Andrew Yang conceded defeat in the New York mayoral election after falling to fourth place despite his front runner status at the beginning of the election.
Why he’s conceding: Yang was one of the first of 13 Democratic candidates to drop out after results showed former police officer Eric Adams in the lead, according to Bloomberg.
- Yang held 11.7% of the vote as of June 23 while Adams was at 31.7% with 84% of early and on-the-day votes counted, reported The Guardian. Maya Wiley held 22.3% of the votes and Kathryn Garcia came in third with 19.5% of the votes.
- “I’m conceding this race,” Yang announced at his campaign party on June 22. “I’m a numbers guy. I’m someone who traffics in what happens in the numbers, and I am not going to be New York City mayor.”
- A winner for the mayoral election will not be announced for weeks due to its new ranked-choice voting system, which calls for voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference.
- While Yang rose to the top in the early polls, he was “criticized throughout the mayoral race for leaving New York City at the height of the pandemic” in addition to allegedly not knowing the subway routes.
Yang’s campaign: The former tech entrepreneur and presidential candidate entered the mayoral race in January.
- He received contributions from 24,000 donors, which is the most for any mayoral campaign in New York City history.
- He spent more than $8 million on the race, which was mainly public funds from the city’s dollar-matching program.
- New York Senator John Liu stated that he’s proud of Yang and “honored to have been part of this campaign.”
Featured Image Via Andrew Yang (left), Reuters (right)
