Longshot NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake gets $2m in matching funds on eve of primary
Mayoral candidate Michael Blake has secured $2 million in public matching funds approved by the city's Campaign Finance Board — a significant but belated cash infusion for the longshot campaign.
With just five days left in the primary race, the new cash influx infusion likely comes too late for Blake, a former Bronx assemblyman, to mount a competitive campaign or significantly raise his profile.
The decision comes after the Democrat sued the CFB for its refusal to allow him to participate in the second and final mayoral debate last week.
The board in late May ruled that Blake would not be participating in the debate because he hadn't met the fundraising threshold to qualify for it, and a Manhattan Supreme Court justice backed up their decision.
Blake's campaign argued in their suit that he had, in fact, met that threshold, and that the CFB's system errors mistakenly made it seem that he hadn't.
The candidate garnered some attention with a lively performance at the first debate at the start of June, and climbed onto some endorsement slates after State Sen. Jessica Ramos, another mayoral candidate all but removed herself from consideration when she endorsed Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
He also cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani earlier this week as part of a braoder attempt to block Cuomo from the mayoralty.
Blake received 2% of the vote in a recent Marist poll.
He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Pat Williams, last Montana Democrat to serve in the House, dies at 87
His most notable election came in 1992, when Montana had been chiseled down to a single congressional seat, from two, after the 1990 census. Williams, who represented the state's more liberal forested western half, faced Rep. Ron Marlenee, a Republican who served the conservative ranchland of eastern Montana. Advertisement The left-versus-right showdown was fought over the use of the state's vast natural resources and whether the New Deal-era safety net for the vulnerable still mattered. Williams won narrowly, with 51% of the vote. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In Washington, he was a co-sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which gave workers 12 weeks of unpaid time off to care for a newborn or a sick family member. Multiple attempts to enact the law under Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had failed. Williams called those administrations 'frozen in the ice of their own indifference' to working people. The law was signed by President Bill Clinton, who boasted of it nearly every day during his successful reelection race in 1996. A former schoolteacher, Williams was also on the front lines of a conflagration over the National Endowment for the Arts. Conservative senators in 1990 sought to abolish the agency because of grants it had made that supported photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, whose transgressive work was condemned by critics like Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association as blasphemous or obscene. Advertisement Williams was the chief author of a bipartisan compromise that preserved funding for the arts endowment while leaving decisions about obscenity to the courts. He became known as the savior of the NEA. He was also the sponsor of a pet bill, the Professional Boxing Safety Act, which required safety standards for professional fighters. Congress passed it in 1996. 'Yeah, I fought as a kid in Butte,' Williams told The New York Times. 'Back there you had to be a Democrat, and you had to be able to fight. Boxers are workers and deserve health protection.' John Patrick Williams was born Oct. 30, 1937, in Helena, Montana, the state capital. His parents, Shelton and Libby Williams, owned a candy shop in Butte. Evel Knievel, the daredevil motorcyclist, was a cousin who was born in Butte one year later, and the two boys tussled and played often, according to a Knievel biography. The family's hometown was built on copper mining, which had attracted waves of Irish immigrants. It was staunchly pro-union and embraced the working-class populism of the New Deal. Williams graduated from Butte High School in 1956 and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Denver in 1961. He returned home to teach in the public schools from 1963 to 1969. Butte voters sent him in 1967 to the Montana House of Representatives, where he served two terms. Advertisement His wife, Carol Griffith Williams, whom he married in 1965, also became a state lawmaker, serving as the Democratic leader in the Montana Senate. She survives him, as do a son, Griff; two daughters, Erin and Whitney Williams; and five grandchildren. Williams first sought federal office in 1974 but lost the Democratic primary for a House seat to Max Baucus. Four years later, when Baucus moved up to run successfully for the Senate, Williams was elected to replace him in the House. When he announced that he would not seek reelection in 1996, joining the faculty of the University of Montana at age 59, he said his greatest regret was not to have revived a bill vetoed by Reagan that would have protected 1.4 million acres of pristine Montana wilderness. Reagan said he wanted to protect jobs and mining development in the state. Williams considered the jobs-versus-the-environment trade-off a false choice. 'A clean environment,' he said in 1992, 'has been and will be an absolute cash register for this state.' This article originally appeared in
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Mass. lawmakers say they are on precipice of outlawing mandatory tenant-paid broker's fees in $61 billion budget
State Senator Michael Rodrigues, the lead negotiator for his chamber, said the agreement came after warnings from the state budget office and budget watchdogs 'that tax revenues are precarious, to say the least.' 'We wanted to . . . minimize anything that happens, especially down in DC,' the Westport Democrat said. 'We still don't know what's going to happen down there.' Advertisement The $61 billion plan, which needs final legislative approval before going to Governor Maura Healey, would come in $1 billion under what Legislative leaders said they cut $300 million in what they had originally planned to spend on MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, and stripped out administrative costs. They also said they slimmed down some local earmarks, or funding for projects in individual districts. Advertisement In doing so, they also rewrote its plan so that $450 million in money they plan to dedicate to local school districts will now be funded by money generated by the so-called millionaires tax. The agreement would now commit to spending $2.4 billion from that pot of revenue, a nearly $500 million jump from what they initially agreed to and more than $1 billion above what they budgeted for this fiscal year. The money generated by the surtax has repeatedly blown past state projections, with nearly State Representative Aaron Michlewitz, the House's budget chair, said legislative leaders felt they could 'be a little more aggressive with our approach' in using surtax funding given how much it's raised. 'Taking the term from Washington, this was actually the real Earlier this month, Healey signed a Rodrigues pointed to the bill as a sign that the Legislature is investing in the T, which would get $470 million in what lawmakers called 'direct investment.' 