← Max Politics
Max Politics
A Closer Look at the Race in New York's 12th Congressional District, with David Freedlander
00:47:26
David Freedlander, a features writer for New York…
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hello and welcome to MAX Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in. Speaking here on Thursday, May 7, 2026, and today on the show, we're digging further into the highly competitive and fascinating Democratic primary in New York's 12th congressional district. This is the Manhattan district spanning large portions of both the east and west sides that has been represented by the retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler. Joining me in a moment is David Friedlander, a features writer covering New York and national politics for New York Magazine. He just published a magazine cover story on this race titled the Race to Be the Face of Manhattan who should represent the Nation's most power Dense Congressional District. It's out now in the early May issue of New York Magazine and a very interesting read. We'll talk over his reporting on this much watched primary and its four leading candidates, Alex Boris, George Conway, Micah Lasher and Jack Schlossberg. There are several other candidates who will be on the June ballot. Voting is coming up real soon here, voting by mail, early voting, and June 23rd is primary day. And we'll also get into some of the broader New York and national political themes and questions here as they relate to this race in New York's 12th congressional district and beyond. Regular listeners to the show may have caught that we recently posted the audio of a candidate forum in this race that I moderated on the evening of April 23rd, 3rd a couple weeks ago, which was at the New York City Bar association in front of a good crowd of, I think mostly New York 12 voters. And that forum included seven of the candidates who were planning to be on the ballot, including Schlossberg and Conway. But neither Boris nor Lasher came after having been long confirmed to participate. They didn't, but it was a very interesting conversation forum nonetheless. Other candidates who participated also made their cases that evening, of course, and they included Micah Bergdale, Chris Deep, Laura Dunn, Nina Schwelbe and Patrick Timmons of that group. It seems like Schwelbe, a public health expert, has perhaps had the most interesting and sort of impactful presence in this race. She's raised some money and so forth. But all indications are that this race is probably won with the four clear frontrunners. And that's who my guest really focused on in his piece on the New York 12 primary. And we'll dig into that very shortly for a little more background on this district. Congressman Nadler's prior district used to look very different, but in the 2022 redistricting that happened in New York, there was a major overhaul of some of the districts. And a lot of his west side part of his district was combined with much of then Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's east side district. And Nadler won a very intense east side versus west side Democratic primary back in 2022 to represent the new 12th congressional district of New York. He then won a pretty uneventful reelection in 2024, but decided not to run again here in 2026. So there's an open seat, a very crowded and competitive race to replace him. And the next congressperson from New York, 12 is all but certain to be decided in the Democratic primary, since it's one of the most Democratic and liberal districts in the country, though there are certainly all types of political stripes in this district, including some very distinct groups of Democrats within the primary electorate. And we'll talk a little bit about that just ahead on the show Today. New York's 12th congressional district includes much of the east and west sides of Manhattan. It goes north to about 114th street on the west side and up to about 98th street on the east side and on both sides. Its southern border is roughly 14th street, and it also includes Roosevelt island, the population of about 775,000 constituents, which is the same across all of New York's 26 congressional districts in the state. Not all of them voters, of course, but this district is roughly 65% white, 14 Asian, 11% Hispanic and 5% black. In the June 2025 Democratic mayoral primary within New York's 12th congressional district, there were about 170,000 votes cast. So in the last Democratic primary almost a year ago, about 170,000 votes cast in that mayoral primary. And in the first round of voting in the primary, Andrew Cuomo beat Zoram hamdani by about 6,000 votes. But Brad Lander also got a pretty significant number of votes in this district, coming in third. So in the final ranked choice voting tally, Mamdani actually came out very narrowly ahead of Cuomo. But it was almost a 5050 split in this district in the Democratic primary. So a lot of Andrew Cuomo voters, a lot of Zoramdani voters in this district, and interestingly enough, there were quite a few voters who voted for Brad Lander, who seemingly ranked Andrew Cuomo second. So it wasn't sort of the neat Lander to Mamdani vote transfer. That happened more in some of the more progressive other districts in the city like the one Lander's running now for Congress in against Dan Goldman in New York's 10th congressional district. So a lot to talk about in this race. David Friedlander of New York magazine with me in just a moment to discuss his reporting on this race and the district very briefly, if you missed any recent episodes of the show. One recent highlight beyond the audio of that New York 12 candidate forum, if you want to check that out, but haven't yet, is that I recently had a very good in depth conversation with New York State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gennaros, a Democrat from Queens, about state budget negotiations and how Mayor Mamdani's agenda is faring in Albany and more. It's all still very relevant as a state budget deal is coming together now in Albany as we speak here. On May 7, the governor announced a framework deal, the budget, but legislative leaders say there's still a lot to work out. So they're still negotiating as we Talk here on May 7th. So those and a bunch of other good guests and conversations in the MAX Politics feed if you've missed any for checking out after you listen to this one.
