He has a back story that, at one time, seemed right for New York.

Zellnor Myrie, a state senator running for mayor, is Afro-Latino in a city where 51 percent of residents identify as Black or Latino. He is well regarded by his colleagues in the State Legislature, where he has championed left-leaning proposals like the John R. Lewis New York Voting Rights Act and legislation that allows the state and individuals to sue gun manufacturers.

He grew up in a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City, attended its public schools and is a rabid New York Knicks fan — a loyalty he seems keen to highlight. (He has been a guest on a Knicks podcast, been pictured in the back seat of a sedan watching a Knicks playoff game on his laptop and has appeared outside the Garden, asking that free tickets be given to working-class fans.)

He says New York deserves a mayor who understands ordinary New Yorkers’ struggles — much as the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams, suggested he did four years ago. Mr. Myrie, 38, firmly believes that he is the person to properly fulfill that legacy, and that the race’s front-runner, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is not.

“One has to wonder how you can be the person to fix our affordability crisis when you have no clue whatsoever what it’s like to struggle to pay your rent,” Mr. Myrie said at a recent news conference outside the Sutton Place apartment building in Manhattan where Mr. Cuomo now lives. “You need a mayor that understands that struggle, that is living it. I’m on the subway every day. I got student loans like everybody else.”

His mayoral platform includes proposals to build one million new homes over the next decade and provide free universal after-school care.

Yet Mr. Myrie’s messaging has yet to translate into voter support. Recent polls show him firmly ensconced among a group of second-tier candidates far behind Mr. Cuomo and the closest runner-up, Zohran Mamdani, a left-leaning state assemblyman from Queens.