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NYC Congressional Primaries & Major Themes To Watch, with Michael Lange
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Michael Lange - a writer, strategist, and organiz…
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Foreign.
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Welcome to Max Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you
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from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in. It's Friday, June 12, 2026, and this year's primary elections in New York are happening early. Voting starts Saturday, June 13 and run through Sunday, June 21, and primary day is Tuesday, June 23. Voting by mail has begun and goes through primary day. Overall, all 213 seats in the New York State Legislature are on the ballot this year and also all of New York State's 26 seats in the U.S. house of Representatives. Not every race for the State Senate, State assembly and U.S. house has a competitive primary this month, whether Democratic, Republican or both. But there are a bunch of interesting primaries around the state, including one statewide primary for the Democratic nomination for State Comptroller. More on that in a moment. And many competitive Democratic primaries in New York City for state and federal legislative seats. Today on the show, we're digging into several of the competitive and high profile Congressional races that will soon be decided and say a lot about the direction of the Democratic Party, at least in New York City. And we'll talk over that and other interesting themes at hand, including Mayor Mamdani's endorsements and more. My guest in a moment is Michael Lang, a writer, strategist and organizer who writes the substack the Narrative wars, where he digs into New York politics in great depth. He's also working on a book on Mayor Mamdani's rise and what his successful 2025 campaign means. More broadly. My guest coined the term Commie corridor that is now widely used in New York and even national political conversations to refer to to the many very left leaning areas of Brooklyn and Queens that have elected a bunch of Democratic socialists to office in recent years and very much helped propel Mamdani to victory in last year's mayoral race. The KAMI Corridor is now home to one of the most interesting and competitive House primaries of the cycle, the race for the Democratic nomination In New York's 7th congressional district, one of the races we'll discuss on the show just ahead. Will dig in on the Democratic primaries in the 7th, as well as those in the 10th, 12th and 13th congressional districts of New York. We'll also touch on that State Comptroller primary I mentioned and we'll get into some of the key themes of this primary election cycle in New York, like Mamdani's endorsement choices, how the New York City DSA is approaching this cycle, AOC's role as the most prominent socialist in office. I think she's still more prominent than Mayor Mamdani, but maybe not by much. But but she's also someone who's clearly eyeing a presidential or U.S. senate bid in 2028, and that may be influencing some of her decisions about which races to get involved with. We'll get into all that and more like key demographic trends and policy debates shaping some of these races and broader New York politics. Michael Lang with me in just a moment. But for a very brief overview on some of these races that we'll discuss. The Democratic primary for state comptroller is statewide and open to all Democrats. That's across the state. The three main candidates are incumbent Tom DiNapoli, who's held the position since 2007, and challengers Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle. I've recently interviewed dinapoli and Warshaw in some depth here on the show and Goyal is coming up soon. The Democratic primary in the 7th congressional district is for the House seat representing parts of Brooklyn and Queens and currently held by retiring Congressman Nydia Velasquez, who has endorsed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso as her chosen successor, while Mayor Mamdani and the DSA are behind assembly member Claire Valdez of Queens. The third prominent candidate in the race is Queens City Council member Julie Wan. I've had all three of the candidates on the show here for in depth interviews if you want to check those out. The Democratic primary in the 10th congressional district is for the House seat representing parts of Brooklyn as well as Lower Manhattan, and is currently held by Congressman Dan Goldman, is facing a primary challenge by former City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has mom Donnie's endorsement. I've had both candidates here on the show twice this year. The Democratic primary for the 12th congressional district is the House seat representing big sections of Manhattan's west and east sides and it's currently represented by retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler. He's endorsed assembly member Micah Lasher of the west side as his preferred successor and and Lasher is facing east side assembly member Alex Boris as well as JFK grandson Jack Schlossberg, anti Trump activist and former Republican George Conway, public health expert Nina Schwelbe and others. Mamdani has not endorsed in that race. And the Democratic primary in the 13th congressional district of New York is the House seat representing a lot of Upper Manhattan and a chunk of the Bronx, currently held by Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who's facing a primary challenge from Democratic Socialist activist Darielisa Avila Chevalier, who has been backed by the DSA and by Mayor Mamdani, given there are few endorsements that can really move votes. But Mamdani and AOC seem to be in a different category. I've noted where Mamdani has endorsed in these high profile Congressional primaries for Valdez, Lander and Avila Chevalier. AOC has not endorsed in any of these races so far. Michael Lang will join me in a moment to discuss those decisions and much more. Very briefly, if you missed any recent episodes of the show, some other great conversations in the Max Politics feed for after you listen to this one. I noted some of the conversations I've had with a bunch of the congressional candidates and more recently a couple of Knicks focused episodes where we get into some real basketball and a little bit of crossover of basketball and politics. As I mentioned, I've also been talking with the Democratic State Comptroller candidates, a race you should really pay some attention to, especially if you're an eligible Democratic voter in New York. Those and more in the feed and much more to come, including an episode on some of the state legislative races to watch in these June primaries. Today's focus is largely on the congressional races and broader themes. There are a whole bunch of interesting contests for State assembly and State Senate and we'll do a check in on some of those in an episode real soon. And we'll also do a check in on the New York City budget. Negotiations are ongoing right now and a new city budget is due before July 1, and it will be the first budget of Mayor Mamdani's tenure as mayor, as well as the first budget under new City Council Speaker Julie Menon.
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So a lot in the feed and
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a lot more to come, but of course enjoy this conversation first.
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All right, I'm very pleased to welcome
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back to Max Politics Michael Lang, a writer, strategist and organizer. He publishes the very insightful substack Narrative wars, where he writes in depth about New York politics. Michael, thanks for joining me. How are you?
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I'm good. Fresh off of Game four. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
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Yeah, I got to turn turn the attention back to politics from from sports. Although feel free to sprinkle in your Knicks metaphors or insights or whatever you'd like.
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So before we dig in on some
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of these really interesting congressional races, let's just start sort of big picture. Is there a way you'd sum up
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the slate of races we're looking at?
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Is this
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grouping of Democratic Congressional primaries
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in New York City viewable in sort of a thematic or Collective way. Maybe it only applies to two or three of the big races. But how are you sort of thinking big picture about what's at play and at stake here this month in New York City?
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Big picture, I think with New York 12 is the exception. I would say it's Mamdani's movement on the ballot without him. I think that is a sweeping lens that you can look at a lot of these races. I mean, he's gotten involved in quite a few and the ones that he's not involved in. New York City, DSA has endorsed several insurgent candidates. And I think it's like the framing itself is true, like the broad sweeping narratives. There are holes in it, but I think this actually genuinely stands up so to, to, to what we're actually seeing. And I think that, I mean, again, depending on how some of these campaigns go, you know, if you, if you're a big supporter of the mayor and a lot of the people that he supports this year win, it shows that, oh, this, this is like a real movement, this has some coattails. Whereas if you're an opponent of the mayor and he supports some of these candidates and they stumble and they don't win, then it's kind of like some degree of a reexamination of, you know, how much support is maybe behind him or, you know, it's like, wow, Zoran himself was a transcendent politician, but he also faced a very scandal scarred opponent. You know, if his opponent was somebody else, would it have gone differently? I think it, to some extent it's, I don't want to say a referendum on his power, but I think it will have legitimate implications on that.
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Yeah, I mean, there's ways in which it's sort of a referendum on his juice.
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Right.
