New Yorkers are voting for Joe Biden while thinking of Bernie Sanders

To understand why President Donald Trump will struggle to win his former home state in next week's presidential election, chat to folks at McCarren Park running track in Brooklyn, perhaps the trendiest of New York City's five boroughs.
Here, young urban professionals enjoy group yoga classes, Latinos kick around soccer balls and Black Lives Matter campaigners collect signatures. The nearby Upstate Stock coffee spot is reputed for its tasty vegan croissants.
Mr Trump's black glass towers dot New York City's skyline, but the Republican's nationalist ideas do not resonate here. Polls suggest voters will overwhelmingly choose his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the Presidential election on November 3.
Yet thanks to America's knotty voting arithmetic, this matters little. New York is not among the swing states that will determine the winner, and New Yorkers are worth less in elections than voters in rural states.
"I'm just hoping the big orange fat man goes down in flames," said Matthew Levine, who, in the characteristic style of native New Yorkers, was not shy about discussing the spray-tanned 45th president.
"What can you like about the man? He lies, he puts babies in cages, he's a racist, a misogynist and just about the worst person on the planet. I hope he loses this election. I hope he suffers. I hope he goes bankrupt, and his kids go to jail."

McCarren Park in Brooklyn where young urban professionals participate in group yoga classes, Latinos kick around soccer balls and Black Lives Matter campaigners collect signatures. James Reinl for The National

The National spoke to other folks running, stretching and lifting weights on a mild October afternoon. All were planning to vote for Mr Biden, a former Vice President, once the polls opened for early voting in the state on Saturday.
"I'm worried about what might happen if Trump is elected again," Natalie Rynczak, 30, a teacher and also a native New Yorker, said after completing an afternoon jog. "He's racist, he's divisive, his administration's policies compromise basic human rights."
Four years under a Trump administration have made American life toxic, she added. "It's much harder to talk to people who don't agree with you now. Everything escalates very quickly into an argument."
Mr Levine also lamented America's deepening political polarization, saying he stuck to a "nice little Brooklyn bubble" that is worlds apart from the Bible Belt, South, Midwest and other Trump heartlands.
Such views are not surprising. A Republican presidential candidate has not won in New York since Ronald Reosagan in 1984. Mr Trump, who hails from Queens, did not buck that trend when he lost to Hillary Clinton here in 2016.
Still, Mr Trump, whose name appears on skyscrapers on Wall Street, Fifth Avenue and other prime spots in the city, told The New York Post in August that he is "putting New York in play" in 2020, pointing to his popularity upstate and on Long Island.

The President, now a registered Florida resident, says New Yorkers are sick of high taxes, high crime rates, and Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo's strict coronavirus lockdown, which has hurt the economy of a city that was the global epicentre of the virus in March.
"Look at what's happened to New York, it's a ghost town," Mr Trump said at Thursday's televised debate. "These are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting up plexiglass is unbelievably expensive, and it's not the answer."

Mr Trump can count on some New York fans. Thousands of Staten Islanders bowed their heads and said prayers when the president was sick with Covid-19 earlier this month. Others formed a pro-Trump caravan of some 700 vehicles in Albany, the state capital.
But his chances here are slim. A Siena College poll of likely New York voters gave Mr Biden a massive 32-point lead over the president earlier this month. College pollster Steven Greenberg said it was not "likely that Trump can be competitive in his former home state".

McCarren Park running track in Brooklyn, perhaps the trendiest of New York City’s five boroughs. James Reinl for The National

With such baked-in support for Democrats, few analysts doubt that New York's 29 electoral votes will bolster Mr Biden's election-day tally. Candidates need 270 such votes to secure the White House.
"Even if a vast amount of people sit this one out or vote independent, we will still go [Democratic] blue," added Ms Rynczak. "Lots of friends feel comfortable doing a protest vote in New York, and they probably are safe to do so."
The same holds true for California. The highest-value state is worth 55 electoral votes, it has backed Democratic presidential candidates in every election since 1992 — meaning Mr Biden will likely add those to his score too.

The 2020 election instead hinges on Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and other toss-up states where the candidates have held frequent rallies and poured millions of dollars into television adverts.
In another quirk of US elections, the electoral college affords greater value to voters in rural states like Wyoming and Vermont than it does to populace New York, home to 19.5 million, with 8.4 million in New York City alone.
It is one of the reasons Mr Trump won the 2016 election despite getting 3 million fewer votes than Ms Clinton nationally.
Back at McCarren Park's running track, nobody foresaw Mr Trump pulling off the same feat again next week. They all planned to vote for Mr Biden, despite him being seen as a Wall Street-friendly centrist.
Many city-dwellers prefer leftist senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who lost to Mr Biden in the Democratic primaries. They pivoted to Mr Biden because he had a better chance of capturing the White House.
"It's two bad options," Eugene Karmazin, 44, a software engineer from Brooklyn, said of the candidates.
"We have to choose between an actual oligarch and a guy who spent 50 years serving the oligarchy. Trump is too close to your typical proto-fascist. If I choose between a crook and a fascist, I choose the crook."

Timeline

2012-2015

The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East

May 2017

The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts

September 2021

Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act

October 2021

Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence

December 2024

Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group

May 2025

The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan

July 2025

The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan

August 2025

Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision

October 2025

Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange

November 2025

180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE

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Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs

A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.

The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.

Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.

Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

New Yorkers are voting for Joe Biden while thinking of Bernie Sanders

Many liberal-leaning voters in the Democrat stronghold prefer leftist senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but will opt for Biden over President Trump

Timeline

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Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs