On Thursday, Brooklyn-based civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley formally announced her highly anticipated run for mayor of New York City at an event at the Brooklyn Museum.
The event came the day after Wiley released a campaign launch video where she said there was a crisis of confidence in the city's leadership and "changing it up isn't the risk."
"The risk is electing the same kinds of people bringing the same old broken promises over and over again and expecting things will be different, that is the risk we can't afford right now," Wiley said in the video.
Wiley, a senior vice president for Social Justice at The New School, left her job as a political and legal analyst for MSNBC in July to weigh a mayoral run. She has previously served as the chairwoman for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the oversight agency of the NYPD, and was a top lawyer for Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Miley, who, if elected, would be the first woman to be mayor of NYC, has sought to distance herself from de Blasio and establishment politics—separating her from two top mayoral candidates Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. Currently, Stringer is the only other candidate to have made his campaign for mayor official.
In the campaign video, Wiley said: "I want to build a New York where — no matter who you are or what you look like, how you identify or who you love, whether you have a big bank account or none at all, whether you live in public housing or luxury condos — you can live a life with dignity and opportunity in this city."
Wiley, who has never served in public office, said her campaign would focus on racial justice, affordable housing, educational inequality and other issues.
The Democratic primary will be held in June 2021 and the general election will be in November.