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You know, which may or may not mean his own sort of power where he's not on the ballot himself. And that's, that's always a very interesting distinction. Now, of course, the narratives around these primaries will very much focus on him, win or lose, and be very sort of clear about the storylines about how much power he has. But when he's not on the ballot himself, when voters are not, you know, deciding whether to vote for him again, there's only so much, I think that the weight of an endorsement, even an endorsement of a newly famous, pretty popular mayor in districts where he's especially popular, I think it still only goes so far about the extent to which it's indicative of him versus the combination of his juice plus the individual candidates plus the individual dynamics of the races. But, but maybe that's getting too, too nuanced and it actually is more about his, his power.
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No, I think you're, I think you're entirely right to have such a level headed take. People will still, I can frame it as is it more man or is it more movement? And I also think that the, you know, if you could boil down all of these campaigns into why the insurgents might win or why some of the candidates he supported might win or lose, it will basically come down to do the voters who came out for Madani last year, do they just come out again? Because if they do come out again or even close to proportionally, then all of these candidates will win. Then that electorate that was changed so significantly last year becomes kind of the new baseline or expectation. But if there's a clear reversion, know the percentage of young people participating in politics, that will directly hurt a lot of the candidates that he supported. Now, will it hurt them enough to where I think plenty of them will still win regardless, but it'll be the difference between winning half or winning 60% and having a full sweep.
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So we're going to focus on the congressional primaries. But you already sort of gave a nod to the fact that there's other primaries going on, especially for the state legislature. What's going on with the mayor and those endorsements? So he's basically endorsed in three congressional races. He's endorsed in a few state legislative races. But there's some interesting trends at play here where he maybe is making sure to not be too offensive to some of the establishment and some of the leadership in the state legislature. What, what's the, what are the trends here and what do you make of that?
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Right? I mean, he's solely offered formal official endorsements in open seat races where there are no incumbents. Now, granted, since he's done that, he's appeared in public photo.
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That's for the state legislature.
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Yeah, for the state legislature, you know, photographed in public and videos with people who are challenging incumbents looking quite cozy to them. But again, not an official endorsement. Jessica Gonzalez Rojas challenging Jessica Ramos and David Orkin challenging Jennifer Rajkumar were kind of the two that came to mind there. But yeah, no, it's kind of an, again, because of the mayor's relationship with the legislative leaders in Albany. It was again, as reported by Hell's Gate, kind of out of deference to Carl Hasty to not go against some of his incumbents. And ironically, you see kind of like a, like a reverse parallel in some ways with who Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is endorsed. She endorsed a handful of DSA backed insurgents in the state legislature, but she has not endorsed any of the congressional candidates, Brad Lander or Doria Lisa Villa Chevalier running against House incumbents. So it's kind of like, you know, it's a commentary on colleagues and power dynamics.
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Yeah, it's very, I mean, there's still time. We're talking here again on June 11th. So there's still a dozen days ahead of the primary at AOC not endorsing in any of these three congressional races, including New York 7, where it's an open seat. But, you know, she seems to not want to be endorsing against either Nydia Velasquez and many of the others who are backing Antonio Reynoso or against DSA and others backing Claire Valdez. So that's a pretty interesting marker there. That she is seemingly staying out of that one as well is fascinating. But of course, anything, anything could shift here as we come down the home stretch. You know, she, she's been a longtime Brad Lander ally, although I don't know that that was ever so. You know, they were, I don't know that they were so thick, you know, as, as allies. But interesting that she's not weighing in there again with a incumbent fellow Democrat, even when she disagrees with a lot. And Dan Goldman, it's very interesting. But before we dig in on the congressional.
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Do you have any thoughts on this state comptroller primary?
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I've been interviewing.
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Oh my goodness.
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Is that oh my goodness yes or oh my goodness no?
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It's an oh my goodness. I think. No, it's. You were not the first person to ask me that. You know, again, I think of myself as like a real New York politics sicko, you know, like, like to the maximal degree. The new, the, the comptroller Democratic primary for the state is. Might be a level of sicko, like too great for even me.
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Wow. That, that does not bode well for the amount of voter, voter interest in this primary, which I guess probably bodes well, very well for Tom DiNapoli.
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Yeah, I think what I was, you know, I do have a coherent take on this though. I think Tom DiNapoli could have totally been defeated, you know, but if there was one, one opponent and it was a little more high profile. All due respect to Raj Goyle and Drew Warshaw. Right. But I mean, think about just kind of the, where a lot of the votes are going to be coming. There's no gubernatorial primary, but there are competitive congressionals in the 7th district, the 10th district, the 12th district, and the 13th district. If you just had one popular, liberal, progressive candidate who is popular in those areas, and New York City already makes up 50 to 60% of the state's electorate, I think you totally could have defeated Tom DiNapoli, who, again, is someone who's been in the job for a long time but isn't very well known, but that has not materialized. So I would just kind of expect that he walks to victory to some degree, has a lot of funding behind his campaign, has a lot of organized labor behind him. But I certainly think that people might retroactively look at that race as like, oh, this might have been a missed opportunity.
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Well, two things on that. One, I've been asked a few times months ago about some of the dynamics coming into this election cycle. And one of the things someone asked me at one point was, you know, what does Andrew Cuomo do next? I said, well, if he wants to be state comptroller, he could probably win that race. So that's just one stray thought. And I think everybody, most people are pretty happy he's not running for.
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That was a good one.
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But. But in a universe, I think it's safe to throw this take out there now, In a universe where Brad Lander decided he wanted to be state comptroller and take on Tom DiNapoli, and then they have a different progressive candidate, take on Dan Goldman, you could see something like what you just said play out. I think Brad Lander barely had it in him to take on Dan Goldman and definitely did not have it in him to take on Tom DiNapoli, who, again, is mostly not offended most people in Democratic circles and, you know, is pretty well liked and respected and so forth.
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So.
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But that's the type of thing, you know, that you made me think of when you said that, that other scenario.
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Yeah, totally echo that point about Brad Lander. It's a thought I also had where I was like, well, it, I mean, we'll get to the 10th in a second, but looks like he's well on his way to victory there. But. But if he pursued a different course of action, I think he could have probably won that controller primary relatively easily.
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Let me start.
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Let us, let us start digging in
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with the 13th congressional district, though, because that's the one I believe you've written on most recently yet again, digging into sort of the neighborhoods of the district. But also it's the one where we just got some new polling out today from Justice Democrats, which recruited the challenger to Adriano Espad Darielisa Villa Chevalier that you mentioned, but a Justice Democrats funded poll, so we have to take it
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with, you know, a little bit of
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a grain of salt there. But showing her in the lead with a lot of voters still undecided in that 13th congressional district. What's your big picture lay of the land of that district? How do you sort of see this primary between Avila, Chevalier and Espail with, you know, under two weeks till primary day? Do you see this as a toss up? Do you think anybody's favored here? What's your big picture read on that race?