- [06:15]
B
All right.
- [06:16]
A
Happy to be joined by David Friedlander, features writer for New York Magazine, writing about New York and national politics. He's out now with a magazine cover story on the Democratic primary in New York's 12th congressional district titled the Race to Be the Face of Manhattan. Who should represent the nation's most power dense congressional district, out now in the early May issue of New York Magazine and a very interesting read. David, thanks for joining me. How are you?
- [06:44]
B
I'm great. Great to be here.
- [06:45]
A
Thanks for joining me. So, like, big picture here. You dove into this race. Obviously you're already following it. Very interesting congressional primary here to replace the retiring Jerry Nadler, highly competitive, very powerful district. All of that. Just big picture here. How are you thinking about this primary in this race and we're, you know, six, eight weeks from, from it concluding here.
- [07:11]
B
I mean, I think it's like, I think it's a toss up. I mean, I don't think we quite know how it's going to how it's going to go. You know, I feel like there's a lot of different, you know, the sort of different factors at play. I mean, there's the kind of like Michael Lasher is kind of has the sort of, you know, quickest path to victory in a way. I mean, he kind of needs to consolidate the, you know, his, his base on the Upper west side. He needs to, you know, just pull his voters out kind of thing. And I think you know, his voters are very much for him and they're a block and they vote all the time. And then it sort of feels like the remaining three candidates, some of you remember Alex Boris, Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy and a social media influencer, and. And George Conway, the sort of Trump former Republican lawyer turned Trump antagonist. I feel like they're kind of competing for, like, the remaining votes. Once you assume that Lasher kind of, you know, carry. Carries his. His. His voters.
- [08:19]
A
That's interesting. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you about is if you're breaking this down politically, you assume Alex Boris represents part of the east side, at least, you know, in his sort of assembly district on the east side, probably will do pretty well. I'm curious where your sense of where George Conway's support would most come from, Where Jack Schlossberg's report support would most come from? Or is it sort of a little bit too early to tell? You know, I'm fascinated by this idea. And again, we're talking about the Democratic primary universe here. So we're not talking about all the voters of the district, which includes, you know, some Republicans and lots of independents, not talking about them, you know, where sort of the support, the interest might be for those candidates who are non traditional. Right. And this is sort of a very traditional set of voters here in Manhattan. It's not exactly, you know, so many of the sort of like newer voters to the city and the Mamdani supporters, although he did well in this district, but not as well as he did in many other districts. How you're thinking about sort of the Republican turned Trump critic, you know, Conway, where he might get support, and the Schlossberg candidacy of the Kennedy dynasty, but that's been kind of out of power. You know, where. Where might support for them come from?
- [09:36]
B
Yeah, I mean, the Mandani example is interesting, I think. You know, Mandani, he lost this district, I think, in the first round of voting in the primary, I believe. And so. But what Mandani did. Do you know, Mandani, like, when that race began, it was hard to see his path to victory either, I think. But he kind of upended what we thought we knew about New York politics in a way. And he kind of became a movement and people got really excited. You know, he blew, I mean, Andrew Cuomo, in a funny way, like hit his vote number. Mamdani just sort of blew past it because his thing, he. He was just this sort hurricane of support around him. And so I think when you figure out, like, the path for Conway and the path for Schlossberg, it's like it's that same kind of thing in a way, which is that you generate a lot of enthusiasm. And so this normal rules of politics and who gets what club and labor union, etc. Are kind of thrown out the window because there's such a sort of surge of support, you know, behind them.
- [10:40]
A
And let me take that two. Two parts. Can you see a path for George Conway to victory here? And I don't want to make you too much of a prognosticator, but, like, digging into this race, you know, when I look at it, it feels very hard to see it. I do. I think he could have an impact on the race. Absolutely. You know, I mean, even if he gets 2% of the vote, he could have an impact on this race, because who knows how close it'll be. But if he gets 2, 5, 10, 12, 15%, he could certainly have an impact here. I'm not sure I see a path to victory for him. The Schlossberg factor, you know, in part, that you mentioned, this sort of like, can you create a new wave of enthusiasm for a candidate right now? You know, he seems perhaps most likely of the two to. To do that. I don't know what you think of those two thoughts.
