AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File
- Two of Andrew Yang's opponents in New York City's mayoral race suggested Yang cheated on a pop quiz during a New York Times editorial board interview.
- Advisers to Shaun Donovan and Scott Stringer both said they doubted Yang answered the questions without getting help.
- Neither of Yang's opponents have evidence that he broke The Times' interview rules.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Some of Andrew Yang's opponents in New York City's mayoral race suggested he cheated on a pop quiz during a New York Times editorial board interview without offering any proof of their allegations.
Yang gave remarkably accurate answers to the three pop quiz questions The Times posed to all of the Democratic candidates for mayor in individual endorsement interviews. Two of the candidates have been criticized for making wildly inaccurate estimates of the median price of a home in Brooklyn, the median rent for a Manhattan home, and the percentage of New York City public school students who are homeless or live in temporary shelter.
An advisor to city comptroller Scott Stringer told New York Magazine it "seems hard to imagine" that Yang could answer all three questions perfectly without getting outside help. Stringer was in the ballpark for all three questions.
"There's no reliable way to prep for questions like that – you hope your candidate's accumulated knowledge and sense of the city serves them well," Micah Lasher said. "That's what happened with Scott and he was able to give answers in the right ballpark. But that's very different from pulling the precisely correct numerical answers on all three questions out of the air, which seems hard to imagine happening if everyone had been in the same room."
A top adviser to Shaun Donovan, the former housing commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, demanded that The Times publish the video of its interview with Yang.
"The Times should release the video of his interview," Donovan adviser Rick Fromberg told New York Magazine. "Andrew's campaign should immediately release any correspondence he and they had during that time period."
Donovan, who also served as a housing official in the Obama administration, estimated that the median price of a Brooklyn home is $100,000. Ex-Citigroup executive Ray McGuire was similarly criticized for guessing between $80,000 and $90,000. A spokesman for Donovan said the candidate "misinterpreted the question" and gave his estimate of the assessed value of homes in Brooklyn. Other candidates pegged the price at between $500,000 and $1.8 million.
While most of the candidates answered the questions without much explanation of their thought process, Yang laid out his thinking as he worked through his answers, according to The Times' transcript.
"Oh, my gosh. Brooklyn! Such a diverse place," Yang said after being posed the question about Brooking housing prices. "This is, like, blowing my mind, this question. So median home - could be any size, right? So some of them would be very substantial. But you're looking at the median, so you have to, like, whittle down. I would just say that the median - it's going to be something, like, much higher than it should be. So the number that popped into my mind is $900,000."
The correct answer was $900,000.
The Times directed all of the candidates to be in a room alone during their interviews over Google Meet, without any aides present or on the call. A spokesperson for Yang denied the claim that Yang cheated on the quiz.
This comes as the primary race is heating up and the candidates prepare to participate in their first televised, virtual debate on Thursday night.