Corey Johnson ends his campaign for New York City mayor

NEW YORK — Corey Johnson, who ascended through the ranks of New York City’s Democratic political establishment to become speaker of the City Council in 2018, has ended his nascent campaign for mayor.

He announced the decision Thursday, following a bruising budget battle that placed him in the crosshairs of organized outrage over the size of the NYPD.

"Just as I was open about the fact that I was considering a run for Mayor, I now want to be open about the fact that I have made the difficult decision not to run," Johnson said in a statement. "This challenging time has led me to rethink how I can best be of service to this city, and I have come to the conclusion that this is not the right path for me."

It was a disappointing end to a promising chapter in the career of one of New York’s rising political stars.

Johnson, who is 38 years old, was thriving before crisis hit the city.

His exuberance for the role stood in sharp contrast to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who always seems to be at odds with fellow Democratic politicians, the press corps and at times even his own staff. But as de Blasio resisted the light-hearted and flashy customs of public service, Johnson eagerly stepped into the void.

He broke out in dance during a weather segment on local TV, attended the Met Gala, made headlines with his split jumps during the annual Pride Parade down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and he openly chronicled his joy at finding a romantic partner.

Johnson also used his position as one of the highest-ranked Democrats in New York to increase the power of the Council, winning a bigger budget and larger staff with the aim of being a stronger check on the mayor.

The beefed-up body was able to push through legislation offering discounted Metro cards for low-income New Yorkers, a charter revision commission and a requirement that the transportation department release an annual streets master plan. After the contentious race for the speakership, Johnson also won over many of his colleagues who had been skeptical about having him at the helm, even as he largely stayed out of consequential land-use fights and foisted responsibility for ethics investigations to a GOP colleague.

But Covid-19 changed everything.

Johnson, who is HIV-positive, was careful not to appear in-person at public events and shut down the Council’s offices early. He was out in front of the mayor on several key decisions such as closing schools, but over the summer became mired in an intense debate over how much money to slash from the NYPD’s budget in the face of an economy decimated by the pandemic.

As lawmakers prepared to approve the spending plan, demonstrators gathered outside a rental building where Johnson’s boyfriend lives, in one case vandalizing the property, while others camped outside City Hall to voice their demands. Shortly before the votes were tallied after midnight July 1, Johnson lamented that the budget did not go far enough in cutting the NYPD while acknowledging that he followed the lead of the Council's Black Latino and Asian Caucus.

Since then, he has largely stayed out of the limelight. And rumors about his second thoughts were fortified by summer fundraising numbers showing a campaign that had lost its momentum, even by pandemic standards. Johnson said he was focused on his job and that it felt wrong to ask people for money in the face of so much suffering, though some of his competitors still managed to rake in hefty sums of cash.

The campaign’s eventual dissolution and the hard reality of term limits ends, at least for now, one of the more compelling backstories in local politics.

Johnson grew up in a small town outside Boston and first garnered national attention when he came out as gay while captain of his high school football team. Eschewing college, he moved straight to New York and began working as an LGBTQ activist before joining Manhattan Community Board 4, eventually becoming the city’s youngest board chair. Along the way, Johnson struggled with addiction and contracted HIV, two battles he has been open about fighting.

In an interview on Thursday, Johnson said he has been grappling with depression since May.

He said he and his boyfriend were isolated and only saw one another for three months, so as not to contract Covid-19 — an especially perilous position for people who are HIV-positive.

He recalled sleepless nights fretting over the virus in its early days in March and 3 a.m. phone calls with Jay Varma, who is currently handling the de Blasio administration's response to the pandemic and was working in Africa at the time. Some of the anxiety stemmed from a sense that all politicians were letting down the New Yorkers they were elected to represent, and some was personal, Johnson said.

"In 2015, '16 and '17 in February I got unbelievably sick with the flu. I had to go to the ER a few times," he said. “I think the combination of feeling like we all sort of let New York down a little bit, there was some guilt of that, coupled with being isolated and this upending our lives and then contending with one of the most difficult moments New York has ever gone through.”

"I wasn't really focused on myself during that time," he added.

After negotiating a difficult budget and being targeted by protesters who wanted him to cut the NYPD budget more, Johnson said he took a break from his grueling schedule to assess his plans. At that point, during a visit to Cape Cod, he began contending with the feelings he had bottled up during the peak of crisis, he said.

“It came down on me like a tsunami," he added.

He is now in therapy and taking antidepressants.

He said he plans to play a role in the mayor's race, and acknowledged the candidates have reached out as they inevitably seek his support.

Johnson’s exit, first reported by the Daily News, still leaves a broad field. City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams both have serious campaign war chests. Maya Wiley, a former de Blasio appointee and former MSNBC legal analyst; Dianne Morales, an Afro-Latina former nonprofit executive and Loree Sutton, a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army and erstwhile head of the Department of Veterans’ Services have all registered mayoral campaigns.

Former Obama cabinet member and Bloomberg housing czar Shaun Donovan has begun raising money but has not formally announced, and former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia is also mulling a run.

When asked if he planned to run for mayor in a 2018 interview, Johnson immediately brought up the inherent tension between public and private life that troubled him at the time, and years later would help him make the decision to step away from electoral politics.

“I feel really conflicted ... I really wish I had a husband. I really wish that I had children. There’s still time. All hope is not lost yet, even though sometimes it feels that way,” Johnson told City & State after reaching his perch atop the Council in 2018. “For me, the importance of my life goes beyond elected office. And I don’t want to walk out of elected office one day and think: ‘How come I didn’t do enough to build my personal life?’ And so I struggle with that balance.”

Johnson did not say what his immediate plans will be, but suggested he would continue his career in public life.

"I want to be clear that my decision to end this campaign is not the end of my public life. Far from it. I will continue serving as Speaker of the City Council and working to improve the lives of New Yorkers," he said in his initial statement. "I love this City with all my heart and I believe by working together, we will come back stronger than ever. Let’s continue looking out for one another and fighting for the greatest city in the world.”