Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Orig...
Andrew M. Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Originally a lawyer, Yang began working in startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. In 2011, he founded Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit organization focused on creating jobs in cities struggling to recover from the Great Recession. He ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and is running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
The son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang was born and raised in New York. He attended Brown University and then Columbia Law School. Dissatisfied with his work as an attorney, Yang began working for startups during the dot-com bubble before spending a decade as an executive at test preparation company Manhattan Prep. In 2011, Yang founded VFA, which recruits top college graduates into a two-year fellowship program at startups in developing cities across the United States. The Obama administration selected him in 2011 as a "Champion of Change" and in 2015 as a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship." Yang left VFA in 2017 to focus on his presidential campaign. In 2018, he authored The War on Normal People, which outlines several of his campaign's central ideas.
On November 6, 2017, Yang filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to run for President of the United States in the 2020 election. Yang's campaign largely focused on responding to the rapid development of automation, which is increasingly leading to workforce challenges and economic instability in the United States. His signature policy was the "Freedom Dividend," a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month to every American adult as a response to job displacement by automation, one of the primary factors that he claims led to Donald Trump's election in 2016. Considered a dark horse candidate throughout much of the primary, Yang received significant popularity online, with The New York Times calling him "The Internet's Favorite Candidate". News outlets described Yang as the most surprising candidate of the 2020 election cycle, going from a relative unknown to a major competitor in the race. Yang qualified for and participated in seven of the first eight Democratic debates, and has been credited with elevating discussions on UBI, automation, and autism to the national level, as well as for engaging Asian Americans in presidential politics.Yang's campaign was noted for its happy-go-lucky and "tech-friendly" nature. His supporters, informally known as the "Yang Gang", included several high-profile celebrity endorsements and were noted for their ideological and political diversity. Yang suspended his campaign on February 11, 2020, shortly after the New Hampshire primary, pledging that he and his movement are "just getting started." Following his campaign's end, Yang joined CNN as a political commentator, announced the creation of the political nonprofit organization Humanity Forward, and is running for the Democratic nomination in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
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Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 55th mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019. A member of the De...
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 55th mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 23rd White House Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010, and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Chicago between 2003 and 2009.
Born in Chicago, Emanuel is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Northwestern University. Working early in his career in Democratic politics, Emanuel was appointed as director of the finance committee for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. In 1993, he joined the Clinton administration, where he served as the assistant to the president for political affairs and as the Senior Advisor to the President for policy and strategy. Beginning a career in finance, Emanuel worked at the investment bank Wasserstein Perella & Co. from 1998 for 2½ years, and served on the board of directors of Freddie Mac. In 2002, Emanuel ran for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives vacated by Rod Blagojevich, who resigned to become governor of Illinois. Emanuel won the first of three terms representing Illinois's 5th congressional district, a seat he held from 2003 to 2009. As the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he oversaw Democratic wins in the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections, allowing the party to gain control of the chamber for the first time since 1994. After the 2008 presidential election, President Barack Obama appointed Emanuel to serve as White House chief of staff.
In October 2010, Emanuel resigned as chief of staff to run as a candidate in Chicago's 2011 mayoral election. Emanuel won with 55% of the vote over five other candidates in the non-partisan mayoral election, succeeding 22-year incumbent Richard M. Daley. At his reelection, although Emanuel failed to obtain an absolute majority in the February 2015 mayoral election, he defeated Cook County board commissioner (and later U.S. Representative) Jesús "Chuy" García in the subsequent run-off election in April. In late 2015, Emanuel's approval rating plunged to "the low 20s" in response to a series of scandals. These followed and were attributed to the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, the city's subsequent attempts to withhold a video of the shooting, and the lack of an investigation into the matter.
Emanuel initially announced in October 2017 he planned to run for a third term, but on September 4, 2018, he reversed his decision and announced that he would not seek a third term due to personal obligations. The Chicago Tribune assessed Emanuel's performance as mayor as "mixed." At one point, half of Chicagoans favored Emanuel's resignation. He later made steady progress in recovering his political support. He left office in May 2019 and was succeeded by Lori Lightfoot.
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