‘You can vote for both of us’: NYC mayoral candidates join forces on campaign trail

NEW YORK — New York City mayoral candidates Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia linked up on the campaign trail Saturday in an unusual move to encourage one another’s supporters to give the other candidate their No. 2 vote.

“You don’t have to pick between Andrew Yang or Kathryn Garcia ” Garcia said at a Queens morning appearance. “You can vote for both of us.”

The pair planned to barnstorm across the city as they seek out voters in each others strongholds.

The two candidates’ unusual alliance comes just days before the Democratic primary day on Tuesday. The mayoral race is the first major election in the city to be held using ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank up to five preferred candidates.

The latest polls show both Garcia, the former city sanitation commissioner and Yang, a businessman who ran for president in 2020, trailing behind frontrunner Eric Adams and Maya Wiley. Comptroller Scott Stringer and several other candidates lag further behind.

All surveys show a big chunk of New Yorkers remain undecided.

Adams on Saturday lashed out at Garcia over the new alliance as a “backroom deal” and noted that she once complained Yang treated her in a sexist manner.

“We just found out who Kathryn Garcia is — she’s as big a fraud as Andrew Yang,” said Adams, the Brooklyn borough president. “She’s making a backroom deal to drown out Black and Brown voices in this election.”

Given that no candidate has broken away from the pack, it’s likely that New Yorkers will have to wait until next month to find out who won.

Mail-in ballots can be received as late as a week after the June 22 election day, and the No. 2 through No. 5 choices won’t be tallied until all the ballots are counted.