Kathryn Garcia. Photo: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Kathryn Garcia

Democrat Age: 51

Garcia spent six years as the city’s sanitation commissioner before resigning in September to run for mayor. The Park Slope native and University of Wisconsin-Madison grad got her start in government at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection in 2006. She served as sanitation chief from 2014 into 2020, and was appointed interim chair of the New York City Housing Authority in early 2019. At the start of the pandemic, too, she ran a city effort to feed 1.5 million New Yorkers daily. Her campaign has focused on economic recovery, improving transit, and building affordable housing.