In December, we spoke with the Working Families Party about their strategy for the 2025 mayoral election—who they'd endorse, and why. Codirector Ana Maria Archila told Hell Gate that they would not repeat the grave mistakes of the 2021 mayoral primary, when the WFP dithered and diffused its support to the point that its eventual endorsement became totally meaningless.
Surely they wouldn't do the same thing again, backing weak candidates as a bulwark against centrist Dems instead of building a positive and constructive vision for New York City, right? "If we wanted to do a 'don't rank Adams' strategy, we would have done a one-page memo that says, don't rank Adams. That's not our strategy," Archila said at the time. "That's how it's being summed up, but that's not the totality of our effort."
But if there's a deeper strategy at play, it has yet to enter the equation. On Saturday, just shy of three months before primary day, WFP unveiled the first portion of their two-part endorsement plan—the group is backing four candidates for mayor, in no particular order: State Senator Zellnor Myrie, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. It's a move that adheres to the "DREAM" campaign being pushed by some progressives, effectively amounting to a "don't rank Adams or Andrew Cuomo" strategy as the former governor continues to loom large in the polls and the current mayor's chances at a second term look grimmer by the day.