In the Democratic primary of last year's U.S. election, Andrew Yang was an insignificant new Chinese politician in politics: He had never held public office, had not run in elections, and his business experience was not very good.
But after the same debate with incumbent President Biden and Vice President Harris, and the tempering of the entire primary, Yang Anze not only has electoral experience, but also has a considerable fan base, which is called the "Yang Gang".
Today, he has a new political goal. On January 13, 2021, Yang Anze officially announced his participation in this year's New York mayoral election. If elected, he would become New York City's first Asian-American mayor.
In the mayor's competition, there are currently more than 30 candidates participating, will Yang Anze stand out?
Dream of becoming mayor
In New York, 68 percent of registered voters are Democrats, and most of the current public office is also held by Democrats.
But there are Republican forces in some parts of Brooklyn and Queens, and a large Republican base on suburban Staten Island. In the 21 U.S. elections since 1940, local voters have voted only four times for the Democratic presidential candidate.
The mayor of New York serves a four-year term and can be re-elected twice. The current mayor of New York is Democrat Bill De Blasio, and the previous two mayors were Michael Bloomberg (Republican, later Democrat) and Rudolf Giuliani (Republican).
Becoming mayor of New York means that a government with an annual budget of $92 billion can directly affect the daily lives of 8.4 million New York residents.
For Yang Anze, he is no longer a dark horse in the political arena. On the evening of January 13 this year, Yang Anze posted a video on Twitter saying, "My heart is broken when I see what my city is now." ”
He said he ran for mayor because of the current economic situation. He promised to improve the state of New York City's internet connectivity, "take back" control of the subway system from New York State, and "reboot" the city in a smart way.
The next morning, Mr. Yang introduced himself in Upper Manhattan that newly elected Rep. Ritchie Torres would serve as co-chair of his campaign. For a candidate with no municipal experience, Torres would be a strong supporter.
Yang Anze's campaign propaganda. Image: CFP
Competition is fierce
The 46-year-old Yang Anze now has many opponents. Within the Democrats, there are Brooklyn Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Auditor General Scott Stringer, and Maya Wiley, a lawyer who worked for Desshow.
Yang Anze has certain advantages. Long before Mr. Yang announced his campaign, the Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling agency, released a poll on December 21 last year, which showed that if a Democratic primary had been held, Mr. Yang would have led with 17 percent of the vote, followed by Eric Adams with a 16 percent support and Maya Willy in third place with 7 percent.
In addition to leading the polls, Yang also has a clear advantage in raising funds. He received donations from 21,000 people in New York City during the Democratic primary, and it now appears that he will soon be able to find these people.
But in terms of the specific amount of fundraising, Adams is in the first place, as of Jan. 15, he has raised $8.6 million, and in second place is Stringer, who raised $8.3 million. Yang Anze has just joined the competition on January 13 and is not included in this statistics.
Historically, the ability to mobilize minority voting has also been an important indicator of the competitiveness of mayoral candidates.
In the 1989 campaign, David Dinkins defeated Rudolf Giuliani by very close votes — less than 50,000 out of 1.8 million votes. But he received 97 percent of the black vote and 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared with 31 percent of his white vote.
The researchers concluded that racial factors played an important role in winning.
On November 20, 2019, atLanta, Georgia, USA, the fifth televised debate of the Democratic Party of the United States was held. Image: CFP
It became popular after the election
In fact, since stepping into politics, Yang Anze has always emphasized his Asian identity.
Mr. Yang was born in Schenectady, New York, to parents of immigrants from Taiwan. As a young man, he initially studied economics and political science at Brown University. In 1996, he moved to Morningside Heights in New York City to attend Columbia Law School, where he pursued a Juris Doctorate.
After graduating, after a very short career in the legal profession, Yang turned to entrepreneurship, covering a wide range of topics, including charitable fundraising websites, health care software companies, and educational companies engaged in GMAT tutoring. Later, he also participated in the establishment of a nonprofit scholarship program called Entrepreneurship for America.
In early November 2017, Mr. Yang submitted his presidential bid to the Federal Election Commission, and the media didn't pay much attention to the candidate. During the campaign, he publicly emphasized that he was an Asian-American math geek.
In fact, participating in the presidential race is just a sudden idea in Yang Anze's mind, he once said to the AMERICAN political news website Politico, "I am not crazy."
After Trump came to power in 2017, Yang Anze was very upset. In his view, many manufacturing jobs in the United States have been replaced by machines, the public is angry, and Trump has become the embodiment of the game changer and gained their support, but Yang Anze believes that Trump has not proposed a specific solution to this.
What is Yang Anze's proposal? His election campaign slogan was "Humanity First," advocating a "human-centered capitalism," in addition to "Not Left, Not Right, But Forward," a novel attempt to reconcile traditional left-right opposition.
