“The media leans towards celebrity, novelty and energy,” said Bronx US Representative Ritchie Torres, who endorsed Mr. Yang.
The candidate’s Trumpian provocation version is a series of Twitter controversies about slightly misguided enthusiasm for bodegas and subways. The Daily Show launched a spoof Twitter account last week with a big-eyed Mr. Yang excitedly explaining gems like, “Real New Yorkers Want To Go Back To Times Square.”
Understand the NYC Mayoral Race
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- Who is running for mayor? There are more than a dozen people in the running to become New York’s next mayor, and the primary is on June 22nd. Here is an overview of the candidates.
- What is a ranking poll? New York City started voting in the primary this year, and voters can list up to five candidates in order of preference. Confused? We can help.
Mr. Yang was less amused than usual by the exertion. “It seems like a strange time to take advantage of the Asian tourist tropics,” he said sourly. “I wish it was funnier.”
The joke is likely on its critics too. Like Mr. Trump, he simply benefited from the attention. When his campaign asked the fairly narrow group of Democratic primary voters who get their messages from Twitter how they would characterize what they see about the candidate, 79 percent said it was positive.
While Mr. Yang is not new to the city, he is new to its civil life. He has never voted in a mayoral election. The provocative heart of his presidential campaign, a pledge to alleviate the dystopian, robot-driven social collapse by giving $ 1,000 a month to an evicted citizenry, makes no sense in the city budget, so he replaced it with a cash bonus program rather traditionally the poor aligned. It’s unclear how many people still think he’s the free money candidate.
The best in his campaign are working for a consulting firm led by Bradley Tusk, a former advisor to Mayor Bloomberg and disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Mr. Tusk, who also advised Uber, has guided Mr. Yang to a comprehensive, pro-business center and kept him out of competition from other candidates for the left wing of the primary electorate.
Mr. Tusk told me in an unguarded moment in March that Mr. Yang’s great advantage was that he came into local politics as an “empty ship”, free of firm views on city politics or alliances. When I asked the candidate what he thought of the remark, Mr. Yang took no offense. “A lot of New Yorkers love someone who walks in and is just trying to figure out how best to approach a particular problem, how free from a number of obligations to existing special interests,” he said.