- [11:23]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think. I think that's. Look, I mean, I think. I think that your analysis of the. How Conway pulls us off is hard. I mean, I think that when I talk to the candidates or campaigns, you know, it's sort of like 35% of the vote might win it, this thing. And so if Conway, you know, if he's getting 10%, 15%, something like that, you know, as you say, I mean, that's a block of votes that can really impact the race. But getting from that to 25, 30, 35, obviously is a lot harder. I mean, I think the path for Conway, if we're really getting into it, is probably like a Schlossberg collapse and him kind of like picking up that sort of anti Trump enthusiasm. I mean, I will say, you know, in Conway's defense, like, being the anti Trump seems to be a real ticket to success in Democratic primaries this year. I mean, in fact, you could even go back to Ondani, and that may have been why he won, because he was the sort of loudest Trump opponent and antagonist. But yeah, I agree that's harder now,
- [12:26]
A
Schwanner, in this year just to. Just to add to that. And this year, especially, as you lead into the congressional races, that's even more of a factor. And in this district, right, it's like midterm election year for the presidency. Very, very sort of like heavily traditional Democratic liberal voters in this district. The anti Trump sentiment is even more pronounced as you think about federal elections here. So, you know, that is an interesting factor, certainly.
- [12:56]
B
Yeah. And I quoted it in that story. I talked to a operative working in the race who said, you know, you pull around, you know, take polls around the country, and the number one, number one, two and three issue is affordability, gas prices, cost of health care, that kind of thing. In this issue, which in this district, which is just so phenomenally old and wealthy, affordability doesn't rank at all. The big district. The big issue is who's going to take on Donald Trump. But, you know, look, all that said, I mean, I think Conway, there's a. There's a really steep path for him. Now, Schlossberg, you know, I think, is a little bit different because there I was shocked at the enthusiasm around Jack Schlossberg. Like, it, it stunned me and it reminded me of the enthusiasm around Mamdani, frankly. I mean, there wasn't the, like, feeling like you're part of a cause, like, like what you saw around Memdani, but there was the feeling, you know, I left, going left coming back from those Schlossberg events thinking something is happening here that the local media has not picked up on. You know, I went to an event on like, it was like a blustery, cold Sunday morning, Sunday morning in March, all the way on 10th Avenue, and there were 80 people there. For Jack Schlossberg, it was at a. It was at a pizza parlor at like 10:30, 11:00 in the morning. And his campaign told me that another 150 people signed up and couldn't get in. And all of them were first timers at Schlossberg events. You know, I don't think you see that kind of enthusiasm for, for some of the other candidates.
- [14:33]
A
Let me ask you to your point that like Mamdani, a lot of it was. It was a little bit of this era of sort of the superstar politician, but it was certainly grounded in this idea of affordability. There were other factors too. The non. He was the, you know, sort of not like the very anti Cuomo in the race and the very anti Trump in the race in different ways. Anti establishment. Right. You know, newcomer. Not as much baggage as even like some of the more traditional establishment politicians in this, you know, frustrated era. But it had a lot of that grounding in this issue of affordability. What is Schlossberg's campaign about?
- [15:14]
B
I also think that. I think that Mamdani. And we don't need to turn this into a mayoral recap, but I think that Mamdani, like, there was also a feeling that you were part of a cause. That's what you're excited about, Mamdani. And it was like, kind of like DSA adjacent. It wasn't just about affordability. I think it was like a feeling that you were part of this movement in a way. I mean, I think you can, you know, you recall it just walking around the streets of the city in sort of June of 2025. I mean, you felt it. People were wearing the mandani shirts and bandanas and bags and all that stuff. I mean, I think Schlossberg, he definitely does not have that. I mean, it is like, about him and his celebrity and his family, and I kind of, you know, nostalgia play, I think, a little bit. I mean, I think that, you know, you cannot talk about Jack Schlossberg for very long without talking about. About his family. I mean, he doesn't have much of a resume. And, you know, you go to. At those events, for example, the thing that people are excited about is the fact that he's a Kennedy. Like, they're not excited about him necessarily as him, or like the fact that he has a dual law and business degree, which is something that he talks about a lot as a credential. You know, I mean, it is.
- [16:27]
A
He doesn't actually seem to lean that hard into the family, does he? My impression is not quite. Unless you saw something different.
- [16:36]
B
I mean, it's. It's always there, I think. You know, I saw him deliver versions of, you know, I guess be a stump speech at these events a few times. And, you know, it's always. He would talk about his. His sort of, like, the tradition of service in his family.
- [16:51]
A
And his campaign slogan is believe in something again. And he talks about, you know, a time when. When we had a lot of faith in government and it's time to, you know, sort of resurrect that. So there's a lot of echoes of sort of Kennedy in service in that.
- [17:03]
B
Yeah. And I mean, like, I went to, you know. You know, I covered natural, too. I remember going to RFK events when he was still running the Democratic primary. In the Democratic primary in 2024, 2023, it was the same there. I mean, it was all this, like, Kennedy nostalgia and people. It's just a sprawling family and people have a lot of like, different connections to it or think they have connections to it. Oh, we vacationed, you know, four doors down from him and wherever kind of thing. So, you know, I, I mean it. I think that it. I think, I think that people would feel good about themselves voting for a Kennedy in some funny way. And I, you know, it's like, it feels right and true in this chaotic era to kind of restore Kennedys to their rightful place in the House of Representatives.