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Yeah, I think so. It's hard to put too much stock in any poll that's kind of English only and has only like a sample size under 400. And there are also no cross tabs release things like that. So I'm trying not to let any of that color my analysis in my head. This is like a toss up race. You know, I think it's certainly gotten a lot of attention the last two weeks. Obviously the Mamdani effect when he endorses a congressional challenger, that's kind of what comes with it. I do think though that to kind of. Let's start with Adriano. I think something that again, there hasn't been much public polling. I'm really interested to see more. I think we'll have a couple more internals leak out and kind of there's a rumor mill with that. But I think it's clear to me and many others that Adrian Espayed has some degree of a ceiling here. Somewhat of a hard ceiling, I would say. And again, you know, to kind of understand that you kind of have to go back to the environment that kind of. He came up as a political power broker and as a figure. He first started in Inwood and then he eventually won a state senate district in Washington Heights in Inwood. And then he very famously battled Charlie Rangel for this congressional seat twice and then defeated Keith Wright when Rangel retired. And a lot of those primaries were spent on how do you maximize the growing Dominican American electorate in Upper Manhattan. And again against Rangel and against Wright. It was basically the Dominican electorate versus the African American electorate. The district was also reconfigured back in those days where there was no Morningside Heights or Manhattan Valley in the district. You did of course have, I would say middle aged and older Jewish liberals kind of in Hudson Heights and in parts of Inwood, but they were not really factoring into either of the two main coalitions factoring into their calculus. You Kind of fast forward 10 years and this district has not only kind of changed in terms of its literal configurations, but also in terms of its composition. It's now like super racially mixed. You know, you also, you still have those older white liberals in Hudson Heights and in Inwood, but you also have them in Morningside Heights. You also have a growing class of kind of that college educated, very Mamdani friendly young renter demographic that's kind of in the, I say this in air quotes, the southern part of Harlem and in Hamilton Heights as well, in addition again to these long standing Hispanic and black communities. And so if you're Adriano Espad and you've spent a lot of your career basically trying to, you know, gearing your political project towards the empowerment and maximilization of one of those three groups when that group is now one third of the electorate, you might be imperiling yourself when you no longer know it. And now he's kind of in a scenario where again, a lot of I don't want to speak with broad strokes, but a lot of the white voters in his district don't have a terribly high opinion of him. Some of that's due to his support from aipac. Some of that's just due to he's less of a fixture in their neighborhoods. And so he's kind of having to go to the, the African American and black parts of the district and say, hey, I've kind of never needed your votes before, but I need them now. And that's a very difficult proposition. Again, I think, again, there have been relatively few polls released, but his ceiling and his percentages, they're always kind of in the high 30s, low 40s. There's nothing with a commanding maximalist advantage. And I think it's kind of a bad spot for a, certainly a bad spot for a Democratic incumbent to be in where he's been in Congress for 10 years. And his support amongst African Americans, the most loyal Democratic constituency, oftentimes the most loyal constituency to incumbents is certainly in question to again, someone who is 32 years old, not in elected office, has a lot of national attention and movements behind her. But I think it's certainly fair to say she's probably not a fixture of the district, certainly for not nearly as long as he's been. And so again, I see Upper Manhattan, just from a coalitional and a political perspective is probably the most interesting congressional district in the city. Again, it's just very rare to have so much nuance and so many different kinds of voters who feel Very differently about a wide variety of subjects kind of packed together. It's, there are more renters in that congressional district than anywhere in the country. And it's also extremely young. And those just broadly are ingredients that have been associated with progressive and left leaning success for the last 10 years. It was, you know, I was initially quite bullish that it was an area where Zoran Mamdani would do well, but then he even kind of blew those expectations out of the water. He beat Andrew Cuomo by 20% there. So we're now headed to a scenario where we're 12 days away from election day, where this race is looking increasingly live. I think some people now almost want to treat Darieliza as the favorite. That might be going a little too far in my opinion, but it certainly feels like a genuine toss up that could go either way.
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Interesting.
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Yeah. In my gut I see Espad still as a slight favorite in this race, but I don't think it's easy to predict by any, by any means. And I could see, I could see either one of them winning by, I don't know, 12, 15 points depending on the turnout and how much again of the juice, the Mandani and DSA endorsements and get out the vote work does in this district. And you obviously hit on a huge question, which is what black voters in this district will do. If you think SBA will largely win among the Latino voters of the district and Avila Chevalier will win significantly among the white voters of this district, well, then you're left with what will the black voters do? And again, that's painting in some broad strokes. But I think it's based on what you said and other things, you know, that I've looked at. That seems like a reasonable way to think about it, right?
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I would certainly say so. I would also just add that I think the age splits among black and Hispanic voters are going to be quite pronounced. I think there's a scenario where Avila Chevalier wins Hispanic voters under 50 by a decent margin and then as buyout wins over 50 by a significant amount. I would expect a similar ish or directional distribution in the black community. But again, you know, some of this will come down to turnout. You know, I think that there's, there will be a decent amount like I would expect turnout to decrease significantly from the mayoral and that's not something I would say maybe about every district, but I think that, you know, there might be the question and also like Brad Lander did quite well in parts of these districts, in parts of the 13th district, I think there will be a substantial amount of voters who maybe don't feel great about either candidate. It's just a question of do they stay home? Can they be pushed one way or the other? A point I made about Dariel in the article I released yesterday. Last year, right, there was tons of independent spending against Saran Mamdani. And, you know, I remember at the time I was like, gosh, they are waiting very late to go after him. You know, it was kind of in the last two or three weeks that they really opened the floodgates. And that retrospectively was a tremendous mistake. They're not only going after Dariel Issa earlier, but, you know, she's running in a less, you know, salient. You know, it's one congressional district versus a mayoral. And Zuram Abdani was very skilled at just getting this absurd amount of earned and new media that I think to a remarkable degree insulated him to a meaningful extent. When all these attacks come, she, I think, especially in the eyes of older working class voters in the district, is just more unknown, a little more of a blank slate. So then what happens when you kind of dial up $2 million in outside advertising against her? I think that is kind of. That's a challenging recipe to overcome in a district like this. And again, I almost thought that two or three weeks ago there was a little sleeping giant element to this. But I think as the salience is raised, I think that might not uniformly benefit her. The last time Adriana Espaillatt even had any type of challenger at the congressional level was in 2020, and it was two relatively underfunded, unknown candidates, no mass support, things like that. And Asbide is barely cracking 50% in Harlem, barely cracking 50% in East Harlem. There's to a real degree like a protest vote or just a constituency in the district that's fed up with him as well. So it doesn't, you know, the electorate doesn't disperse cleanly, I would say, which I think is what makes it interesting, but also makes it very difficult to predict. I would say, though, that I both candidates have, I would say, like a pretty baked in and decent floor, which I think lends me to believe that this race will be quite close in the end.
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B
Right. And obviously so many of this, the dynamics here will keep coming back to the, you know, age old dynamic of turnout, as we, as we've said, and that's a given in any election, but the ability for the sort of old SBA machine which you've written about to get out his vote versus the newer DSA machine which has been adding membership and membership. And membership in this area particularly will be very interesting. Obviously the mayor's endorsement came in a lot of controversy around that about whether he had promised Espad not to endorse against him. And then Governor Hochul comes in for Espad, who's also got Tish James, a longtime ally, backing him. How much any of these endorsements really matter is to be seen. I think the mayor has some weight, maybe Tish James has some weight. If she is really getting out there, perhaps in Harlem, that could be particularly helpful to him as a proxy. But you know, some real questions around who can really get out their voters in a primary where again, there's very little happening at the top of the ticket. The only statewide primary being the comptroller primary that we talked about that barely anybody's paying attention to. I'm giving it a try here on the podcast, having the candidates on, but really interesting dynamics in terms of which machine can get out the vote. And you have this interesting element too which is also replicated some in the 7th congressional district, which we'll move to in a minute, where you have the relatively unknown DSA candidate. You have Avila Chevalier here who has been doing organizing work in the district but isn't an elected official, doesn't really come with a base, isn't well known in New York 7. You have Claire Valdez barely in the assembly for a little over a year, not that well known, has a queen's base in her district who's voted for her. But that's a small part of the Congressional district versus a much better sort of established political elected official in Antonio Reynoso. And just this question of whether Imam Donny and DSA backed candidate who's sort of just a movement figure and candidate, not to take anything away from them personally, they have their own accomplishments and ability to get out their message and they're both pretty good at it. But they are very much movement candidates versus sort of these more established political brands. Very interesting. Anything else on the 13th? People can read your writing on that. The most recent piece you put out at Narrative wars was the 13th neighborhoods of New York 13, which I was referencing and you referenced as well, which gives a really good in depth look at the different neighborhoods and voting blocks and so forth. Anything else worth mentioning on the 13?
