Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images
There is a growing rallying cry in the city’s mayoral race: D.R.E.A.M., or in other words, “Don’t Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor.”
Progressive groups and candidates are urging voters ahead of the June Democratic primary to fill out their ranked-choice ballot without Andrew Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams, with the goal of ultimately ensuring neither man receives the necessary votes to become the presumptive mayor.
The idea came from United Auto Workers Region 9A, which represents union members in the city. In December, its political council announced its unranked slate of endorsed candidates in the mayoral race: Comptroller Brad Lander, Queens state senator Jessica Ramos, and Queens assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. It also included a clear warning to members: Don’t rank Adams. In February, with Cuomo’s entry into the race all but assured, the union revised its guidance to include the former governor, writing that members are “united behind our D.R.E.A.M.”
Brandon Mancilla, the director of UAW Region 9A, says the decision against ranking the two men was an easy one. “Mayor Adams, over the last three to four years as mayor of the city, we’ve seen a lot of cuts, a lot of misplaced priorities, taking a knee to whatever Donald Trump wants, essentially just not running the city,” Mancilla says. “That has been a red line for our members.”
As for Cuomo, Mancilla cited his lack of apparent support for a UAW strike at upstate General Motors auto plants when he was governor, saying Cuomo has never made an appearance at any of their picket lines. “At this point, the UAW has gotten President Biden to show up to the picket line right during last year’s strike, and, in 2019, Cuomo refused to do that in a state that is very proud of its union density and being a pro-union state,” he says. “So, we don’t think he has working class people’s needs in mind. He’s running to empower himself and that’s basically something that our members don’t want to go back to.”
The D.R.E.A.M. strategy has spread beyond the UAW on its own. Last month, New Yorkers for a Better New York Today launched dreamfornyc.com, featuring hats and shirts with the slogan. And now the issue is coming up at campaign events and forums across the city, with more candidates officially joining the D.R.E.A.M. team.
“I wholeheartedly support this approach and I’ve said ever since we launched our campaign in late October that I would only be critiquing disgraced New York executives, whether past or present,” says Mamdani.
Shortly after Cuomo joined the race, Ramos shared a video on social media criticizing his handling of the pandemic and urging voters to embrace D.R.E.A.M. “We don’t need City Hall to be a refuge for scandal-ridden men,” she said.
The Cuomo campaign, so far, appears unfazed by the strategy. “Our city is in crisis — a crisis of affordability, of quality of life and of leadership, and in this race, Governor Cuomo, and Governor Cuomo alone, is the only proven, tested leader to tackle these issues head on and who voters know can get the job done. New Yorkers aren’t stupid: these are serious times that demand a serious Mayor, not performance art from defund the police, DSA-extremist and anti-Israel activists,” Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a statement.
With Cuomo currently leading in the polls and the moderate lane of the field growing with the recent entry of City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, candidates in the progressive bloc appear ready to wield ranked-choice voting to their advantage. It’s a marked change from 2021, when candidates largely eschewed strategic approaches to the race, such as backing each other in case the other was eliminated as votes were tabulated. The lone exception was a late-stage joint endorsement between Andrew Yang and Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who each vowed to rank the other second and urged their voters to do the same. Garcia was runner-up to Adams.
“Had Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia cross-endorsed each other a month out from the election, one of them very likely would be mayor today and we wouldn’t have a mayor who had sold us out to Donald Trump for a pardon for his crimes,” says Lander.
That’s why progressives are hoping this time will be different. “That’s where the D.R.E.A.M. strategy is really helpful and very smart,” says Ana Maria Archila, co-director of the New York Working Families Party. “It helps guide voters, gives them clear direction about what not to do. Obviously, the other element is making sure that we guide voters about what to do.”
Mamdani, who has been second behind Cuomo in recent polls, is open to joint endorsements. “I have told other candidates and campaigns directly from the very beginning of this race that I am interested in cross-endorsements as we get closer to Election Day because we must turn the page on this failed leadership and we must utilize every single tool at our disposal to ensure that all of our supporters understand that where they have five options, they should use them, and that none of them should be Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo,” he says.
While Brooklyn state senator Zellnor Myrie said he’s not opposed to cross-endorsements down the line, he said each campaign must present a case to voters that stands in strong contrast to the records of Cuomo and Adams. “I’m excited about what ranked-choice voting provides for voters. I think it gives people the opportunity to express their preferences in a way that they might not have had in the past and I do think that it allows for candidates to focus on presenting what their vision for the city is, and I feel good about our ability to do that in this field,” he says.
This is the sort of collaboration the UAW was ultimately hoping for when it dreamed up D.R.E.A.M. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet to see the cross-endorsements and that kind of thing, but we’ve been very clear also with the candidates we’ve endorsed that that’s what we would like to see,” Mancilla says. “We would like to see them get to the point that they’re also endorsing each other. ‘If I’m number one on your ballot, here’s who I believe should be number two.’ Because in the end, that’s the way that progressive labor voices are going to be able to come out on top, instead of letting the field get divvied up.”
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