- [17:46]
A
Well, and there's ways that he's young and, and has a element of charisma. He's not like the most charismatic candidate, you know, in my experience with him, but he's got elements of charisma. He's, you know, younger, sort of like again, this idea of even though he's, it's like a callback candidacy, there's also this element of hand handing things over to the newer generation, which again was part of the Mamdani appeal and is getting people, even some older voters, in my experience, getting, you know, people are excited about sort of a newer generation taking charge. And even a lot of Democratic voters who are older themselves have been frustrated with some of the Democrats who've stayed around too long, like Joe Biden or others, you know, in some people's view. So I think there's sort of an element of that that seems to be at play as well. Would you. Did you sense that for sure?
- [18:38]
B
I mean, you know, like, if anyone has ever sort of like seen Schlossberg and sort of pre candidate social media days, you know, there's a kind of like chaotic energy to all that performance. Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's easy to kind of if you're like an old and boring person like myself or maybe even, even you, Ben, you know, it's easy to kind of brace yourself for what's coming when you see him in person. Like, it's going to be that, that same kind of chaotic energy. And he's not like that. I mean, he's, he is thoughtful, he seems smart. He's kind of like knows his stuff, I think, in a funny way. I mean, he doesn't know it as well as people that have been in the trenches. And he might be benefiting from low expectations, but he kind of knows what he's talking about and he's like able to deliver it well. I mean, I think the kind of like bold case for Schlossberg, which I, you know, didn't get into as I'd liked in the piece is that, I mean, I think his thing is that I am a kind of new kind of communicator to, to an ambassador to, like, young people from the Democratic Party. And I will be able to communicate with them in a way that none of these fuddy duddy Democrats are able to now. And, you know, on the platforms where they are, and I can kind of like lead those messaging efforts, which is
- [19:57]
A
like a very fascinating element of the debates happening within the Democratic Party right now. Right. It's like, where do you meet people? Are there any rules anymore? You know, sort of like a lot of his stuff has been strange and out there, cringy, maybe offensive to people. And it's just like, look at what Donald Trump is doing. Like, there's no rules anymore. As part of, like, you know, some of the, And I think there was some, some of that that he sort of said to you right in the, in the, in the piece that, you know, it's kind of like, what rules are we playing by here?
- [20:28]
B
Yeah, I mean, he gave me an interesting answer on that because he'd given answers before, which I sort of didn't find very compelling, which was like, oh, you know, I'm just trying to get attention and like. But, like, you know, who cares if you get attention if your attention is for being ridiculous? Right. But, but his answer to me was actually like, no, no, no. In order for you to even know about me, like, or know who I am or care what I think, I first have to, like, have a platform. And so I have a platform is he's kind of like getting a lot of followers. The way I get a lot of followers is by, like, being outrageous and then you have a big audience and then you can kind of like, say what you want. Once you have, like, I mean, I
- [21:05]
A
think we see the number one currency is attention, and then, then you can get people like, Michael Lasher has a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts on policy. And obviously we should get into the other candidates here in a minute. But, like, do enough people know about his, you know, his ideas and his platform? And how do you, how do you sort of get that? But again, you can also say, especially in this district, perhaps people like an adult in the room and they like someone of substance. So that is a very interesting.
- [21:35]
B
Yeah.
- [21:35]
A
Dynamic.
- [21:36]
B
You're right. I mean, it's not like you can imagine Schlossberg. I mean, see how it all cuts. But this is like a very well educated, well informed older district. You can imagine he was like, running in the Sort of Lander Goldman race or something was like a little bit younger. I don't. I mean, I'm making that up, but something like that.
- [21:54]
A
Running just in part of the east side, like.
- [21:56]
B
Yeah.
- [21:56]
A
Or somewhere or assembly on the east side. Like a Murray Hill.
- [21:59]
B
And. Yeah, he would be better served. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:01]
A
Very, very interesting.
- [22:04]
B
Yeah.