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I think, I think just the last thing I would say to your point about turnout. The turnout patterns in this congressional district have changed significantly over the last six years. I was just doing some modeling Tinkering things like that. And the difference kind of between a 2020, 2021 turnout in New York, 13 versus a 2025 turnout in terms of its effect on a race like this could be like a 12 point swing, you know, where it's like if it, like hypothetically, right. If Dariel Lisa won under a 2025 environment by one point, if it was a 2021 or 2022 environment, SBIoT would win by closer to five. And so I think that is a relatively dramatic switch in terms of just who's coming to vote and kind of what that looks like. And that's kind of what it comes down to. And I think normally it's kind of a theory of two cases. Right. If it's lower turnout, that traditionally might favor an incumbent because it's an older electorate, but we have seen in the last 10 years that sometimes lower, broader turnout helps the candidate with the most enthusiastic base. And also the, you know, the generally like, more educated, higher propensity voters. And I think that's Darieliza.
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So, yeah, I mean, the other thing that's interesting here, which is also interesting in these other races, is this question of, like, what matters about candidates, background and baggage and votes. They've taken stances, they've taken tweets, they've sent. There's so many of those interesting swirling questions here that I don't think we really know. But of course, in recent weeks, some of Avila Chevalier's, you know, past tweets that she's deleted have come out, and now those are showing up in attack ads against her that you mentioned. And Espayats, as you got at some of his stances on Israel and sending, you know, funding there, or whether he's voted to fund immigration enforcement, things like that are coming up where I don't
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know if that's noise to most voters
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and they're sort of just aligning with a political movement or the incumbent that they know versus the unknown. It's. It's hard to say. Do you have any?
- [33:07]
C
Yeah, I mean, I'm a, I'm a younger person, so to some degree I just want to foreground that and say I might be biased. I think that young people, like under 45, under 50, if you grew up in the social media age, I think you're more likely to push some of that stuff aside, you know. And like, when I mentioned some of this on social media, people are like, oh, this is so stupid. Who cares? You know, But I would never genuinely, I would never discount the ability of something to matter to older voters who did not grow up in this era. Especially when you put seven figures worth of advertising behind blasting it out and when the candidate is kind of a blanker canvas in those folks eyes, you know, So I think as we saw last year, as will be the story this year, a lot of this will be generational. But. And I think it's sometimes hard, you know, because I mean, again, like we're talking about, you know, the October 8th rally, and I'm thinking like in my head I'm like, you know, this could really materially hurt Darieliza in Morningside Heights, Hudson Heights as well, which are two places. You know, they're older, they're progressive, but they also have a lot of Jewish voters, a lot of people voted for Brad Lander, things like that. Areas she needs to win, I would say by a considerable margin. And I'm thinking, wow, that might really hurt her. But then I'm also thinking back to last year when Zaranka was on the Bulwark podcast and he says, you know, they asked him to condemn globalize the intifada, and he doesn't do that. And it's like four days before the election and everyone is lighting their hair on fire and then he wins those areas tremendously. You know, so. So some of this is really. It's hard to gauge, you know, and I think the. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just, you know, kind of say that. Say that out loud, you know.
- [34:53]
B
Right, right. There are interesting elements to some of the stuff that came out where some of her buying into some different conspiracy theories or elements of propaganda, talking points from, you know, about the war in Ukraine. There's some things here that are not. Again, I don't think these things will necessarily penetrate with voters. So I don't, I don't know that they matter, but they're, they're interesting flags, I think, that differentiate her from things like Mamdani having defund the police tweets and you know, a clear strident stance on things related to Israel that are in almost a different category. Almost remind me of some of the Jamal Bowman stuff, different than. Than some of the other things. But it's probably neither here nor there with, with voters in the district. Okay, so let's move to the seventh, probably the other district you've written the most about here. This is the district currently represented by Nydia Velasquez, parts of Brooklyn and Queens. She is retiring and wants Antonio Reynoso to replace her. I ment we've got the Mamdani and DSA backed Claire Valdez, also City Council member Julie Wan in the race, who seems to likely be playing a potential spoiler role, taking some Queens votes. Unclear exactly. But what's your. What's your sense of the lay of the land in that race? What might be the variables that determine whether it's a Reynoso is able to squeak out a win here or Valdez is able to win either narrowly or by a somewhat comfortable margin? I think those are the three. The three scenarios that are likely the real possibilities here.
- [36:45]
C
Yeah, I think so. New York 7, I think, has the highest percentage of undecided voters. I'm sure some of that has changed in the last week, but I think it does paint like a pretty live race. You know, up until the very end, the arc that I thought this campaign would take kind of is so far on pace. I thought at first there would be a lot of, well, you know, Antonio has the relationship, things like that, and he does have institutional advantages. So I thought for the first couple months, you know, there would be a lot of people saying that he could win. Then I expected it kind of to narrow, but I think down the home stretch, I would think that the DSA field operation, I would expect Zran Modani to go quite hard for Claire Valdez. I was thinking that, okay, by the end she'll pull away by some discernible margin. I don't really see any reason to kind of pivot off of that approach. But I do think, though, that, you know, like, it's funny, they've. They've had two recent debates, both on the night of the Knicks game. And, you know, like, I know my 7th district commie corridor audience. They're not probably watching. You know, like, all due respect to New York 1 and pix11, they're probably not tuning into it, a New York 7 debate like three weeks before. But I thought it was interesting how I think if you're Antonio Reynoso, you know, I kind of have to go negative, but I have to do it in like, an ethical and deft way. Not sure if that's been accomplished regardless. But, but, but he and Julie Wan also, to a different extent, they've kind of seized on to, oh, Claire Valdez is supported by these super PACs. She has a red box on her website. Antonio Reynoso, of course, also has a red box, you know, but that's kind of like, oh, this is, this is kind of our, our fissure to maybe hit Claire to some degree. And so, you know, it kind of that's kind of emerged as like one of the only fault lines, like policy or political fault lines in a race where the candidates basically agree on almost everything. Beyond that, it's just kind of like a. Like a. Like a power struggle for who leads the left in New York City. It's like DSA or kind of like the Working Families Party and Labor and things of that sort. And it's also like a very. Like the coalitions in this district, they will also be skewed by age. They will also probably, you know, skew to some extent native New Yorkers, non native New Yorkers. Right. Like that. And that was kind of an early talking point or fissure in this race that kind of. I think folks have moved off of it. But. But I, you know, I still think that this is like the. This is, I think, by far in New York City, and I would imagine the country, the youngest electorate in the city and probably the nation. And I just think that will favor the Democratic socialists supported by Zoran Mamdani, who, again, is broadly popular. But I think in this. It's interesting. So often favorability is kind of polled, and basically the story is that Democrats have a favorable opinion of other Democrats. You know, it's. Unless you're Chuck Schumer, basically a lot of Democrats have favorable things to say about. Or Democratic voters think favorably of Democratic elected officials. But Mamdani, in this district is like a cultural and political institution. You know, he's not someone who just has high favorability. He's someone who like voters especially. There's a very high percentage of people who voted for the very first time in a Democratic primary for him that live here, and that's quite powerful. So, again, we're talking about turnout in the 13th district. It's equally relevant here where, again, the larger share of the electorate is under 50, the better, that is for Claire Valdez. I mean, you even see that Antonio Reynoso on his campaign red box thing, they're kind of telling the PACs or whomever to not even target white voters under 50, 35, which are a decently substantial part of the electorate, just because it's like we're kind of writing them off, per se.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah. There's so many interesting elements to this race. On the substance, you have this fascinating dynamic building off of what you just said, where Antonio Reynoso now is like a little bit of the elder statesman in this race somehow at barely 40, and he's talking about his extensive track record in politics, but he's also going most so Many of the voters in this district haven't been in this district very long and they don't know about my track record. And I'm trying to educate them on my track record and having this pretty funny moment where he's now sort of part of the progressive establishment, so to speak. He's been in office a long time. And you have the socialist insurgents coming in, trying to take over from the progressive reformer who just a dozen or so years ago was trying to kick out the old bosses and beating Vito Lopez in a city council race. And this is, you know, this is how it goes right, in politics and generational change. But it's a fast, it's fascinating dynamics on that where you do have the guy who's the Brooklyn Borough President, who was in the City Council, who does have a pretty extensive track record on progressive legislation and on political reform work with the new king's Democrats and all of this. He's the chosen successor of a very respected and well thought of outgoing congress member who is not someone that people were calling on to resign because of, you know, she was getting old and health issues and things like that. There was no talk of that that I've heard. Even though she is, you know, getting older, so very well respected. She's, you know, blessed his candidacy. And still he sees himself, I think rightly as the underdog in this race. And it's remarkable when the favorite in the race seemingly is again, someone who has not been around in politics very long, but is a movement candidate of, of the ascendant movement. And in the district that again, you, you coined the commie corridor here, these areas of Brooklyn and Queens that are the DSA strongholds and the Mamdani strongholds. And it's just, it's just really fascinating dynamics here.
