New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang speaks at a rally in City Hall Park in Manhattan. | Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images
BY TINA NGUYEN
NEW YORK – Andrew Yang has been claiming he was heavily involved in helping the Democrats recapture the Senate for weeks, promoting his work in the Georgia runoff election while fighting for New York mayor.
Last week, during the second televised Democratic primary debate, Yang went a step further, adding to the victories of Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both Georgia Democrats, in the high-octane runoff election in January.
“I moved to Georgia to win the Senate,” he told voters, asking if they could “imagine” what would have happened if Republicans had control of the Senate. “It gave us a lifeline and an opportunity to actually get out of this crisis. I am proud of this work. “
Local activists in Georgia, however, paint a more complex picture of Yang’s involvement: that of a man who clearly used his fame for a razor-thin democratic victory – and vigorously – but his activity and influence in the races.
“We were there for years,” said Linh Nguyen, director of the RUN AAPI campaign and former director of the Georgia Democrats Coalitions for the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Mission. “Anyone who understands what it takes to win campaigns knows that there will be more than just opportunities to speak. It’s more than one visit in a few months. That is a long-term organization of the infrastructure. “
At least one of Yang’s rivals in the Democratic mayor’s primary also questioned his claims. During the first official debate in May, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams – now the front runner – said it was “appalling” that Yang should acknowledge the work of “Stacey Abrams and the Local Black Women Organizing”.
Yang was never a conventional politician. His fame was based on an internet-based presidential campaign that revolved around a single issue: a universal basic income of $ 1,000 a month for everyone, a crazy idea about two years ago that has since caught on in mainstream politics. His appearance in the Democratic President’s pre-election debate was largely due to the intense activism of his online fan base – the self-titled “Yang Gang”.
The New York mayor’s area code, now two weeks away, will test whether that popularity has jumped off the internet and turned into actual votes.
Longtime activists in Georgia say they were upset by Yang’s comments on his role there and see them as a great attempt to take responsibility for years of unnoticed work that turned the formerly deep red state blue in the presidential and Senate runoffs.
“Frankly, this is a slap in the face for the hardworking grassroots volunteers who have put decades of work into registering voters, especially AAPI volunteers who have spent years putting their work into registering their communities, mobilizing voters and voters protect. “, said a senior staff member of one of the Senate campaigns and spoke on condition of anonymity in order to avoid political repercussions.
But some in Georgia who interacted directly with Yang said the energy he created was critical to attracting young voters – an effect of the Yang gang and, to some extent, the AAPI voters in Georgia.
“I didn’t know how to get people to see how important this was [race] said Cam T. Ashling, chairman of the Georgia Advancing Progress PAC and AAPI constituency director of Ossoff during the Senate runoff election. “I sent postcards and put up leaflets and all that said, ‘This is a historic choice. You can make history. ‘ But how do I get this to people and then get other people to acknowledge my message? So it was extremely important that Andrew came down. “
But as in the race for mayor, Yang made some rash remarks that angered local agents. His announcement that he was “moving” to Georgia frustrated the local Democrats, who were deeply focused on the specific strategies needed to win the state.
They had already faced right-wing conspiracies claiming that Democrats were moving en masse to Georgia to vote in the runoff elections, artificially inflating their electorate. Yang’s tweet not only backed up these claims, but also made headlines in right-wing media.
“Comments by liberal activist Andrew Yang raise suspicions that the Democrats could use Georgian law to win critical runoffs,” The Blaze wrote, while Twitchy considered that Yang was “exploiting”[ing] Georgia’s Weak Residence Rules ”to vote for Warnock and Ossoff.
“It gave us more headaches than it helped us. There’s a reason Stacey Abrams had to beg people not to move to Georgia, ”recalls one campaign officer.
In fact, Yang’s notoriety has been viewed by some as a potential obstacle, even beyond right hand wrestling.
“Georgia didn’t want the celebrity element in this race. They didn’t want the Debra Messings of the world to tweet about it. They didn’t want the pop stars to come in and give concerts, ”said a Democratic politician who was involved in the Georgia runoff. “The second this was nationalized and it became a race over ‘non-Georgia values’, they were in real trouble.”
