Scott Stringer is ‘the adult in the room’ at campaign launch

Democratic mayoral candidate Scott Stringer struck a defiant tone as he officially launched his campaign in a packed Upper West Side bar Thursday night. Introduced by Assembly Member Micah Lasher at Blondies Sports, Stringer was joined by a crowd of supporters who packed the West 79th Street bar.

“I'm very excited about the coming campaign, as I mentioned in the speech, the time that I've spent in the neighborhoods meeting with people. They really want change, but they want vision, confidence and experience,” he told City & State shortly after giving remarks at the event. “They don't want a mayoralty on training wheels. We had enough of that,” he continued. “I think I bring the adult in the room, but also a real vision for what this city could be, whether you grew up here, like I did, or you come from other parts of the world, we all love the city but it's getting harder and harder to love New York because of the crime and because of the lack of affordability,” he added. 

Stringer landed second behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (who hasn’t launched a campaign for mayor) in two recent polls. In a poll commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America and first reported in Politico, Cuomo got 32%, Stringer came in at 10%; while current City Comptroller Brad Lander was at 8%; state Sen. Jessica Ramos was at 7% and Mayor Eric Adams and state Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani were at 6%. Another poll commissioned by Stringer’s campaign and leaked to the Post reportedly put Cuomo at 33% and Stringer at 13%.

“This is a long, tough journey,” Stringer admitted. “I've been in these races before, but I'm very confident that what I'm selling the voters are buying.”