- [43:06]
C
Yeah, I think, you know, there's been a lot of great pieces and articles this cycle, but honestly, my favorite one or the most interesting one might be the interview that Antonio Reynosa did with you and the New York Editorial board. Because it's like, it's almost like in real time as you're reading the transcript. And I'm sure you can color this better than I can because you were there. He's like kind of coming, as he's talking to you folks, he's kind of coming to grips with an acknowledging how the world has like really kind of changed right under him. And I think it's like. And to your point, I think he does correctly perceive himself as the underdog. And I also think that, you know, they're statistically tied according to that Emerson Polar. Claire might be a little bit ahead. I think if you're Antonio Reynosa, realistically you probably would have hoped to have some degree of cushion going into the last month just because I think again the, the I think Claire just given who is supporting her and kind of what she has behind her that lends, you know, she has a bit of a higher ceiling. Particularly like I think in New York 13 it will be hard to gauge. Oh, like is higher, lower turnout benefiting a different candidate? I think higher turnout in this race would benefit Claire Valdez.
- [44:22]
B
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean there's also. I should have added to that list that she's running as the labor organizer candidate. And he's got all the labor union endorsements, almost all. It's just, it is really interesting again watching it from the outside and again seeing him reckon with all this. And he does have significant level of frustration which again, Nydia Velasquez shared as well that Mamdani decided to back another candidate instead of coming to terms with her on a compromise which may or may not have been Reynoso, probably wouldn't have been because of the opportunity that DSA had to grow power in this district. But you, you absolutely could hear in that interview we did with the New York editorial board with Reynoso that there was a level of sort of frustration from him. I think he's very realistic about things. Again, this is a guy who's been around politics a long time now, even though he's still a young guy. So he knows how it goes. But I do think, and he even said it in the interview, which is like, if Zora Mandani is not endorsing in this race, it wouldn't be close. You know, he thinks he, he would win by a wide margin, which is potentially true. Although if you had a DSA movement still behind Valdez, I think that would be a very interesting dynamic as well. But fascinating, fascinating stuff there. Anything else? I think the AOC non endorsement in that race is also worth repeating. Anything else in that race to touch on?
- [45:53]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think to get back to the borough president's answer, I do think that kind of him just saying, oh, I walk into the seat if Zoran didn't support Claire. I do think that probably at this point underestimates what New York City DSA can offer. And also kind of again, like, I think one of the biggest developments in politics the last couple of years is like for a long time, like the working families Party kind of had the political operative class on the left. And the Madani campaign and dsa, they've kind of built that. And you see a lot of the folks who help Zaran win now are working for Claire Valdez, are helping her, things like that. I think that answer kind of discounted again, some of that trajectory change. Yeah, I think that's four years. And I think just, you know, again, to speak kind of in terms of the district and its neighborhoods, I would expect Bushwick and Ridgewood to be, you know, that's prime Claire turf. I would expect South Williamsburg with the Satmar to obviously be, you know, he was just endorsed by some of the leaders there. That that's like a block for Reynoso. I think the Fort Greene, downtown Brooklyn, Clinton Hill kind of professional Democratic class, I think is interesting. I would probably say that Clare has a slight advantage there, although it's not set in stone. I think Antonio has an advantage in kind of the eastern half of Bushwick and in Cypress Hills, significantly. But again, the turnout there is significantly or historically significantly less than other parts of the district. So I think that will be interesting to navigate. As well as Woodhaven, I think the Queen's portion, I actually expect Julie Wan to kind of take from both candidates relatively equally. I think especially in a lot of the public housing developments that are in our council district. She seems decently strong. And there's many Asian voters in Long Island City and Sunnyside as well, that I anticipate her doing decently well. Claire Valdez, her Assembly district is Long Island City and Sunnyside, so I would imagine she'll have an advantage of anti over Antonio Reynosa there. But basically, to summarize for your audience, I think a lot of the race will come down to Greenpoint and the broader Williamsburg area. I think collectively Those are neighborhoods 1 and 2 in terms of where the vote comes from. And Antonio, again, he has Nydia, he's got Lincoln Ressler, folks who are really going hard for him. He, of course, has lived in Williamsburg for his entire life. But again, some of those fundamentals in the electorate are changing significantly. And I think if the race is going to swing one way or the other, and again, and I would favor Claire at this point, it will swing there.
- [48:27]
B
And you wrote about this race multiple times at the Narrative Wars. But one which picked up on some of that conversation that Rain also had with the New York Editorial Board is called DSA versus wfp. And I think there's a lot of interesting insights in that piece about some of the Dynamics we just discussed that people can read up on there, including sort of how the WFP came about and has had progressive power. But now, especially when there's a split with the DSA in a race seemingly would be on the underdog side and the organizing depending on where. And in this district, especially where Mamdani did the best of any congressional district, right.
- [49:08]
A
This was his.
- [49:09]
C
And I think to be fair to WFP and also to kind of foreground this general discussion, like if this was a contest in like the 10th congressional district or in different neighborhoods, I think WFP would be more, more institutionally and structurally advantaged than they are here. But they're kind of having this really big proxy war. Now granted, they're supporting, you know, a candidate who's lived in the district for the entire time and has a lot of local institutional support, but they are having this proxy war at kind of the heart of their, their opponents, in this case their base. And I do think that as again, kind of the Democratic establishment as we have known them for a long time in New York City, as they kind of recede in some of these neighborhoods and lose power, this socialist versus progressive proxy war thing, it will kind of become the new battle in at least many parts of the city where the left is already strong and only gaining power.