For others, however, the celebrity element has been a godsend – especially when it comes to young people’s turnout.
“[H]The Georgia presence during the 2020 Senate election mobilized younger first-time voters to vote for candidates who wholeheartedly reflect their beliefs, ”said Sophie Lee, former chairwoman of the Georgia High School Democrats, recalling a telephone banking event and a question-and-answer session he’s hosted for their group. According to her, Yang attracted more than 150 students from across the country to the event.
Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and co-chair of Yang’s mayoral campaign, said he was in favor of Yang in the primaries over UBI – a concept that his father, Martin Luther King Jr., championed. He came to Yang when he came to Georgia and held several GOTV events.
“Very few people decide, ‘I will stop what I am doing and focus on helping these candidates choose.’ He did that and it was huge, ”said King. “And because he had a profile, because he was running for president, there are many young people across the country who support Andrew Yang and support many of his ideas.”
Yang and King’s work as two of the co-founders of Win Both Seats, a project affiliated with the super-PAC Defeat By Tweet, raised nearly $ 3 million for local, minority-led activist groups in Georgia. The leaders of several of these groups – the Black Church PAC, Care in Action and the Black Male Voter Project – told POLITICO that the grants from the project were substantial.
“The donations made to the Black Male Voter Project from Defeat by Tweet exceeded $ 100,000,” said Mondale Robinson, the project’s leader. “[A]Anyone who does this understands this work and what it is like to receive money, and realizes the importance of that amount of money to a black-run organization. “
However, the question of whether he promoted the engagement of AAPI voters in Georgia is thorny; reflects Yang’s lightning rod status in Asian-American politics.
Historically, the AAPI voting in Georgia has been pathetically underactive.
“I mean, until recently we never knew where the Asian voters were” [in Georgia], we didn’t know what interested them. We didn’t even know if they would vote for Democrats, ”said Nguyen. “And so the turnout in Georgia in November 2020 really set the tone for what AAPI’s involvement should look like.”
Ashling, a Vietnamese-American, had a different assessment and saw Yang’s star power as a booster for AAPI and young voters. Despite her historic turnout in Georgia during the November election, she recalled worrying they would not vote in the runoff that was slated just months after a tiresome presidential race.
“What if we could get one but not the other? And then what if [older] Asian Americans were kind of racist against Warnock? I mean, that would be bad, “Ashling said, hence an event she hosted with Yang and Warnock in Gwinnett County in November.
Yang’s presence, she said, helped encourage AAPI voters to get involved.
“There’s this stigma that straight East Asian men are politically unmarketable. And Andrew trumped that. He smashed it. He was a powerful voice in a room that wasn’t occupied by an Asian man, ”she said. “When he came down he was a political celebrity.”
However, Yang’s higher ambitions could not be ignored. When the early voting started in December, Yang left Georgia for over two weeks during the vacation.
“That was when the rumors [started]that he would enter the mayor’s race and I don’t think we saw him again, ”said a senior official on one of the Senate campaigns.
According to his Instagram account, he was back in New York with his family over the holidays, posting photos of himself riding his bike down West 42nd Street to visit the Rev. Al Sharpton. Weeks later, Yang announced his candidacy.
In the final phase of a bloody mayoral campaign, Yang has called on his allies for help, and several activists and politicians from Georgia are planning to advertise and hold events in the coming weeks.
Georgia State Senator Sheikh Rahman told POLITICO that he returned the favor for Yang, who had assisted him in his own race. “As the first Asian-American senator-elect from Georgia, and especially given the circumstances around the country, I am motivated to help my AAPI colleagues get elected across the country,” he said via text message.
But the Democratic Senate failed to weigh Yang’s efforts. Inquiries to the Senate Democratic campaign committee and the office of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were not returned on Monday.
For his part, Ossoff said he “appreciated” Yang’s help.
“He has a diverse following,” the senator said in a telephone interview. “He has strong support among the people in the Asian-American community. He also has supporters from all backgrounds and it was just appreciated that he was ready to do something to help get the vote. ”
Ossoff did not support himself in the race for the mayor.
CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this report incorrectly stated when the New York mayoral election would take place. It’s two weeks away.