- [22:04]
A
I mean. Well, let's talk about these other candidates a little bit. A little bit more. So say a little bit about sort of what you saw in Michael Lasher and Alex Boris. And, you know, Boris, all of a sudden is like the focus of the race in a lot of ways because he wrote a New York law regulating artificial intelligence. He's become sort of, you know, that's become the big focus of his congressional campaign is like, send a computer scientist to Washington and I'll. I'll regulate AI While also trying to, you know, maximize its positivity and its growth. But this is concerning and so forth, and I can go to Washington and regulate it. And I know what I'm talking about. But he's getting huge amounts of money, both in support of his candidacy and against it. And I. I don't live in the district, but I hear from people who do that they're just swamped with mailers, mostly against him. So that's a fascinating dynamic. And then Lasher, as you got it already, is like the west side establishment candidate. He's got Nadler's endorsement. He's got a ton of other establishment endorsements. So fascinating dynamics there. Before you talk about them, I just wanted to add, though, in my experience with Schlossberg, which is very limited, I moderated one forum in this race. Neither Boris or Lasher wound up participating, but it was a chance to see Schlossberg in action. And what you said and what you wrote about in your piece absolutely tracked for me. I was. I had low expectations, and he absolutely exceeded them. Now, again, it's all relative, Right. But, like, he was more substantive than I thought he was more serious than I thought he was going to be. He got a little annoyed with me when I sort of pushed him on his public service record because, you know, his answer to one of my questions to everybody, what's your biggest public service accomplishment to date? His answer was this campaign. And I said, doesn't that, you know, doesn't that sort of feed into the image and the criticism from people that you don't have a lot of, you know, experience? And he got annoyed by that and went into a lot of the different volunteer and other work that he's done Democratic campaign work and so forth. But anyway, it, what you said does. Did track for me. And when I was reading it I was like, oh yeah, this is similar to my experience, you know, moderating that. Okay, start with Boris, east side assembly member. I was just explaining, you know, sort of just AI is now like you wrote about this. Like, I don't know if it's an issue really animating the district, but then again, like all the attacks on him are not even really about AI. Say a little bit about like what's going on with him and this race and all this money.
- [24:38]
B
Yeah, I mean he was a. I mean, I think a one term assemblyman from. From a very wealthy district on the east side. Interesting guy, smart gu. He grew up around the, you know, in the district that he now represents, you know, a couple lives a couple blocks away from where he grew up. And you know, as a computer scientist, got into the kind of effective altruism community downtown, which is a sort of like little micro scene of data scientists and, and philosophers and political types. And I don't know if he sort of wanted to become the AI candidate in the race, but he has, he sort of positioned himself as, as the kind of David against the AI companies Goliath. And they were coming after him because he wanted to regulate AI and not give these big companies, you know, large, you know, the ability to do whatever they wanted in this area. Now his opponents think that that's all hogwash, that basically it's not sort of like the AI companies against the courageous legislator. It's really a battle between AI companies with OpenAI and others on one side and Anthropic on the other. And Anthropic does call for more regulation of AI, but their rivals say they're only calling for that because they're both sort of best positioned to capitalize on that economically. And so, you know, is this, is this sort of AI versus versus David or is this like a proxy battle between economic warfare basically?
- [26:28]
A
Right. And you know, he. My experience with him is that he seems sort of very genuinely trying to come at this with, with like best regulatory intentions in mind, being someone who believes in the power of a lot of this. So he doesn't want to like shut it down and that's not necessarily realistic anyway. But you know that he's really looking for sort of like the right answers in regulation and you know, thinking this through very substantively. But again, what really matters to voters in this district, I'm sure there's a lot of people freaked out about AI in different ways and job loss and you know, what if this stuff is used by bad actors and all sorts of concerns that many people have. But then is it really rising to the top of the issues in the district for him to be running so much on? You know, I'm going to be the guy to go to Washington and regulate AI.
- [27:23]
B
The polling I have seen, it doesn't rank at all. I mean, it was like, you know, pick. They ask, you know, polls, they ask voters to, you know, pick what's important to you. It's sort of like 20th out of 20 kind of thing. I mean, it's below voting rights and health care and environment and all these other other things. You know, it is worth noting that right now the money he is getting in support of his candidacy out out outweighs. He's getting opposing his candidacy from AI companies like from or from, you know, tech concerns where, you know, it just
- [27:54]
A
feels, as you said, it's almost become a proxy battle from his competitors.
- [27:58]
B
Yeah, right. And it's, you know, so like he is getting more money in support that is even opposing at this point. And it does feel like what are we, what are we fighting about here? I mean, you know, this is one congressional seat in Manhattan and seems like, you know, the, the OpenAI and Andreesian Horowitz were trying to make example out of him. So the cavalry came to defend him and his argument.
- [28:21]
A
He the day you and I are talking here May 7, he came in and talked with this group, I'm part of the New York editorial board. And we had, we interviewed him and the transcript that that'll be out in the coming days. But you know, his argument is sort of like, well, now this is a major national test because if you let these AI companies come in and torpedo someone's candidacy for Congress, that will then have a chilling effect for anyone who's interested in going to Washington to regulate AI. So, you know, he's embracing this battle. I don't know that he has any other choice at this point. Again, a lot of this is based on the fact that he took on this issue as a state assembly member before he knew he was going to be running for Congress or at least, you know, had any real, you know, decision to make because we didn't know when Jerry Nadler was going to be retiring at that point or if he was going to be retiring anytime soon. So he took this issue on. He passed a state, you know, again, a state law on this. So he did became make himself a real player nationally on this issue. And now, of course, you know, he's embracing it in a variety of ways and getting both, as you got at support and opposition on it. I guess the question goes back to what we were talking about with Schlossberg is like, is all attention, good attention. This attention seems to have some really negative sides to it, though, in terms of, of, you know, trying to influence people to think he's a bad guy through these mailers and commercials and so forth. So that seems like a big hurdle for him to overcome, even as some of it is helping him build support and name recognition. Right.
