Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur who made up National fame as a 2020 Democratic nominee for president, has filed paperwork to run for mayor of New York City. The move prompts him to compete in a busy Democratic race just six months before a primary is likely to determine the next mayor.
A financial form for Yang’s potential campaign was submitted to the city’s Campaign Finance Board on Wednesday. Yang also now appears as a mayoral candidate on the financial council’s list of city-wide candidates for 2021.
The paperwork does not guarantee that Yang will run, and he has no campaign contributions so far. A source close to Yang told CBS News that these steps are “only procedural” and no decision has been made, but added that Yang “is seriously considering it and that this was the necessary next step.”
A poll released this week by Education Reform Now Advocacy, a charter school advocacy group, found Yang as the best candidate for New York’s next mayor, even though he had not yet filed any paperwork or announced a campaign. Yang led the poll with 17 percent support – 1 percent more than Eric Adams, the president of the Brooklyn borough who is seen as a leading candidate.
Yang has also been put forward as a possible candidate for the US Secretary of Commerce in the incoming party Biden administration, sources told CBS News – although one source said a mayoral run would likely conflict with that.
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Nearly 40 people submitted paperwork for the mayor’s race, including some from the world of technology and finance. Yang never held an elected office and launched his first campaign when he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In the White House race, Yang outperformed the current New York mayor Bill de Blasio, which ended its four-month campaign after a single-digit poll and subsequently endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders. de Blasio will cease to function indefinitely in 2021.
Yang’s run also overlaps with the late and brief presidential campaign of the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, which preceded de Blasio.
Yang gained traction for his Universal Basic Income platform by sending $ 1,000 a month to all Americans over the age of 18. But his presidential bid failed to win many voters in the end. Yang fell out after the New Hampshire primaries in February 2020 and later endorsed Joe Biden.
Just weeks after his run in the White House ended, Yang began to publicly consider a bid for New York City Mayor; he lives in Manhattan, although he recently moved to Georgia temporarily to campaign for the two Democratic candidates in the state January 5 outflows from the Senate.
The mayoral election will take place in June 2021 and the winner is likely to prevail in the November general election, as New York City is a democratic stronghold.
Sarah Ewall-Wice and Nikole Killion contributed to this report.