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I Can’t Believe People Are Taking Andrew Yang Seriously
The NYC mayoral candidate is embarrassingly out of touch and clueless about the city he aspires to lead
When Andrew Yang announced his bid to run for mayor of New York City in January, I rolled my eyes, yawned, and assumed residents wouldn’t consider someone not even fit for trash pickup to lead the municipality solely because they’ve seen him on TV. However, it didn’t take long for polls to remind me what planet I live on and all of its varying absurdities.
Though Yang was treated as an immediate front-runner by the media and his competition, it wasn’t until April that real numbers revealed that he’s not only a front-runner, but the leading candidate to win the Democratic mayoral primary in June that will decide who eventually is sworn in as mayor.
In a NY1/Ipsos poll released in April, Yang led with 22% of the vote and held a nine-point advantage over the second highest polling candidate, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. With such a crowded mayoral field, that would be more than enough for Yang to win. While Yang has since seen his numbers dip for varying reasons, he’s still very competitive in the race.
Yang admitted he hadn’t even been around New York City much when he decided he wanted to become mayor. “We’ve spent more time upstate than in the city over the last number of months,” he told the New York Times in January, also mentioning campaign efforts in Georgia and Pennsylvania for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Not being around during a plague clearly impacted his perspective, as Yang went on to complain of the challenges that come with fulfilling his obligations as a CNN pundit from his apartment in New York City. “We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan,” he continued to the New York Times. “And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?”
A lot of people could imagine that because they were dealing with the same exhausting circumstances, albeit with far less resources than the businessman-turned-politician and podcaster. Unfortunately, as another celebrity politician has recently taught us, being detached from reality isn’t…
