Latest news with #MichaelBlake
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Longshot NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake gets $2 million in matching funds on eve of primary
NEW YORK — 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 likely comes too late for Blake, a former Bronx assemblyman, to mount a competitive campaign or significantly raise his profile. But Blake said the new funds mean his 'name will resonate across the city over the final five days' and mentioned get out the vote efforts and field operations targeting undecided voters. He declined to give specifics. 'We have days to close the deal,' Blake told the Daily News. 'Now we can make it clear to voters — you still have a choice. Especially to Black and brown voters, Michael Blake is a choice for you.' 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 broader attempt to block Cuomo from the mayoralty. Blake received 2% of the vote in a recent Marist poll.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
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.
New York Post
09-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Long-shot NYC mayoral candidate sues to get onto final debate stage, claims donors ‘illegally' rejected
Mayoral long-shot candidate Michael Blake is suing the city's powerful campaign finance agency in a last-ditch bid to be allowed onto the Democratic primary debate stage later this week. Blake — arguably the breakout star of last week's first debate — claims the Campaign Finance Board nixed hundreds of valid donations that would have made him eligible for the forum hosted by Spectrum on Thursday night. 'The CFB has acted arbitrarily, capriciously, illegally, and unconstitutionally in doing so,' claims Blake's Manhattan Supreme Court suit. The CFB's 'antiquated' database wrongly rejected nearly 200 donations to Blake's campaign, including one by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, according to the lawsuit, filed Sunday. The contributions would have made Blake eligible for the city's generous eight-to-one public matching funds program, a threshold for entry into the second and final debate, the suit states. 5 Michael Blake is suing after he said he was 'illegally' booted from the second debate. Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock The former Bronx Assemblyman, during last Wednesday's NBC 4 New York-Politico debate, referenced the fact that he'd been barred from participating in the next forum when asked about his biggest political regret. 'The campaign finance board did not want to meet with us, they said go to court and that's what we are doing,' Blake, an associate pastor at a South Bronx church and former Obama White House aide, told The Post on Monday. 'It is the CFB who made the error and they still have time to fix it. All we are asking for is we deserve to be on the stage Thursday night, we deserve to get matching funds.' The Blake donors were 'arbitrarily' disqualified due to address verification issues, including Williams — himself a candidate currently participating in the CFB matching funds program, the suit alleges. Williams' $250 donation was rejected in the audit 'solely because his apartment was not included,' a field not required by the Campaign Finance Law, the suit claims. 5 Blake, considered a 'breakout' star at last week's debate, says the Campaign Finance Board messed up, and he has actually met the threshold to be on stage at the second and final mayoral debate. AP 5 Public Advocate Jumaane Williams's $250 donation to Blake was nixed by the CFB because it claimed he entered 'a non-residental address.' Stephen Yang 'This audit arbitrarily preliminarily disqualified numerous contributions,' the suit reads, adding that the 'vast majority of such failures are due to the inflexibility of CFB's database fields.' 'The sole reason given by the CFB in denying Michael Blake participation is their conclusory and inaccurate contention that the Blake Campaign did not meet their eligibility threshold based upon matchable dollars raised to date,' the suit claims. 5 'It's surreal,' Blake told The Post on Monday. 'The egregiousness of these errors and the ramifications. Christopher Sadowski Blake, who is polling at 1.5%, is asking for a judge to force the CFB to include him in the debate. The board is required to host primary debates for citywide office elections, under the Campaign Finance Act, but is given broad discretion over who will be on the dais. Candidates either need to raise and spend nearly $2.4 million or pull in more than $250,000 in public matching funds to participate in the second debate. The threshold for the first debate was lower, with only $200,000 needed to be raised and spent to get on Blake sent in his May 19 contribution disclosure, the board at first seemed primed to give out matching funds, even asking for updated bank information. 5 Michael Blake was a former Obama aide and Bronx Assemblyman. James Messerschmidt But the CFB later sent the 'audit letter' claiming he was 78 donors short and included two conflicting contribution dollar totals, according to the suit. The suit also says the CFB was using an arbitrary deadline for when the contribution threshold could be met. 'They are just making up a rule,' Blake said. 'It's surreal. The egregiousness of these errors and the ramifications.'
New York Times
09-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
10 Questions With Michael Blake
At the first Democratic debate in this year's New York City mayoral race, Michael Blake emerged as a scene-stealer, in part for his curt attacks on former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the race's front-runner. For those familiar with Mr. Blake, his performance might not have been entirely unexpected. He worked at the White House during the Obama administration, served as a New York State assemblyman and is an associate pastor at a Bronx church who knows how to craft a strong one-liner. That experience, however, has not translated into much success in his bid to become mayor. He has been near the back of the pack in the polls, and his campaign has not qualified for the city's generous public matching funds program. Ahead of the June 24 primary, the leading Democrats in the race visited The New York Times for interviews. We are publishing excerpts from those interviews, and this is the fourth in the series; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. We asked Mr. Blake, 42, questions about 10 themes, with the occasional follow-up, touching on his push to eliminate credit scores on rent and homeownership applications and whether it's OK to put ketchup on a cinnamon raisin bagel. We've written previously about where Mr. Blake and the other candidates stand on key issues and which candidates are raising the most money in your neighborhood. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
06-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Knicks' firing of Tom Thibodeau raises a question: What do we want from NBA coaches?
