Four months out from the June primary, candidates are already touting their endorsements — which is when a prominent group or individual publicly supports a candidate.
Endorsements can come from a number of sources: local community or religious leaders, labor unions, other politicians, or even celebrities. At best, they’re a way for a voter to see whether their views align with a given candidate’s.
“In a very crowded, low-information primary — with presumably incredibly low turnout — certain endorsements will matter because they will serve as shortcuts for voters who don’t necessarily have the desire or the bandwidth to sift through all the different policy proposals of the various candidates,” explained Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham (and co-host of the THE CITY’s FAQ NYC podcast).
“It’s giving them a shortcut that says this person believes what I believe.”
But which endorsements matter most, and when should you be looking for candidates or organizations to start publicizing their endorsements?
THE CITY asked some experts — here’s what they said.
Which are the most significant endorsements?
According to Yvette Buckner, a political lobbyist and co-chair of The New Majority, some of the most important endorsements you can get, especially in local races, are from unions or other local electeds.
“Sometimes you’re talking about a district that can be swayed by 300 to 500 votes,” she said. “A labor union or elected official can sometimes sway several hundred votes that will get them over the finish line.”
Buckner’s worked with all kinds of campaigns over the course of her career: mayor, attorney general, City Council, state senators. (She is not working with any specific campaign this cycle except for the candidates supported by The New Majority, and is currently a lobbyist for the 32BJ Health Fund.)
When it comes to labor unions, Buckner says some of the most influential are 1199 (representing healthcare workers), DC-37 (representing city government employees), 32BJ SEIU (representing building service workers), the United Federation of Teachers and the New York City District Council of Carpenters.
Union endorsements don’t just signal value alignment, but can help raise money and get boots on the ground to volunteer — and to go to the polls on Election Day.
“Across the street, my neighbor is a member of 32BJ, and he asks me all the time, ‘Alright, who are we endorsing? I’m going with whoever my union goes with,’” Buckner said.
Some unions have already come out in support of candidates: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already received an endorsement from the carpenters’ union, despite not yet entering the race. The United Autoworkers Union (UAW) triple endorsed Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander and State Sen. Jessica Ramos in December.
In addition to unions and other city elected officials, some newspapers are a trusted source for endorsements: The New York Post and the New York Daily News both release endorsements, among other local papers. But the biggest newspaper in the city, The New York Times, got out of that game very recently.The paper announced last August that they would no longer endorse candidates in local races. (Last time around, they endorsed Kathryn Garcia.)
What about celebrities or national politicians?
In rare circumstances, celebrities will endorse mayoral candidates or other local candidates. But Buckner and Greer both emphasized that celebrity endorsements are usually not the most meaningful to voters.
“I think in a crowded field, people are looking for not necessarily celebrity endorsements but definitely the endorsements of civic groups, unions, elected officials,” said Buckner.
In the 2021 mayoral race, the biggest celebrities endorsed candidates who didn’t win: Rappers Jay-Z and Nas endorsed Ray Maguire, actors Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo got behind Scott Stringer, and Maya Wiley boasted endorsements from actors Gabrielle Union, Billy Porter, Chris Evans and Kathy Griffin.
Greer concurred: “Sure, having one of the Yankees or one or the Knicks endorse you — sure that’s great for a small small percentage of people,” she said. “But what is that really going to do? Is he door-knocking? No.”
A celebrity endorsement might not hurt, but Buckner says that people are looking to see whether their views match with a candidate’s — and celebrity endorsements can only convey so much.
“People are looking for alignment,” Buckner said. “They don’t necessarily feel that celebrities on a national level align with what’s going on in their own lives.”
Instead, many voters look to locally-known elected officials who have a reputation within the community.
“If you go into a Black neighborhood — Bed-Stuy, Harlem, Flatbush, Southeast Queens — and you see that [Attorney General] Tish James is endorsing, that means something,” said Buckner. “If you go into those same neighborhoods and say a celebrity is endorsing, it does not have the same sway.”
What’s the benefit of endorsing earlier versus later in the race?
Receiving endorsements at any time during a campaign can be beneficial — it just depends on what the candidate hopes the endorsement will achieve.
“A celebrity endorsement in the beginning gets you money, and presumably name recognition, from a group of people that haven’t been paying attention,” said Greer.
“Towards crunch time on Election Day, you need those endorsements that usually come with a bit of manpower and can galvanize a lot of people,” she continued. “People who have massive churches where people will mobilize, Souls to the Polls or religious institutions that will go out as a community to help elect their candidate.”
For advocacy organizations like The New Majority, where Buckner is a chair, there are benefits to endorsing earlier. The New Majority’s goal is to get more women into local offices — and they believe it’s easier to do that if they spotlight those women sooner rather than later.
“Especially in an election year, [endorsements] are central to everything we do,” said Ebonie Simpson, the executive director of the organization.
“We do it early so that the women that we are supporting are getting support and galvanization earlier on,” said Simpson. She hopes the group’s endorsement will improve name recognition for some lesser-known candidates, and mobilize people who share the organization’s aims to support their picks.
Buckner says endorsement timing is a careful balancing act. “You have to wait until people are paying attention to the race. In some neighborhoods, that happens four weeks out. In some that happens two weeks out, in some, that’s the week of,” she said.
“I liken endorsements to a knuckleball pitch,” she said. “Sometimes you have to wait, stay back a little bit, pick up on the spin of the ball, and then swing at the perfect moment.”
Are there any endorsements we should be keeping an eye out for?
As the election cycle continues, voters can look to see if candidates are getting endorsements from what should be their key constituencies.
For example, Mayor Eric Adams likely is looking for strong endorsements from the people who were standing behind him last time, like U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat — a very influential figure in Upper Manhattan politics — and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who as Brooklyn Democratic Party leader controls many loyalists in that borough.
“If they are not fully endorsing him, coming out with a full-throated endorsement, it signals challenges for reelection,” said Buckner. Neither has endorsed Adams (or anyone) yet, though Hermelyn did co-author a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul urging her not to remove Adams from office.
In 2021, the transit workers union endorsed Eric Adams during a campaign event outside the West 4th Street subway station, May 18, 2021. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Cuomo meanwhile received a pre-entry endorsement from H. Carl McCall, a former opponent of his and the first African American to be elected to state office in New York. As a prominent Black New York Democrat, McCall’s endorsement signals to some that Adams’ reputation with the city’s Black political establishment is on shaky standing.
Something else to look out for is whether people representing New York on the national level stand behind people running from their district — for example, whether Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) chooses to endorse one of either Ramos or Mamdani, the mayoral candidates whose state legislature districts overlap with hers.
If prominent politicians from certain neighborhoods who have histories with a particular candidate don’t endorse them, that can signal something — like “if Jerry Nadler had endorsed Brad Lander and not Scott Stringer,” Greer noted. Nadler’s support of Stringer was the first congressional endorsement of the cycle, and the two go way back: Stringer took over Nadler’s Assembly seat representing the Upper West Side in 1992 (though he’s currently having trouble maintaining other endorsements from the neighborhood).
Greer noted that especially with ranked choice voting, we will likely see some groups promoting multiple candidates — or all but one or two. “I think we will see a lot of ‘Anyone but Cuomo’ groups, a lot of ‘Anyone but Adams’ groups.”
Will we hear from the president? Buckner predicts probably not.
So far the only prominent Republican in that party’s mayoral primary is a vigilante-turned-radio host who has a long and rocky relationship with the president.
“I don’t think Trump steps into the mayoral race,” said Buckner. “He’s not going to endorse Curtis Sliwa.”
This article is adapted from a previous version first published in March 2021.
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