Looking out at more than 13,000 of you here in Forest Hills Stadium, it is tempting to believe that this moment was always destined. Yet when we launched this campaign on October 23, one year and three days ago, there was not a single television camera there to cover it.

When we launched this campaign one year and three days ago, my name was a statistical anomaly in every poll. Four months later, as recently as this February, our support had reached the eye-watering heights of 1 percent. We were tied with noted candidate “someone else.” I always knew we could beat him.

When we launched this campaign one year and three days ago, the political world did not pay it much attention, because we were looking to build a movement that reflected the city as it actually is, not just the one that political consultants think exists on a spreadsheet.