The New York City Democratic mayoral candidates have entered the Tom Thibodeau discourse. During Wednesday's debate, each candidate had to pick a side on the thumbs up/thumbs down binary about the New York Knicks' decision to fire Thibodeau following their Eastern Conference finals defeat to the Indiana Pacers. Seven candidates did not agree with the Knicks' move, while Michael Blake had the backs of James Dolan and Leon Rose. 'Our goal is to win the finals, not to get to the conference finals,' Blake said. they asked the nyc mayoral candidates what they thought about the thibs firing greatest city in the world — claire de lune (@ClaireMPLS) June 5, 2025 Regardless, the majority opinion on the stage seems to be the majority opinion in the greater sports world — or at least the initial majority opinion. Thibodeau just got the Knicks to the precipice of the NBA Finals and they were one of the last four teams standing for the first time in 25 years. These were not the lovey-dovey 'Nova Knicks' of a year ago, thanks, in part, to the franchise-altering Karl-Anthony Towns trade that went down as training camp started. But the Knicks navigated it more successfully than not: 51 wins, the Eastern Conference's third seed, two playoff series wins, including one over the defending champions (a series they had control of before Jayson Tatum's injury) and a coin-flip conference final that might have gone the other way had the Knicks not blown Game 1 in historic fashion. GO DEEPER The Knicks' season comes to an end, and Game 1 will haunt them for a while On merit, Thibodeau should still be there. And what are sports if not an area of society in which we look for merit to win out in the end? There are enough aspects of life that aren't determined by the concept of what's deserved; sports are supposed to run counter to that. It is a deeply held value of many sports fans. 'When I first saw it,' Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said about Thibodeau's firing on Wednesday, 'I thought it was one of those fake AI things.' Except, merit can have different meanings. We've heard that sports are a results-oriented business long enough that we usually believe it, but results are at once more complicated and simpler than ever before. Evidence for the latter: Blake's comment — or, RINGZ culture, as some derisively put it. If winning a title is all that matters, and you believe you are a title contender, then the NBA becomes a zero-sum game in which only one team can be happy. If a team doesn't win when it thinks it should, there is a hunt for reasoning. And if Thibodeau did not bring together a divided locker room, as was reported in The Athletic, did not maximize the skills of his team, as was evidenced by the team's offensive struggles throughout the playoffs, and failed to extend his rotation until it was too late, why should he be back? Advertisement Another value sports fans hold dear: the importance of organizational alignment, from ownership to management to the coaching staff to players (and beyond). If management doesn't believe in the coaches, or the players don't believe in management, everything disintegrates. Right? Well, if you believe that is a prerequisite for winning a title, let me point you to a little-known documentary called 'The Last Dance.' Also, let's go back to the surprise firings (in timing, if not in eventuality) of Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth from the last week of the regular season. More so than in the Knicks situation, there was a clear conflict between those two values. Malone coached the Nuggets to their first championship just two seasons ago. To fire him so soon after a title (Nick Nurse, Frank Vogel and Mike Budenholzer have also lost their jobs shortly after winning championships in the last four years) seemed like an abandonment of merit. Yet, there was an equal case to make that the Nuggets' decision was overdue. Malone and Booth had been feuding long before their dismissals, causing fractures within the Nuggets. Despite Malone guiding the Nuggets to seasons of 57 and 50 wins (with David Adelman doing relief work in the latter year), ownership still held him accountable for not doing more to guarantee organizational harmony. At least in Malone's case, he had company in the blame department. The rub, of course, is that this had been a lingering issue, not a sudden one. Management and the coaching staff had disagreements leading up to the championship, but the Nuggets were able to overcome them. Everyone looks happy during a parade, but that doesn't mean there aren't simmering, perhaps unfixable, issues. (The issues worsened in the year following the title.) Advertisement Imagine if the Nuggets had fired Malone and/or Booth after last season, in which they lost Game 7 of the second round at home. Or if the Knicks had followed the lead of the Nuggets and Grizzlies by firing their long-time coach before the playoffs arrived. It's not like they were a happy team as the season played out, nor were they significantly outperforming expectations. If you're looking for a reason to change, you can always create one. There is a straightforward reason for all these firings: competitive windows are closing faster than before. Player contracts are shorter, restraints on team-building in the new CBA are tighter and win-or-else angst is at an all-time high. There is less time to find the perfect recipe than there used to be. If you think you have a roster that can win, you better make sure you have the right leadership in place. The question isn't whether these firings are right or wrong, but why it feels like they can be both right and wrong simultaneously. It's not that 'deserve's got nothing to do with it,' to borrow a phrase from'Unforgiven.' It's that it has never been harder to determine what 'deserve' means when it comes to leading an NBA team.