- [29:52]
B
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I saw, I sort of, you know, you could argue it both ways. I mean, I talked in the piece, I talked to longtime Democratic political operative Josh Flasto, who is a former Andrew Cuomo guy, former Schumer guy, who's actually, like, leading the OpenAI Andreessen Horowitz super PAC against Boris. And, you know, he points out that Boris's unfavorability number have gone up as a result of the onslaught. And they have, you know, they've been off the air for a little while as we're talking here, you know, in the first week of May. But that said, you know, the Boris campaign, points of numbers that show the opposite that, you know, voters are just kind of, they're tuning out all the negativity. They're assuming it's coming from bad actors in Silicon Valley, you know, Trump donors as, as, as Boris is quick to point out, and he's correct on that point. They are, you know, major Trump donors who are funding this opposition to him. And then voters just aren't really hearing it. And they're even voters who have, like, heard bad things about Alex Boris are still supporting him. Right.
- [30:54]
A
And I mean, this has echoes of crypto and other, you know, industries and tech especially, which is like, don't, don't come in trying to regulate us or we'll crush you or, you know, things or, like, we've got lots of money to spend. If you are going to be friendly to us, we will try to get you into office. I mean, this is like, and obviously plenty of other policy and political battles before crypto and AI. You know, this is, this has echoes a lot of this, though. And again, I don't think Boris is wrong to say that the results of, of all this spending will send a message to other candidates and campaigns and districts and donors and all that. I don't know if that should be determinative in how people vote in this race. But it's very interesting.
- [31:36]
B
Yeah. And Boris, also just to say, you know, he has, he does have some really smart ideas about, I think, AI and the coming kind of AI revolution. I mean, one of them is that, that if, if AI sort of renders, you know, takes over every job that we can now sort of take a so called golden share in these AI companies that can sort of provide a dividend to workers who have been laid off or every American, he wants to leverage AI companies need for data centers to, you know, make those data centers sort of like as energy efficient as possible kind of thing.
- [32:09]
A
He was paying attention to Mom Dani's campaign. Take a piece. No, I won't go there. So Micah Lasher, assembly member from the west side, long career in government and politics here in New York, even though he's not that old, he got involved, as you write about, you know, at a very young age and has been very involved in west side politics, city politics, state politics. Has Jerry Nadler's endorsement, which I would assume goes a pretty significant way in this district, especially on the west side, you know, in the mailers and all that. So conventional, you know, rules, as you got it very early on in this conversation, say he's the favorite. If he, you know, if he can get out that very, very high turnout, you know, Upper west side vote, you know, he's probably in the driver's seat. What's there to add to that? I mean, what is the concern for him? Just that he's not that charismatic of a politician and Flossberg sort of takes all the attention.
- [33:07]
B
I think that what's interesting about Lasher is, is that he is. He is running this race in a funny way, like it's a city council race, which is that like you voters won't know a lot about the candidates. They won't pay much attention to it. And so what they're going to rely on is who are my. Who endorsed who, who's supporting who. If I see that on, on the Palm card or the flyer, oh, I'll know that he. All these other people like him. So I'm going to like him too. So he's like, he has gotten endorsements from Jerry Nadler, as you mentioned. He's got endorsements from Mike Bloomberg, he got endorsements from Kathy Hochul. He got.
- [33:43]
A
Bloomberg's putting some real money behind the real money.
- [33:46]
B
I mean, I think in some ways, you know, more money than some of these AI companies are, frankly, you know, David Patterson. I mean, the list goes on. It's like anybody that was elected on the west side. A lot of people, like on the east side, I mean, all, you know, they're all kind of supporting Lasher now, like, you know, that kind of thing. You, you sort of wonder how that cuts. I mean, in an anti political, anti incumbent era that we're in, I wonder if those, you can fairly wonder if those endorsements, you know, work across purposes to people. The fact that you're supported by Hogle and Bloomberg and Nadler make people, like, not want to support you.
- [34:23]
A
I mean, are there ant. Is there. I mean, obviously on the east side, there might be more anti Nadler sentiment. You know, people who were unhappy that he defeated Carolyn Maloney a couple of cycles ago and Andrew Cuomo voters and so forth. But I don't, I feel like net. It's a, it's a pretty big boost for, for Lasher.
- [34:43]
B
But that, that, I mean, any, any individual for sure. But you just, if it's like, if you want to paint Lasher as a tool of like, politics as usual, he is holding up a gigantic billboard and saying, yes, I am. I am the politics, you know.