- [50:05]
B
So, and I'll just add as we
- [50:07]
A
close out on that race,
- [50:10]
B
when Claire Valdez came in and talked with that group of journalists, the New York editorial board, it was just vastly different from Antonio Reynoso. You could see the experience difference in that setting very much, because in a sort of long editorial board style interview where a lot of substantive questions are being thrown around, around policy, if you haven't thought about a lot of this stuff in depth and had to have positions on it over the course of years like he has, you could tell that she was really trying to think through some of these issues and policies on the fly. And that's not a good position to be in as a candidate or an elected official at any time. You want to be prepared and have thought things through. It doesn't always come across, I don't think in the transcript, but it was evident across the table, again underscoring this divergence in experience. But again, how much that matters to voters and especially voters in this district is. Well, it's unlikely to be a lot, but we'll see. Okay, New York 10. This is the Brooklyn and Manhattan district represented by Dan Goldman. Brad Lander is challenging him in essentially a one on one race. The broader political progressive left Felt like they gave this seat away when it was open. Newly created in 2022 and Goldman very narrowly won a crowded race with 26% of the vote. Several more progressive candidates split, split a lot of the vote in that race, including Yuli New, who's now running for state Senate in an open seat this, this election. But we won't get into that right now. Brad Lander, coming off his loss in the mayoral race, is seen as a
- [51:50]
A
pretty strong favorite in this race.
- [51:52]
B
I don't think we need to spend
- [51:53]
A
a lot of time on this, but
- [51:54]
B
what's your any other broader read on this race or key variables at play that you see here? This is one, by the way, just coming back to where we started, where I don't disagree with me, but I don't think a Mom Donnie endorsement or not matters that much in this race. I think Brad Lander, even without a Mom Donnie endorsement, would probably be the favorite in this race. There's certainly parts of the district that did not go heavily for Mom Donnie in the mayoral race. Obviously Goldman is, is planning to clean up in those areas. But it just seems like, as Brad Lander has argued, Lander's track record plus more progressive politics seem like a bit more of a match for this district than Goldman's, even though Goldman is a pretty liberal progressive guy and has all these Trump, you know, accountability bona fides and would probably do very well in hearings if he's still in Congress, you know, if the Democrats take the House majority, all of that. It just still seems to come down to the fact that Lander has pretty deep roots in this district and his progressive politics are a little more aligned here. But other thoughts on the sort of
- [53:01]
A
broad strokes of this race?
- [53:03]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, Brad Lander was kind of the favorite from the beginning. I think Zuron's endorsement helps him. But just in terms of the margin of victory, which I think is basically what the conversation about New York 10 is about, how much does Brad Lander win by? I mean, even I thought that he would win by a lot. So that 34 point margin in the Emerson Poll and was like, oh my gosh, like this is a real.
- [53:27]
B
Feels hard to believe.
- [53:27]
C
That's, that's kind of destruction. I think Dan Goldman, like in talk we're talking about fits in the district. I think Dan Goldman's definitely like a better fit for the 12th district than he is the 10th. And I think again, you know, not to take away from his victory in 2022, but I think he kind of got lucky, got the New York Times endorsement. At the end there was Mondaire Jones was carpet bagging, you know, there was some split progressive support between Yuli Nu and Carlino Rivera. Brad Lander is like, you know, I think again the mayoral campaign had had its struggles for sure, but he's an A tier candidate in a district like this and it's kind of, I mean again, I'm not the first person to say this and I'm not taking credit but you know, it's like a reverse Bowman Latimer where Israel and Palestine and AIPAC is kind of the defining fault line in the race and, and the incumbent is, I would say does not reflect the views of, of the electorate he's representing on those issues and then also has way less institutional support than the well known challenger who's actually been around for a long time. But instead of that, you know, this race being litigated in Westchester county, it's litigated at Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, you know, which are kind of leading the fight. And you know, again, not to parlay New York City onto the rest of the country, but this is another example of like AIPAC and the pro Israel lobby, their support diminishing significantly in one of the most Jewish congressional districts in the nation. I think that that's probably the broad takeaway, but it's just how much is Bradley and they're going to win by.
- [55:00]
A
Yeah.
- [55:01]
B
You know, sometimes when I try to think about is there a path for Goldman when he won in 2022, he did really well in some of the
- [55:09]
A
Manhattan parts of this district, especially some Brooklyn parts as well.
- [55:13]
B
Can he juice the turnout, you know, in some of those areas? Having been the congressman now for some time, I expect him to win some more votes in some of the NYCHA complexes, in some of, you know, the Chinatowns.
- [55:30]
A
I think it's, I think, you know,
- [55:31]
B
I think there's room to sort of
- [55:32]
A
look at it and see a closer
- [55:34]
B
race than maybe some people expect or that poll showed.
- [55:37]
C
Right.
- [55:38]
A
I also think, I wonder the degree
- [55:41]
B
to which there's some Brad Lander fatigue
- [55:44]
A
among voters in this district, even though
- [55:46]
B
it is his home district. And I think there's a lot of enthusiasm for him and a lot of disappointment with Goldman or people that just never voted for Goldman in 2022. You know, 2024 was a non race year for him basically. But you know, I don't know, I don't know that there's some people who I think are a little bit skeptical of, of Lander's. A little bit overexposed, I think, in some ways. And coming off the mayoral race loss to then turn around and run for Congress, I'm sure some people clearly have enthusiasm for it, but I wonder if there's a little bit of fatigue there.
- [56:23]
C
I thought that would be a bigger liability than I think it proved to be. I mean, yeah, like if we're taking over under 34 point margin, I probably take the under, but it's still like you have a 34 point debt. You have it and it's still 17, you know, and I think even if Bradley wins by 17 points, that's still pretty convincing. I mean, yeah, the, the, the case for Dan Goldman, keeping it closer is that the Manhattan side of the district where he's stronger, has many more competitive races down the ballot. You know, people knocking on doors, you know, canvassing, sending their own mail, things like that. The electorate might be a tiny bit more engaged over there, but I just think that, I mean, it's going to be pretty ugly in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, parts of Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace. And I think it's just, you know, those are really high propensity areas, particularly in a Trump midterms. It's going to be really hard to claw out of that.
- [57:17]
B
This is another one that AOC is
- [57:19]
A
staying out of, as we mentioned earlier, but worth underscoring. We'll see if that changes before primary day.
- [57:24]
B
And it's another one where Mamdani and Hochul are on different sides, like in the New York 13 race.
- [57:29]
A
So that's interesting.
- [57:30]
B
I don't, I don't see any of these as really that much of a Hokul Mamdani proxy battle, but clearly some of it matters in terms of juice, in terms of allies in other elected office and things of that nature. You mentioned it related to the 2022 race, but I was about to say between this one and the one will
- [57:54]
A
wrap up our conversation on New York 12.
- [57:57]
B
The absence of the New York Times editorial board is immense in both these races. Now, maybe it won't have an impact on the results, but would have been very interesting to see where the New York Times editorial board might go in this race. But that also may or may not reflect changing dynamics within the editorial board if it was still doing local races and how the publisher might influence things, because there was a lot of attention on the, I mean, this, the Goldman race was what really was one of the key factors in leading the Times to rethink its editorial board practices.
