Times Backs de Blasio, and Why No One is Polling the Mayoral Race: Campaign Headlines for Sept. 5

“We firmly endorse Mr. de Blasio in this primary as he seeks a second, and final, term and urge Democratic voters to support him next Tuesday over four lesser-known opponents. His able stewardship of the country’s largest and most cantankerous city deserves to be rewarded.”
The New York Times editorial board

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Times Endorses de Blasio in the Primary
The New York Times
” … Mr. de Blasio has been an effective mayor. He has taken care of essential municipal business while pursuing the progressive agenda that is dear to him. Arrests, for instance, are down on his watch. So are police stop-and-frisks that focused on young African-American and Latino men, most of them guilty of nothing. Yet none of that has translated into a rise in crime. On the contrary, New York is on track to end 2017 with fewer than 300 murders, an achievement once unimaginable.”

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Albanese, 20 Years After Emerging as an Upstart Candidate, Tries a Third Time
The New York Times
“[Albanese] ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the early 1990s. In 1997, he made his first try for City Hall, assailing the “tale of two cities” created by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; he came in third in the Democratic primary, garnering 21 percent of the vote. (The victor, Ruth Messinger, would lose to Mr. Giuliani in November.) He toyed with a run for mayor in 2001, and went for it 12 years later, in a crowded field from which Mr. de Blasio emerged victorious. Mr. Albanese finished eighth out of nine, receiving 0.9 percent of the vote. Now Mr. Albanese, 68, who has made transit and political reform his signature issues, is looking at his most unencumbered shot yet at City Hall, if only because he is taking on an incumbent mayor when no established Democrat saw fit to do so.”* * * *
An Outsider Tries to Crash the Democratic Party
WNYC
Father Khader El-Yateem is a Lebanese Christian trying to become the first Arab-American member of the New York City Council.* * * *
Why is No One Polling the Mayoral Race?
Gotham Gazette
“The second of two Democratic mayoral primary debates is set for Wednesday, but leading public opinion pollsters have yet to study the full Democratic primary field or take stock of the competition between Mayor Bill de Blasio and his lone debate opponent, challenger Sal Albanese. The lack of polling makes it harder to gauge how Albanese and the three other Democratic challengers to de Blasio may fair come September 12, or how de Blasio’s approval rating has changed in the last month.”

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Inside the Uper East Side Council Race
DNAinfo
“A worker on Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and a former candidate who challenged the City Council speaker are taking on incumbent Upper East Side Councilman Ben Kallos in this year’s primary race. Patrick Bobilin and Gwen Goodwin both hope that their advocacy on issues like affordable housing and equality can help them beat out Kallos, who has held the District 5 office covering Yorkville, Lenox Hill, Carnegie Hill, Roosevelt Island, Sutton Place and East Harlem since 2013.”