- [34:58]
A
Well, and to your point, though, about running it, you know, almost like a city council campaign, he's also, again, doing what I was getting at earlier, which is like, you know, he wants to, Boris is doing some of this too, but, like, put out the most substantive platform. You know, I've got the ideas, I've got the playbook for, you know, holding Trump accountable and fighting Trumpism and restoring democracy and all these things, again, maybe very valuable, maybe appealing to a lot of voters, especially in this district. But at the same time, you know, we are in this era of, you know, different attention spans and different types of garnering attention. Again, maybe a little less so, you know, applicable to this district, but it is a fascinating test case for sort of like, how do you run a 2026 campaign, modern political trends, attention, economy and all that. You know, it's, it's, you know, how much does anybody's policy platform matter anymore?
- [35:51]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:52]
A
You know, we saw this with Brad Lander in the mayoral campaign, right? Like, like the wonky appeal. I just, you know, not sure how much of an audience there is for that anymore.
- [36:02]
B
For sure. And I mean, but, you know, Lasher, like, I will say this, he has a plan and he's sticking to it. Like, he, he has figured out what, or he thinks he's figured out the way to win this race and you're not going to see him, I think, deviate from that very much. I Mean, it is, it is a kind of like block by block, you know, precinct by precinct, you know, just get, get, get the sort of, you know, triple prime voters and the endorsements and the clubs and win it that way. And he's sticking to it.
- [36:30]
A
Yeah. And I think that makes a ton of sense in this district, and especially when your vote is going to be from, you know, largely from the Upper
- [36:36]
B
west side, for sure.
- [36:39]
A
So we'll see what that looks like.
- [36:40]
B
All right.
- [36:40]
A
Only a few more minutes here. I want to keep you, David, because I also want to make sure people read your piece because they should. And it's got, you know, as we're getting at a lot of comment from the candidates, which, you know, people should, should, should check out any other issues that seem to be most prominent in this, in this race. We don't need to get into all the details, but obviously there's been a lot of attention. It is a very Jewish district. There's been a lot of attention, you know, on issues related to Israel, concerns about rising anti Semitism and hate crimes in the city, you know, some of these debates over buffer zones around synagogues and all that. Does that seem particularly prominent here? And anything else you'd name that sort of seems to be coming up a lot in this district that we haven't talked about.
- [37:25]
B
I mean, I think that that's the big one. And what, you know, one thing, and, you know, this is a district that people who are working on the race have told me it's sort of, you know, it's probably to the left of the median Democrat on most issues, but probably to the right of the median Democrat on Israel.
- [37:42]
A
Israel.
- [37:44]
B
Which makes it tricky. I mean, I think some of the things you're hearing at some of these forums about Israel are not the kind of things you're hearing at many Democratic primary forums around the country. You know, there's variations for sure about it, but they're for the most part, they're like sticking by Israel and, you know, not necessarily Netanyahu government and, you know, they have different views on arms sales and the Iron Dome and whatnot. But, you know, I mean, even, you know, like, even Schlossberg, who is like the candidate of the young, he's, you know, pretty staunch defender of Israel in this race. And one thing I think, but I
- [38:30]
A
will note, he seems, you know, he seems to have moved a little bit in the other direction in his comments. You know, I noticed this again at the forum I moderated where he's, he's very uncomfortably talking a little bit more about conditioning aid and doing things around not necessarily funding more offensive weapons when Israel's using them now in Iran and Lebanon and so forth. It seems like as you got at is sort of the candidate of the young and the more progressive and the more critical of Israel. You would think. Think he's getting some, seemingly getting some backlash. Right. As you wrote about to some, some of the ways that he's taken early stances.
- [39:12]
B
Yeah. And he's got it like he, you know, he, he's taken even though. Yeah. He has sort of moved or he is, you know, slightly, I guess, to the left of some of the other folks in the race on that. I mean, he has get getting a lot of heat from his kind of, you know, online influencer world for not being left enough on it. Yeah. And, and gotten a lot of criticism on that score. So, I mean, it's. What just to say. I mean, I think that there's, it's. What's one thing that is sort of a funny dynamic of the race is that in this, you know, era Mumdani, there's a, there's a left lane that's wide open in this race that feels like no one has taken and it's sort of been sitting out there all along. I think it's a little surprising in a way that Schlossberg hasn't quite claimed it. You know, we're, we're, as we speak this morning, our revolution, the Bernie Sanders group has endorsed Boris. But nobody is like rushing to kind of be the ideological, you know, left anchor of this, of this field.
