Edward-Isaac Dovere: “Andrew Yang is the first celebrity candidate who’s famous for being a celebrity candidate — and he’s defined the New York City mayoral race around him.”

Clare Malone: “Yang’s surprising dominance hasn’t just been luck. He has cannily deployed his fame, charisma, and hustle, bringing his very modern celebrity to a field otherwise low on name recognition and charm.”

“But another part of his success, perhaps more central than most voters realize, must be credited to his team of advisers and close supporters. Many of the city’s most well-connected, savviest strategists have bet on Yang, and in less than two months, eight years after rejecting the legacy of Bloomberg for someone defiantly to his left, New York may very well elect an heir to the billionaire ex-mayor’s worldview.”

“Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and leading contender for mayor of New York City, met with a prominent LGBT Democratic political organization to seek its endorsement,” the New York Times reports.

“It did not go particularly well.”

“In an interview with the Stonewall Democratic Club, Yang cited gay members of his staff as apparent evidence of his openness to the club’s concerns, and expressed enthusiasm about the prospect of visiting Cubbyhole, a storied New York lesbian bar… but failed to pay heed to more substantive issues like homelessness and housing.”

I’m sure some of his best friends are gay too.

Andrew Yang (D) “is making volunteers for his New York City mayoral campaign sign confidentiality contracts that threaten stiff legal repercussions for any violators—even though he put his name behind an effort to purge nondisclosure agreements from politics last year, the New York Daily News reports.

Andrew Yang, who is running for New York City mayor, acknowledged to the New York Times that he has not lived in the city for most of the year.

Said Yang: “We’ve spent more time upstate than in the city over the last number of months, but I also spent time in Georgia, as you know, I spent time in Pennsylvania campaigning for Joe and Kamala.”

He added: “We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?”

Business Insider: “His campaign began layoffs in the wake of his disastrous showing at the Iowa caucus, moves that the campaign characterized to Insider at the time as planned. But Yang’s staff said they were blindsided by the sudden staff cuts.”

“Many found out they something was amiss when they suddenly lost their email accounts and Slack messaging system. Others learned they’d lost their job via the rumor mill, only to receive formal letters much later.”

Andrew Yang’s campaign told Politico that it had raised $750,000 on November 30 — from over 18,000 people — his single best fundraising day to date of his campaign.

Politico: “Andrew Yang’s shoestring campaign staff has multiplied along with his fundraising, giving the unconventional businessman the trappings of a conventional, well-resourced presidential campaign in the months before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.l

“In the second quarter — from April to June — the campaign had under 20 staff members on its payroll, according to Yang’s Federal Election Commission filings. But a quarter later, it nearly quadrupled to include 73 staff members, as well as several experienced and well-respected strategists in Democratic politics.”

“Andrew Yang’s surprising debate gambit — giving away $120,000 to 10 families over a year to highlight his universal basic income proposal — helped the outsider candidate raise $1 million in the 72 hours since the debate and collect more than 450,000 email addresses from people who entered the online raffle,” Politico reports.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has declared that he could beat President Trump at any challenge—mental or physical—because the president “is so fat,” the Daily Beast reports.

Said Yang: “I challenge Donald Trump to any physical or mental feat under the sun. I mean, gosh, what could that guy beat me at, being a slob?”

He continued: “Like, what could Donald Trump possibly be better than me at? An eating contest? Like something that involved trying to keep something on the ground and having really large body mass? Like, if there was a hot-air balloon that was rising and you needed to try and keep it on the ground, he would be better than me at that? Because he is so fat.”

White House hopeful Andrew Yang announced Monday that he has reached the thresholds to qualify for the third and fourth Democratic primary debates, The Hill reports.

Candidates have to amass 130,000 unique donors and receive the support of at least 2% of respondents in four qualifying polls to appear in the third debate on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13.

Andrew Yang tweeted that this week’s presidential primary debate did not leave him “encouraged by our future.”

Said Yang: “I stood at the center of the political universe last night and did not come away encouraged by our future. Will do my best to change that.”

Washington Post: “Andrew Yang is the product of so many colliding forces in contemporary America that comparisons to anyone who came before him are kind of useless. Yang’s ascent from anonymity has been instantaneous in a way that can only exist in the age of social media… His staff credits podcasts for building Yang’s die-hard base almost overnight.”

“And the source of Yang’s relentless focus — universal basic income — is, at the moment, popular in future-minded circles that take cues from the likes of Pierre Omidyar, Richard Branson and Elon Musk. Yang’s campaign belongs to a mode of popular American discourse that did not exist 20, 10 or even five years ago: He is an emblem of the everyman thinkers of the Internet age.”