'We are very comfortable and confident that the amount of money that we invested in the MBTA will allow them to continue on the path they've been on in improving,' he said. Advertisement The sweeping plan announced Sunday also includes several major policy changes. It would effectively ban charging tenants mandatory broker's fees — The measure that would outlaw mandatory tenant-paid broker's fees is years in the making. The charges typically amount to a month's rent and have become a virtual rarity elsewhere. After Healey already The budget also would mandate that regional transit authorities provide fare-free service, while giving them $209 million in funding to make it a reality. The compromise budget also left out pieces of policy proposed by both chambers. The Senate, for example, attached a rider to its budget plan that would give local officials, not lawmakers on Beacon Hill, the power to determine the number of liquor licenses distributed in their city or town. It didn't make the cut. Neither did a proposal to pause admissions reforms at vocational and technical schools. State policymakers are trying to budget at a time of upheaval in Washington, where Republican leaders are pushing sprawling legislation through the US Senate that could Advertisement The state has been That could create some headaches in the weeks ahead, including a potential budget gap policymakers will need to decide how to fill. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed budget watchdog, said last week that tax revenue may come in at least $600 million below what state officials had initially projected for the fiscal year that starts Tuesday. That projection didn't even account for potential impacts of the Trump administration's trade policies or the chance of an economic downturn, which the foundation House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen E. Spilka said in a joint statement that the plan would 'make Massachusetts more affordable, and will protect our most vulnerable residents.' 'As President Trump and Congressional Republicans continue to pursue devastating cuts to programs that millions of Americans rely on, we recognize the heightened importance of passing a fiscally responsible budget that invests in the areas that we value most,' the Democrats said. Advertisement Sunday's announcement marked a bit of relatively speedy deal-making for lawmakers. Should they whisk the agreement to Healey's desk on Monday as expected, it would be the first time since 2016 that they passed a budget deal before the start of the fiscal year. Still, Healey has 10 days to decide whether to sign, veto, or amend parts of the plan. That makes likely this the 15 straight year the state will begin the year 'She still has the opportunity to put some of her fingerprints on the budget, and we would never deny her that opportunity,' Rodrigues said of Healey. Samantha J. Gross can be reached at
Newsweek
3 hours ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump Warns NY Mayor Candidate Zohran Mamdani: 'Do the Right Thing'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a warning for New York city mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee who defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in last week's primary and sent shockwaves throughout the national political establishment. The president called Mamdani a "lunatic" and said it was "inconceivable" that the democratic socialist could actually win the mayoral election, but said that if he should succeed, the new mayor is "going to need to do the right thing, or they're not getting any money." Why It Matters Mamdani is a New York State assemblyman representing the part of Queens Borough that includes Astoria, Ditmars, and Astoria Heights. He won his seat in 2021 standing as a Democrat, but he identifies as a democratic socialist, specifically. Thanks to blockbuster endorsements from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as a platform built on promises that includes free city bus rides, free childcare, and city-owned groceries, Mamdani defied expectations and overcame a gargantuan deficit to defeat Cuomo. His victory has sparked debate about the direction of the Democratic Party and the influence of progressive platforms, marking a potential shift in national and local Democratic politics. What To Know Trump sat down last week for an interview with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo that aired on Sunday morning. The president discussed a range of topics, including the execution of his immigration policy, his frustration with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and the results of the Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City. As a longtime resident of the city, Trump called Mamdani a "communist" who would be "very bad for New York." "I don't know that he's going to get in," Trump said. "It's inconceivable that he's, but he's a communist, and he's a pure communist." "But let's say this. If he does get in, I'm going to be president, and he's going to have to do the right thing, or they're not getting any money. He's going to do the right thing," Trump said. "It's shocking that I would have assumed that—I used to say, we will never have a socialist in this country, no, but we'll have a communist." "I was very surprised," Trump said, adding that he had "never heard of" Mamdani before the primary, adding, "I don't know who he is." Trump on Mamdani: "He's a pure communist. I think he admits it ... If he does get in, I'm gonna be president and he's gonna have to the right thing or they're not getting any money. He's gotta do the right thing." — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 29, 2025 Bartiromo noted that Mamdani has already pledged to fight U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) and would work to stymie their operations in the city. She also highlighted a comment Mamdani made in December 2024 in which he said he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited New York City. "As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It's time that our actions are also," Mamdani told former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. When asked about Mamdani's comments, Trump said, "Well, he's a radical left lunatic." However, for all his criticism of Mamdani, Trump refused to back another candidate. Curtis Sliwa once again secured the Republican nomination, but Cuomo and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have announced they will run as independent candidates. "I don't want to say that because, you know, I have a lot of people, a lot of friends, and I have everybody, so I don't want to get into that," Trump said. "I can tell you this, whoever's mayor of New York is going to have to behave themselves, or the federal government is coming down very tough on them financially." President Donald Trump answers questions during a press conference on June 27 in Washington, D.C. Inset: New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a New York Democrat, speaks to supporters during an election night gathering... President Donald Trump answers questions during a press conference on June 27 in Washington, D.C. Inset: New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a New York Democrat, speaks to supporters during an election night gathering on June 24 in Long Island City, New York. More// Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images What People Are Saying Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party, last week wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "Mamdani won. The establishment is in panic. Billionaires are raising money against him; Trump is ranting; Islamophobes are on the loose. They know what we know: Candidates who stand boldly with the working class can win not only in NYC, but anywhere. Let's stand with Zohran." President Donald Trump last week wrote on Truth Social: "It's finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor. We've had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous. He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he's not very smart, he's got AOC+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!" What Happens Next? Mamdani, 33, has yet to secure endorsements from the biggest Democratic officials, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both coincidentally of New York. The New York City mayoral election will take place on November 4, 2025.
