2025 NYWFP NYC Mayoral Questionnaire

2025 New York Working Families Party NYC Mayoral Questionnaire
This questionnaire contains issue sections that outline the WFP’s priorities for 2025. Your answers to our questions don’t have to be perfect — just honest. You are strongly encouraged to provide additional thoughts on any of your answers; there is a space for optional comments provided next to each response. You will also have an opportunity to expand on your responses during candidate interviews.

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Campaign Purpose and Strategy
Anyone who aspires to lead New York City will have the challenging responsibility of regaining the trust of New Yorkers after four years under the chaotic and harmful leadership of Eric Adams, while simultaneously using the levers of local government to protect New Yorkers and the city from the dangerous attacks of an emboldened Trump regime.

The vast majority of New Yorkers are living paycheck to paycheck, and living the real life consequences of an unaddressed affordability crisis that gets worse by the day. New Yorkers are deeply frustrated with a political system that keeps asking everyday people to keep waiting for relief that never comes, and they are tired of politicians who promise to deliver safety and material gains for working class New Yorkers, and who instead use the levers of power to help their friends and donors. Their discontent was evident in the most recent elections, where close to half a million New York City residents who voted in 2020 skipped the presidential election in 2024, and Trump gained almost 90,000 new votes.

This moment requires grounded, honest, courageous leaders determined to make New York City a bulwark against an aggressive and dangerous Trump administration, and equally determined to use the levers of government to to make sure that New York City is a place where working families can live and thrive.

The NY-WFP is committed to helping elect leaders who will be focused on improving the lives of workers and their families, instead of leveraging the power of government for the benefit of the rich and well connected.

We know that in 2021, the vast majority of New Yorkers ranked multiple candidates for mayor. As we look to the elections in 2025, the NY-WFP will lean on the opportunities that Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) offers to engage and unify the multiracial mosaic of New York City around a vision for a New York where working families can live and thrive. The WFP will identify and champion a slate of candidates who embody a commitment to fight for New York’s working families and whose campaigns engage in constructive and collaborative ways to make sure that workers and their families, not the rich and well-connected, are the winners of this election.

Candidates who are vying for the WFP endorsement must build campaigns that 1) demonstrate an understanding of ranked choice voting, and a capacity to leverage it; and 2) meet New Yorkers’ frustrations with concrete solutions and honest leadership.

WFP believes that our democracy is better when people are organized in their workplace and their community. Labor unions and community organizations function as essential organisms of solidarity that make our democracy stronger. We value candidates that prioritize building deep and collaborative relationships with organizations rooted in, and representing, working class communities, and we seek to elect leaders committed to partnering with labor unions and community organizations to deliver material improvements in people’s lives.

The decisions our elected leaders make in these coming critical months and years will have huge implications for millions of people over the course of decades. We are looking for bold leaders who will champion working families across the city; who come to the table with big ideas, grit, and ambition; who will bring to fruition ideas previously thought unachievable, while staying grounded and deeply connected to the communities that elect them. If that's you, please fill out the following questionnaire so our multiracial coalition of community and union leaders, neighborhood activists, and working-class New Yorkers can better assess your candidacy.
Tell us about who you are, why you are running, your core values, and overarching vision for New York City? What are the top three issues or policy priorities that animate your campaign?*
The WFP is a coalition of community organizations, labor unions and individuals fighting for a government that prioritizes the needs of working families. WFP’s political strategy is in service of advancing a policy agenda to improve the lives of workers and their families. Our policy priorities include increasing wages and worker protections; universal healthcare and childcare; affordable housing and tenant protections; fully funding public education from pre-k to college; protecting the rights and freedoms of all people, including immigrant New Yorkers; and enacting tax policies that make the wealthy to pay their fair share and put money back in the pockets of working families; and more. Why are you seeking the endorsement of the Working Families Party? *
The NY-WFP will lean on the opportunities that ranked-choice voting offers to engage and unify the multiracial mosaic of New York City around a vision for a New York where working families can live and thrive. What is your strategy to win with Ranked Choice Voting?*
One of the lessons of the 2021 mayoral election, and the 2024 presidential election, is that a fractured multi-racial working class and progressive movement will open the way for electoral victories of candidates that represent the interests of billionaires and corporations. How will your campaign build a broad tent that attracts working class New Yorkers across the ideological spectrum, champions real solutions for the affordability crisis, and prevents the fracturing of a winning coalition?*
Please list all endorsements from unions, organizations, and elected officials you have received up to this point.*
If endorsed by the WFP, will you commit to abide by a code of conduct that supports strategic alignment and collaboration with like-minded candidates around the shared purpose of electing a Mayor that will serve and fight for all New Yorkers, not just the richest few?*

WFP Priorities
With so many Democratic voters sitting on the sidelines of the presidential race – and a significant number of New Yorkers shifting support to Donald Trump – it is very clear that people are frustrated with the status quo. New Yorkers deserve leaders who will listen to their frustrations and use the levers of government to meaningfully address their concerns. A successful candidate will have to:
- Provide concrete and actionable solutions to make New York City more affordable and livable for working families.
- Present a vision for public safety that acknowledges the sense of fear New Yorkers have, strengthens the city’s precarious safety-net, and provides evidence-based holistic solutions to keep New Yorkers safe.
- Embody honest leadership and the courage to protect all New Yorkers in the Trump era–prioritizing the interests of working-class people above the demands of the wealthy and well-connected.
Please explain how your campaign meets these priorities:

Values-Aligned Public Leadership
Language is a powerful tool that can shape the way people make sense of their experiences. Over the decades, those in power have effectively promoted false ideas in our society, reinforcing systems of oppression and concentrating more power in the hands of the very few. NYWFP wants our endorsed candidates to use language that reflects the changes we want to see. We don't want our endorsed candidates to use racist or anti-immigrant language or messaging that reinforces right-wing analyses. Here is a helpful guide on talking about race, class, and inequality. How will your campaign discuss issues of race, class, inequality, and making the economy work for all of us?
How will you limit the influence of corporate PACs, developers, police unions, and fossil fuel companies in your campaign? Are there any sources of legal contributions you will be refusing (i.e. donations from lobbyists, corporate PACs, police unions, real estate developers, etc.)?*
How will you ensure your campaign and legislative office is free of sexual harassment, bullying, exploitation, or other forms of abuse and misconduct? Do you commit to abiding by good labor practices with campaign and contract staff, including paying appropriate and timely wages and reimbursements, offering health care and time off, as well as supporting staff unions forming both in the legislature and on campaigns?*
Have you ever been accused of professional or personal misconduct? If so, please elaborate.*

YesNoUnsure
Please elaborate on your answer above (Misconduct).*

Political and Governing Approach
GOVERNING FOR ALL NEW YORKERS: Mayor Adams has relied on fear and scapegoating of the communities that are most dispossessed, whether it is homeless New Yorkers or asylum seekers. How will you make sure that you represent all New Yorkers, and how will you make sure that the communities most often forgotten know that you will serve them well?*
CO-GOVERNING: We believe in centering and prioritizing the experiences of communities of color and working-class people when it comes to solving the problems facing our city. If elected, how will you co-govern with WFP and organizations representing working class New Yorkers?*
APPOINTMENTS: What is the profile of the person you would hire for first deputy mayor, DOE Chancellor, and NYPD commissioner? Are there specific names of people you currently have in mind, and/or people who have held those positions in the past that you think did a good job? *
NYC COUNCIL: Mayor Adams has a particularly adversarial relationships with council, and has sued the council multiple times to block crucial legislation. How will you approach your relationship with the City Council?*
ALBANY: How will you approach your relationship with Albany, and what are the main priorities you will fight for at the state level?*
WINNING ACROSS IDEOLOGY: Please give us some examples of how you have moved progressive policies through ideologically diverse legislative bodies.*
NYC BUDGET: How would you approach the City’s budget to ensure that New Yorkers are able to access crucial services? How will you protect New York’s most vulnerable communities in the event of a budget deficit, especially with potential federal cuts imposed by the federal government?*
LABOR: What is your history supporting the labor movement, and what steps would you take as mayor to ensure New York stays a “union town”? *
NYC MUNICIPAL WORKFORCE: How would you maintain and improve healthcare systems for active and retired New York City employees? Since the City’s hiring freeze, employees are spread thin with harmful consequences for New Yorkers. How would you make sure city agencies are staffed at appropriate levels to meet the needs of residents and employees?*
CHILDCARE & EDUCATION: What’s your vision for expanding access to childcare, strengthening public schools, and investing in CUNY?*
AFFORDABLE HOUSING: More and more New Yorkers are stuck paying rents so high that they have hardly any money left for transportation, food or childcare. At the same time, many low-income home owners struggle to stay in their homes because of property taxes and rising costs. Last year, 1 in 8 kids enrolled in NYC schools was homeless. How will you address the housing crisis in NYC? *
ENDING HOMELESSNESS: What is your long-term plan to ending homelessness? How will you direct city agencies to tackle this crisis better and implement your plan? What role do community partners and the New York City Council play in developing this plan?*
PUBLIC SAFETY: How will you approach policing, and make sure the city has a holistic vision of public safety?*
MENTAL HEALTH: The social safety net intended to help mentally ill New Yorkers has failed and suffered from decades of disinvestment. How will you address the mental health crisis facing so many New Yorkers? *
STRENGTHENING THE SAFETY NET: New York's safety net has suffered from years of disinvestment, with dire consequences for the most vulnerable New Yorkers. Over the last few years, New York City received a large influx of asylum seekers who urgently needed support to get back on their feet. Their arrival strained what was already a severely weakened support system. In order to fully live up to our shared values as New Yorkers and be a city of refuge and welcoming, we must update these systems and make new investments so that long-time New Yorkers, as well as newly arrived ones, have what they need. What is your vision for how all New Yorkers - newly arrived and long-time residents - should be supported in times of need? *
CLIMATE & TRANSPORTATION: Given what we expect from the federal government, what is your plan for delivering on priorities for the policies likely under attack by the White House and Congress, such as climate resiliency and making NYC less car dependent?*

Protecting New Yorkers in the Trump Era
Trump has threatened to enact the largest mass deportation program we have ever seen. How will you protect immigrant New Yorkers?*
Trump has promised to severely limit access to gender-affirming care and roll back civil rights protections for transgender people. What will you do to protect the rights and lives of LGBTQ+ people, with special attention to transgender kids and adults targeted by Trump?*
Trump has promised retribution against those he considers his political enemies. What will you do to protect New Yorkers' right to dissent and free speech?*
The previous Trump Administration rolled back the ability of unions and workers to organize while scaling back federal enforcement of wage and safety standards. How will you work with labor unions and others to protect workers’ right to organize?*

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2025 New York Working Families Party NYC Mayoral Questionnaire