It was also within this framework that Mr. Yang proposed the Universal Basic Income (UBI) program, in which every citizen between the ages of 18 and 64 receives $1,000 a month, pushing the then-marginalized concept to the American public.
The UBI program is not the first time Yang anze has proposed it, it can be traced back to the Enlightenment period in Europe. Thomas Paine, one of America's founding fathers, and Martin Luther King, Jr., a civil rights leader, were also proponents of the idea.
The Washington Post said Mr. Yang's campaign sought a technocratic response to populism.
But perhaps due to a lack of politically relevant experience in his resume, although Mr. Yang met the voting and fundraising thresholds and qualified to participate in the Democratic primary debate, on February 11, 2020, he subsequently withdrew from the Democratic primary because of the unsatisfactory results in the New Hampshire primary.
Polling analyst FirmThirtyEight summed up Yang's candidacy and said that Yang made more political noise than political observers expected.
He harvested a group of "Yang Gang", they are very young. According to a poll by Morning Consult in early 2020, 71 percent of Mr. Yang's supporters were under the age of 45, compared with 42 percent of Democratic primary voters. That's even more than Bernie Sanders, who is known for being loved by young voters.
According to statistics, from April 2019 to February 2020, Yang Anze's Twitter followers increased from 214,000 to about 1.2 million. These fans are not all Chinese-American, but many of them are trendy young people, such as gamers, technology controllers, and some highly educated people, including Trump supporters.
Mr. Yang officially announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York on behalf of the Democratic Party, with his wife and children attending the event, and Congressman Richie Torres was also present to support it. Image: CFP
An extension of the UBI program
In the course of this New York mayoral campaign, Yang Anze once again proposed a plan to send money to the people.
It's similar to the UBI plan he proposed earlier, but it's different because not everyone can receive money, and his plan is to provide a universal basic income for 500,000 low-income earners. Recipients will receive an average of $2,000 a year, a specific amount based on income, which will cost New York City an additional $1 billion a year.
Unlike in the election, Mr. Yang was no longer the only candidate to come up with the idea, with rivals Dianne Morales and Carlos Menchaca making similar claims.
Critics have raised some objections, such as whether discovery is a priority for New York.
"If New York does have $1 billion to spend, is that the point?" said Robert Greenstein, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy, telling Bloomberg in an email, "For example, would this plan be more important than addressing New York City's very serious affordable housing crisis?"
Yang's plan also has supporters. Proponents argue that the simplicity of the policy is a selling point for Yang and his fans.
Robert Hartley, an assistant professor at Columbia's School of Social Work, told Bloomberg that Mr. Yang's proposal could lift about a third of New Yorkers out of extreme poverty.
But Mr. Yang's plan also faces some obstacles. For example, 5.4 percent of U.S. households are unbanked, most of them low-income households. Considering that New York's economy has been hit hard by the epidemic, There are still many questions that Yang Anze will answer about this plan.
Image: Yang Anze's Twitter account
Caught in the storm
After announcing his candidacy for mayor of New York, Yang Anze was caught in several storms.
Recently, he returned to his hometown in New York State for a weekend at a very serious time of the epidemic, which was believed by many to be undermining the rules during the epidemic. Trying to clarify that, he told The New York Times in January, "Can you imagine having two kids take online classes in a two-bedroom apartment and then try their own work?" ”
Originally to clarify, Yang Anze attracted a counterattack from his opponent. "Yes, actually I can," Mr. Yang's opponent, Stringer, who was mentioned above, said on Twitter.
Another controversy Yang faces is that he did not vote in the 2000 and 2012 presidential elections. He also never voted for the New York mayoral election between 2001 and 2017.
In addition to these two controversies, on January 15, Yang Anze posted a video on Twitter describing him shopping at a well-lit and spacious convenience store (bodegas), an ordinary post that also caused much controversy.
"Dear Mr. Yang, we New Yorkers call this kind of shop a grocery store or a supermarket," actress Alan Barkin replied. Another commentator pointed out the mystery: "Oh man, this is not a convenience store, this is a real supermarket." ”
Subsequently, Yang Anze replied awkwardly: "Haha, I love New York." Added a smiley face.
Mr. Yang's campaign has recently added new uncertainty. On February 2, Yang Anze's campaign announced that Yang Anze tested positive for the new crown virus but had "mild symptoms."
Mr. Yang said he would be quarantined under public health regulations and heeded doctors' advice, but he still intended to push for online campaigns.
It's clear that New Yorkers now face a choice: whether they want an inexperienced, bold-minded candidate who can lead the city's recovery, or a figure with a traditional political background. If it is the former, then Yang Anze will be a not bad choice.
According to the plan, the New York City Democratic caucuses will be held on June 22 and will nominate the mayoral candidate. The mayoral elections were held on November 2.
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