 

Former Job(s): Global co-head of mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. 

He is a Wall Street Man who describes himself as “the longest standing head of an investment bank in the history of Wall Street”.

McGuire is an advocate for racial justice. He is also an experienced donor who donated more than $1,000 to six presidential candidates in the recent presidential primary. 

Maya Wiley 

Born: January 2, 1964

Home: Washington, D. C. 

Education: She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Dartmouth College and a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School. 

Current Job: Senior vice president of social justice and professor of urban policy at The New School.

Former Job(s): Wiley was a chairman of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board in 2016 and 2017, served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and was an MSNBC Legal Analyst. 

Maya Wiley has had previous experience with police accountability and understood the racial injustices that occurred within society. She is a cable news personality. 

Through her TV appearances and experience, she has focused and kept her foot in New York politics. 

Shaun Donovan 

Born: January 24, 1966

Home: New York, New York

Education: He holds an A.B. in engineering sciences from Harvard in 1987, a Master of Public Administration degree from John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1995, and a Master of Architecture degree from Graduate School of Design in 1995.

Current Job: Strategist and Advisor to the President of Harvard University. 

Former Job(s): Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama from August 2014 to January 2017, U. S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from January 2009 to July 2014, and Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development from March 2004 to January 2009. 

Political Background: After working at the Community Preservation Corporation as a nonprofit lender and affordable housing developer in New York, Donovan was the Special Assistant/Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and acting Federal Housing Administration Commissioner from 1998 to 2001. 

From 2004 to 2009, Donovan was the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and completed a plan that built and preserved over 160,000 affordable houses. 

In January 2009, Donovan was sworn into President Obama’s Cabinet as US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. 

As Secretary, Donovan oversaw the distribution of the money given to the Department of Housing and Urban Development by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). 

Andrew Yang

Born: January 13, 1975

Home: Schenectady, New York

Education: Yang received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a Juris Doctor from Columbia University. 

Current Job: Entrepreneur, Founder of Humanity Forward.

Former Job(s): 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, founder and CEO of Venture for American, and CEO of Manhattan Prep.

Yang created Venture For America, a nonprofit organization that seeks to create economic opportunities for college graduates to work at startups in emerging cities throughout the U.S.

He has also received a Champion of Change Award from President Obama which is essentially an award to honor ordinary Americans for doing extraordinary things. 

In 2015, Yang was named Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship.