Anna Sale

As political candidates go, the five Democrats on stage Tuesday night couldn't be more similar. They all rose through New York's Democratic ranks. Four served in the City Council; two...

The day’s festivities began on a more muted note, as candidates reacted to the news of the shooting death of a 1 year-old Brooklyn boy on Sunday evening. The top Democrats running for...

It's Labor Day Weekend and that means there's only one full week left before the Sept. 10 primary election. 

After seven-and-a-half years as the Speaker of City Council, Christine Quinn is  running on a long record — but that’s opened her up to vitriolic protests. On the campaign trail, her command of policy minutiae is clear, but as she adjusts her strategy from that of a one-time frontrunner to a politician campaigning from behind, her positions might take too long to explain.

For the past few week, Bill DeBlasio's Democratic mayoral rivals have been hitting him pretty hard and now we know why. A new Quinnipiac University Poll has the public advocate leading the pack at 36 percent. His closest competitors, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson are polling at 21 and 20 percent.

WNYC's Anna Sale says the results are surprising. "Thirty-six percent is a big number," she said. "And at the start of this week there was a sense that Christine Quinn was recapturing some momentum with these big three newspaper endorsements from the New York Times, the New York Post and the New York Daily News."

Voters in forty percent of the city's 51 districts are looking at new names as they pick their council members – thanks mostly to term limits. In some key races for open seats, it's a battle of political power bases. And some incumbents are facing challenges that illustrate demographic shifts in neighborhoods.

For three and a half years, Bill de Blasio has been the city’s official gadfly. As Public Advocate, his job has been to point out where the city’s fallen short. And that’s been the primary message of his campaign, up until the last few weeks, when he catapulted to frontrunner status in polls. Now, he’s trying to show voters he also knows how to run things.

In a 90-minute debate characterized by finger-jabbing, shouting, cracked voices, and flying accusations,  Bill de Blasio came under the first sustained fire of the campaign from opponents Chris Quinn and Bill Thompson. And while he didn't lose his cool, de Blasio also appeared marginally less comfortable under the kleig lights than rival Quinn.

The primary election is less than three weeks away, and on the day of a potentially pivotal Democratic mayoral debate, frontrunners Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio unleashed their most negative, and personal, attacks of the campaign.

Voter turnout in New York City elections is abysmal. The predictors of low participation are varied, from high residential mobility to language barriers and lower education levels. Turnout is lowest in the Bronx, where fewer than 20 percent of adult citizens voted in the last mayoral election, in 2009, across almost two thirds of the borough.

We've gone from talking about garbage removal in the Mayor's race straight into the potty. It's now almost impossible to talk about the New York City Mayor's race without using some pretty terrible language. 

Turnout in New York City municipal elections has been on a steady slide for the last sixty years, even in the midst of national elections that engaged new rounds of voters. In Williamsburg, even voters with a clear stake in city policy are just getting organized.

The survey also found Weiner’s unfavorability is at its highest levels of the campaign season, and that’s helping Council Speaker Christine Quinn. She is now the frontrunner among Dem...

“There’s no reason to run negative ads on Weiner. There’s no reason to waste your breath attacking Weiner. There’s no shortage of radio, TV and print reporters who are doing it alr...

Tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Jack Hidary is launching an independent run for mayor. And he's making an explicit appeal to voters who are uncomfortable with the field of political veterans running to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Graph: During the week of July 8, Stringer raised more than $108,000, a huge bump in his haul from weeks prior, when he faced no serious challenger.

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner topped the poll of Democratic mayoral candidates — and Eliot Spitzer is leading the race for comptroller.

The race for city comptroller got a lot more interesting this week, and together Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner sucked up all the oxygen in city politics. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the New Jersey Supreme Court handed Gov. Chris Christie mixed rulings on his vision for development in the Garden State. 

Former Governor Eliot Spitzer launched his run for city comptroller with a promise to renew his efforts to reign in Wall Street excess.
But he would have a much more limited set of tools in that position.