- [40:11]
A
Right. Which is fascinating in part makes some sense because you are talking about a district that in the mayoral primary, you know, in the once the ranked choice tally was, was done, it was basically 50 Mamdani, 50% Cuomo. So this is, you know, a district where was far below the overall city performance in the Democratic primary that Mamdani had for, for the winner. So makes some sense there. But then again, you have a lot of progressive voters in this district. And I think even on these issues related to Israel, you know, there's a lot of different stripes of Democratic voters in this district, including Jewish voters. And it's very interesting to see including the west side candidate, where you think the Jewish voters are a little more liberal, you know, Michael Lasher, how he's sort of balancing some of this. And he doesn't seem to be moving, you know, significantly to his left on some of this. So it's that that's very interesting. But as you got at it's also a district where, you know, maybe on these issues, you know, voters are trending a little more towards the middle in support of Israel. So fascinating dynamics. All right, anything else going on right now that you are thinking about in New York politics while we have our final couple minutes here? Anything, any trend you're watching, anything you're sort of percolating and you know, I know you're, you know, always thinking about trends and themes and you wrote a book about the AOC generation and you've got, you know, the, the magazine writer's brain here. So what, you know, any, any trend, any trends you're watching, any, anything interesting. Obviously, you know, how Mamdani's doing and his influence on the broader political scene is fascinating and he's playing in some of these other congressional races. I can't imagine he's going to wind up endorsing in this New York 12 race. But what else is on your mind here in our final minute, David?
- [42:05]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on like, that's a big question. Mandani has really interestingly, sort of, you know, stuck a claim in these, made a claim on these congressional races. I mean, I feel like the sort of Mandani project is, in a funny way, it's kind of like incrementalism within the sort of governing structures that we have. And then he's kind of trying to like, but, you know, create a whole new governing structure through some of these endorsements and, and you know, getting some of his allies, you know, into office in Washington D.C. and in Albany. And I think that that is, you have to see how that plays out. I mean, you know, it's going to make for some enemies. I mean, if you are running against a Mamdani endorsed opponent, right. The best thing you can do for your race if you're Antonio Reynosa or Dan Goldman or somebody like that, is for Mamdani to lose popularity. Right. So there's an incentive for all of these other candidates to kind of like take a, you know, hope that the Mandani moment deflates a little bit. And so I think some of those dynamics are going to be really interesting.
- [43:11]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think by virtue of taking the oath of office, you know, it's like driving the new car off the lot. Right. I mean, you have, you might have a honeymoon period of however long, whether it's a week or a month or six months or longer. And I think Mamdani's, you know, tried to do a lot to keep that rolling. And you bump into the realities of governing. But you know, he's never going to be at the height he was, of course, during the campaign and at the end there and when, you know, even when he made some of these initial endorsements, as you're getting at about the other people in those races, Brad Lander against Dan Goldman, Claire Valdez against, against Antonio Reynoso, it's like. Yeah, that's fascinating. Of course, district to district, it can vary certainly where he's retained more enthusiasm and support. So for sure we shall see. And then just final thought. Does the winner of this New York 12 Democratic primary, does it really matter in the bigger discussion around sort of like where the Democratic primary party is heading and the sort of national either both battle over the Democratic Party and the Democrat versus Republican battle ahead? I mean, this is, as you get out in your piece, you know, and, and talked about here, such a hugely powerful district in terms of, you know, the money, the voters, the cultural, you know, cachet and so forth. How much does like who comes out, do you think? You know, is there a sense, you think that this will reverberate or it's not that high stakes?
- [44:47]
B
Well, so I mean, I think that like there's been this big Democratic debate happening since the 2024 election, right. Between like, you know, moderates and, and the left between abundance and the populace. And there have been all this sort of like there's just war at least skirmishes breaking out on that score. That is not in this race. None of those big Democratic Party debates are not happening here. But look, it is, I mean you are representing the sort of center of the universe in a way if you win this race. And I think it will tell us a lot about what the kind of super informed like Democratic voter slash donor, like where they are. And I think that matters. And there's all these sort of like little, you know, micro tests or something, you know, within the race too. Like how much does all the super PAC money matter for Boris or against Boris? How much does the kind of like social media star with Schlossberg matter, you know, or, and how much is it just kind of like good old fashioned politics like we've, we always known it in Lasher's case. Right, Right.
- [45:57]
A
Yeah. I mean there's definitely elements to this race that are fascinating because you do have a lot of the more sort of like traditional, especially white liberal Democratic voters here. Right. So taking a bit of the temperature of like that large group, but probably not telling you a lot about how Democrats recapture, you know, more of the Latino voters who left them, you know, in recent years or, you know, things like that. But, but you got some really interesting ways in which they, this, this will reverberate. So, David Friedlander, New York magazine features writer, new piece out on the race to be the face of Manhattan. I know you don't write the headlines in New York's 12th congressional district. Thanks very much for taking the time and appreciate it.
- [46:38]
B
Love chatting with you.