New York Elects Second Black Mayor
Mayoral candidate and former NYPD captain Eric Adams was successful in his campaign and succeeded Bill de Blasio as the mayor of New York City. Only the second African-American to do so, Adams won in a landslide election.
Adams’ opponent was GOP candidate Curtis Silwa, a controversial figure well known as the founder of Guardian Angel. Guardian Angels, established in the 1970s, is a volunteer group that deals with anti-crime. The group was widely well-received but in 1992, after surviving a shooting, Silwa confessed he had fabricated attacks made on the Guardian Angels and lied about being kidnapped by off-duty transit police.
Silwa hoped to win voters over with his platforms being the opposing of the vaccine mandate, refusal to teach critical race theory in schools, and increase the budget of the NYPD, and the property tax on Madison Square Garden.
In the final few weeks of the campaign, both parties debate which resulted in name-calling and personal attacks. Adams kept claiming Silwa to be racist and was an embodiment of former President Trump. Silwa dubbed Adams to be an elitist and just another Bill de Blasio.
Adams ran on a platform combatting gun violence, improving safety, cuts to the NYPD’s budget, and moving jobs to civilians. In a period that saw a surge in shootings, Adams will also be reestablishing a controversial plainclothes anti-crime unit, a unit dissolved by his predecessor last year. Throughout the campaign, Adams called himself the blue-collar mayor, which helped win over home-owning voters in all five boroughs.
Adams also serves as the Brooklyn borough president and was also a state senator.