2020
New York’s presidential campaign headquarters
The Empire State has been the home for nearly a half dozen campaigns.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's campaign was headquartered in Troy. SCOOTERCASTER/Shutterstock
Presidential candidates have found fertile ground in the Empire State – not only filling their campaign coffers, but also locating their campaign headquarters.
Four years after Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battled it out from competing locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, other presidential hopefuls are finding that New York has plenty of space for campaign desks, yard signs and phone banks – whether it is in the five boroughs or up the Hudson.
Here’s a rundown of which campaigns have found a home across the state.
Michael Bloomberg
The billionaire businessman has reportedly set up temporary shop in a Beaux-Arts limestone mansion he owns on the Upper East Side. If the high pay was not enough to attract campaign talent, then the free food and priceless art will definitely help in recruiting some experienced pros. And soon, the campaign will reportedly relocate to the former office of the New York Times – a newspaper Bloomberg was once supposedly trying to buy.
Bill de Blasio
His ill-fated presidential campaign was always short on cash, so it had to make do with a co-working space between Park Slope and Goawanusin Brooklyn where private offices start at $600 per month. It might not have been fancy, but it was reportedly just a short walk (or perhaps car ride?) away from his gym in Park Slope – plus that month-to-month lease came in pretty handy in the end.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Troy might not have been the type of place that would lure top-tier talent from the five boroughs, but its post-industrial charm offered some much-needed hipness to a campaign that struggled to stand out in the Democratic primary. While her campaign didn’t work out, at least she added a little economic stimulus to the upstate economy through her short-term rental in the historic Frear Building.
Donald Trump
The president may be a Florida man now, but his campaign headquarters remains in his eponymous Manhattan tower. If pesky protesters eventually make him ditch New York for more friendly locales down south, he already has a satellite campus in Virginia to fall back on – just like his arch-nemesis Jeff Bezos.
Andrew Yang
Somewhere in midtown Manhattan, the Yang Gang has found a home IRL. Making America Think Harder will be easier now that the team has moved out of Yang’s mother’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. The campaign is now spread across two floors in an office building that has some super-cool interior french doors – but a campaign rep declined to elaborate on the new digs: “We're not going to get into that, thanks.”
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