- [58:31]
C
So very well said. I mean, it's Fascinating though, to think about kind of where we were two or three years ago where it's like, oh, the most powerful endorsement is the New York Times editorial board. And now they don't even do local endorsements. And then imagine telling you back then, actually the most powerful endorsement will be Zoran Mamdani, the Assembly member from Astoria. Yeah, yeah, times, they change really quickly
- [58:51]
B
in a lot of places, but not necessarily in New York 12 where he's not endorsed. I do want to just add one more thing on 10, which is to pick up on your mentioning this point about the reverse Bowman Latimer, which is one of my thoughts. And other people share this. I think about what happened to Jamaal Bowman was that. And I think this has happened to Dan Goldman again in the reverse, which is this idea of some very strongly held personal beliefs and politics about issues, but handling those in a poor way politically, that makes you, the people that disagree with you really dislike you in a way that makes them much more motivated to spend against you, vote you out, run against you and all that in a way that is really self inflicted wounds that were sort of unnecessary. And I think that has happened to Goldman here as a pro Israel Democrat, and I think it happened to Bowman as an Israel criticism in his race where he could have handled October 7, 2023 and other things a lot differently and didn't. And, and I think Goldman could have handled some things related to the aftermath differently and didn't. So yeah, okay, New York 12 a race where Mamdani has not endorsed AOC is not endorsed. The New York Times editorial board is not endorsed. Although I think if the New York Times editorial board was endorsing, this would obviously be the race where it would matter the most. And Michael Lasher would probably be sweating a lot less about Alex Boris potentially pulling this thing off.
- [60:35]
C
But the closest thing to a New York Times endorsement is probably a nice opinion column and an Ezra Klein podcast appearance, both of which went to Alex Boris. So I do think, especially the Ezra Klein podcast, genuinely that's worth a couple points. You know, was it enough to kind of claw back. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but I do think that that was, you know, that's as close as anyone's getting these days to that type of thing.
- [61:03]
B
But it is also though, a setting where the guest then has to really come across well. And I thought Boris was good on
- [61:10]
A
that podcast, but I don't think he was great.
- [61:13]
B
Just, just my two cents.
- [61:16]
C
I think that's, that's fair Yeah, I think that's fair. And it's also a race. Also.
- [61:21]
B
This is a. This is all about AI, And I don't think.
- [61:25]
C
You don't think the boomers are tweaked about AI?
- [61:28]
B
Well, I think people generally understand it as an important issue, but I don't know that any of the way it's being focused on in this race matters at all to the voters of this district, for the most part. And they're just, like, getting all the mail, both for Boris and against Boris, that I don't know that anybody knows what to make of it all. It feels like it's pretty much just a wash.
- [61:48]
A
But.
- [61:48]
C
And I. And I do think that, to your point, like, the Ezra Klein podcast, certainly helpful, But New York 12 is also a race, even more so than any of the other races that we talked about, where there are things happening with it, not just the mail, but, like, the constant forums, the ads, everything that, like, are routinely impacting the mind of the voter, you know, so where even if you came out of that Ezra Klein podcast being like, wow, I really feel good about voting for Alex Boris, there are 25 things that have happened since then that might take priority in your mind. I lived in New York 12 for almost my whole life, so I still kind of approach it as, gee, who would, like. I vote for in this race? And, like, it's not. It's. It's not terribly clear to me.
- [62:31]
B
But.
- [62:31]
C
But there's just. There's constant things happening. I mean, I. I would love to find out by the end of this how many forums these candidates have attended. Forums, debates, everything. Because it's like, every two days, it's rather remarkable.
- [62:46]
B
But I'm a. I'm a big proponent, of course.
- [62:50]
C
Of course. Yeah, yeah. We. We've both done New York 12 forums, but I. Yeah, I mean, as we're, you know, really in this home stretch here over the next 12 days, it's. It does seem to be narrowing between the two state legislators, one from the east side, one from the west side. That kind of a lot of people who have been attuned to these dynamics for years, perceived at the beginning, but I think it's. It's. It's far closer than you would ever rate the fundamental, you know, if you were strictly doing an east, west proxy, than you would ever rate it to be, which is quite interesting.
- [63:24]
B
And we also don't really know. I mean, there's a chance Lasher wins comfortably, which I think would have been the prediction, you know, at the start of the Race, especially once he secured the Nadler endorsement, which everybody pretty much knew was coming. But with the strength of the vote on the west side, the Nadler endorsement, you still have to think Lasher is the favorite. But this flood of money for and against Boris, and I think more money now spent for him than against. But like I said, so much of it, I think just now becoming like a wash. Although it raises his profile generally, I guess I still see Lasher as a pretty strong favorite. I guess.
- [64:05]
A
My question for you is whatever percentage
- [64:09]
B
of the vote Jack Schlossberg, George Conway,
- [64:14]
A
and even Nina Schwelbe get, where do you think, you know, could that impact who wins and loses here between the other two? If we do think it's coming down to those two, which I think, again,
- [64:25]
B
most people do, including us, like, is there a chance that there's enough of those votes that come from Lasher to
- [64:34]
A
swing it to Boris?
- [64:35]
B
I mean, I think is really the
- [64:36]
A
question, because I do think Conway probably hurts Lasher more than Boris. And I think even If Shelby gets 2% of the vote, I think that comes from Lasher.
- [64:49]
C
Yeah, I think it's. I mean, genuinely, I don't know about Schlossberg.
- [64:52]
B
I have no idea.
- [64:52]
C
Yeah. Kind of hard to tell. I mean, I think it was telling that when Schlossberg declined in the polls, Lasher was going up almost one to one correlation there. I think that George Conway is trickier because, I mean, like, I can't imagine anyone under 60 voting for George Conway. Right. So I do. And. But. But I do. Like, he is like, this ex Republican who's now like a Democrat, wealthier. I do see him kind of pulling his support from kind of that area that I call Oligarch Alley on the Upper east side, like, super old, like, norc. Because those. A lot of those voters are the former Romney Republicans who are like, I now vote for Kamala Harris and Andrew Cuomo, like that. That type of thing. And that is, like, in Alex, Boris is, like, geographic, like his. Literally his district, and kind of. I'm sure he's looking to run it up there. So I think it's. It's harder to tell. And I mean, the interesting thing is, like, Nina Schwabli, where it's like, the voters who are going to vote for her are us essentially, like, looking for a progressive. And I think Alex, Boris and Micah, they've. They've kind of, like, tipped. I think there was a lane for one of them to outflank the other on the left without like giving up too much. Yeah, but I think it's just the truth. The left in this district, well decently sized. I mean again, Mamdani came within four points in the first round of Andrew Cuomo and actually won the district after the ranked choice voting was tabulated. It is decently sized, but it's not super well organized. Whereas I think I would say more moderate anti Mumdani also, you know, like if we're talking about Israel and Palestine, Zionist institutions, they are far more organized in this district. And I think like neither of the two front running candidates wanted to get on the other side of that.
- [66:37]
B
Yeah.
- [66:37]
C
But in reality they might have cost themselves like this untapped thing on the left because I mean, I can't tell you how many people over the last six months have said who's the progressive in this district, you know, people who live there and things like that. And I don't think anyone has really presented like a coherent case to that. So it's certainly quite interesting in the forums I've watched.
- [67:03]
B
So at the forum I moderated, neither Lasher nor Boris came at the last minute, but I was a chance to get to ask questions and observe Schlossberg and Conway and others, which was interesting. But in the other forums I've watched online or the debates or when we had Lasher and Boris in at the New York editorial board, these dynamics around both Israel and Mamdani have been really, really interesting. And you can almost feel the pain that both these leading candidates have in discussing both topics. I mean, it's like, and again, maybe that's on them for not figuring out a little bit more of, you know, of a stronger position on some things or they just, you know, these are hard topics also, obviously, but you can see sort of the strain because they, I think especially related to topics related to Israel. They don't, they don't really, I think, know what is good for them politically. And they're probably hedging a little bit in terms of what they personally feel. Feel because they don't want to risk losing some more of the moderate to center right Jewish voters in the district. But I think as also as the race has developed. We just talked to Lasher at the New York editorial board a couple days ago and that transcript is out if people want to read it. And he sort of unequivocally said, I'd love to have the mayor's endorsement, which I thought was fascinating, but he doesn't have it. And I think that ship has sailed. I don't know how hard he tried to get it or if he wanted it until recently. But. But when Boris came and spoke with us, we almost had to sort of drag it out of him whether he would. Would. Would want Mamdani's endorsement. And he said yes, but it. It was a. It was a pained conversation, which was interesting. And watching them talk about issues related to Israel, you can see how much it's sort of wearing on them in this political process. So.
- [68:51]
C
Right. And. And even for the forum I moderated, you know, people are always asking, oh, do you have to ask about Israel? Do you have to ask about Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza? And so. Well, most of the submitted questions are about those issues. You know, voters, clearly. It's clearly top of mind. I mean, again, I wanted to kind of ask you about. You guys just interviewed Michael Asher, and I believe you had an exchange with him in the interview where you're like, we're asking you a lot of questions and you're not really answering them. Can you talk about what that was like? Because I think he's in kind of a tricky spot where I. Where he's basically been playing with a lead the whole time, and that's like, kind of a dangerous place to be as a politician, you know, And Andrew Cuomo, of course, is evidence of this. Right. You. You're kind of a little more conservative. You know, you're taking fewer risks. It's. I mean, you saw with the spurs last night, right? You know, you're playing not to lose. Whereas Alex Boris, knowing the structural advantage or disadvantage that he faces, east versus west, he's like, let me take risks. Let me, like, try and nationalize this campaign in a way that I think to a decent extent he has, because nationalizing it is the only way to kind of break into that west side wall and just, you know, kind of just peel off the numbers of voters that you need to get the margins possible to win. What do you kind of. What's your take on some of that?
- [70:15]
B
Yeah, so, I mean, I think. I think Boris and his team played all this pretty brilliantly by trying to make the race about him and AI, you know, because he passed a law in New York State that put some guardrails around AI that he then became a target of big AI money against him. And they really did a great job capitalizing on that. And in a lot of ways, the discussion in the race has centered around him and AI and who's spending money against him and all that. And I think Lasher, actually, in our interview with him, made really good points that a lot of the narrative has just been like, oh, Boris regulated AI. And now the AI is industry is out to get him. And it's, it's. It's not. That's. That's a very oversimplified version of what's going on. Lasher also repeatedly pointed out that Boris seems to be friendly with the crypto
- [71:00]
A
folks who are putting money behind.
- [71:02]
B
Yeah, there's a lot of interesting dynamics here. But Lasher, I think, is showing some
- [71:09]
A
frustration around the fact that this race
- [71:10]
B
has revolved around Alex Boris in so many ways, that he is the, you know, the error apparent chosen endorsee of Jerry Nadler. And that's supposed to be worth a heck of a lot in this district. And we now don't really know exactly how much it's worth because of the way that some of these other forces have subsumed the conversation. I think there's also, and again, this is me sort of reading into his approach a little bit, that this frustration perhaps that he's just a candidate sort of not really built for this moment in our political attention economy.
- [71:47]
C
Right.
- [71:47]
B
He's very wonky. He's pretty understated. You know, there's some kind of Brad Lander, Scott Stringer vibes in different ways. Right. Just kind of like nerdy affect and so forth, and it's hard to break through. He's not a social media guy. He doesn't have, you know, that commanding of a presence. So it's tricky for him. Is this the best district probably to be running on as a candidate, like running in as a candidate like that? Yes. So I think he still knows that. But I think, of course, when a race probably felt like it was going to be more of a slam dunk and it feels like more of a jump ball, these are basketball metaphors that don't exactly line up. I think that probably wears on you. But also anybody getting closer to primary day where you feel like you don't really know what's going to happen, I'm sure that that starts to get to people with all the questions he didn't answer. I mean, I did point that out, but he was right in his response that like a lot of the stuff he was not answering was like we were asking him to sort of.
- [72:52]
C
You were trying to bait him. Yeah, a little bit.
- [72:53]
B
Yeah.
- [72:54]
C
Well.
- [72:54]
B
And also just weigh in on, you know, that he rightly called sort of political punditry stuff. Now, that being said, when we ask him to sort of assess Chuck Schumer, you know, I Think you should be
- [73:06]
A
able to give an assessment of Chuck
- [73:07]
B
Schumer's leadership if you're looking to be one of the leaders of the Democratic Party, which Lasher certainly thinks that he wants to be and should be if he's representing this district in the heart of Manhattan. So, you know, there was some duck ducking on that and a few other things that he called sort of punditry and so forth. You know, we asked him if he still sees himself as the favorite in the race. All right, I guess you don't want to answer that, that's fine. But the funny thing is that he could have just given like a politician answer about like, I'm working hard for every vote, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we probably would have just been like, all right, let's go, move on. He doesn't want to call himself the favorite of the underdog, but instead he had this attitude of like, I'm not answering that, which is like provokes, you know, me or anybody else could have said it to be like, why aren't you're not answering a bunch of these questions? But as people could read in the transcript, you know, when you talk about a substantive policy issue, you know, he's right there ready to go in depth on it. And that obviously matters more in the real world, maybe not the political campaign. So those, those are those things. Final thoughts on New York 12.
- [74:13]
C
Yeah, I was going to say that. I mean, look, gun to my head, I would, I would still expect Michael Lasher to win. But, but he's, I mean, you kind of alluded to it. He's, he's in a bit of a tricky spot where it, for much of this race, it's kind of felt like he's like the third most well known or famous candidate, you know, with Jack Schlossberg and Alex Boris. I think Alex Boris was interesting is the AI money didn't really define him. He was able to define himself through the response to the AI money. And I think now Michael Asher is trying to define him, but it's, it's, it's harder now because I think the voters, their impression of him because of all the spending is like a little more baked in than maybe it would be somebody else. So just a, just a really fascinating campaign and you know, in the heart of New York's media and media elite, cultural capital.
- [75:08]
B
Yeah. Okay, last thoughts here. You've written about how these 2026 primaries are a bit of a dress rehearsal for 2028 and the battles that are going to continue to play out in the Democratic Party. Share a couple thoughts on that. People can, of course, read your piece at the Narrative Wars. The dress rehearsal for 2028 is what it's called. As soon as we're done with these midterm primaries, the presidential primary is going to really get going. So it's not 2028 really. Right. It's 2027 when a lot of this happens. But then also there's going to be people lining up. We're going to know relatively soon.
- [75:50]
A
Is Chuck Schumer going to seek another term in 2028?
- [75:53]
B
Is AOC going to run for Senate or president or surprise everybody and stick with the House? You know, there's a lot of things that are going to happen pretty soon that are part of this New York and national discussion. Hakeem Jeffries is obviously lining up to be the speaker if Democrats take the House, that seems like a very, very, very safe bet that he will be. But you never know, there might be
- [76:15]
A
some sort of challenge to that.
- [76:16]
B
And we hear lots of New York congressional candidates being asked about whether they back him. Most of them say yes, except the DSA backed candidates who are much more reluctant to agree to be supportive of him for Speaker. They might not have that much of a choice, but they're at least holding out within this process, which is interesting. And I think again, that can be strategic when you get to the point of actually being in Congress and want something from the speaker to be right. Yeah, you can sort of hold out for a little more negotiation there. Anyway, say a little bit of your thoughts about what all this transpiring in New York City, especially right now in June of 2026 will mean for the political sort of battles and dynamics to come here. Heading towards 2028 for sure.
- [77:05]
C
Yeah. I mean, just to stick with New York 12, I wrote about how, you know, basically we talked about these AI packs, how AI packs are becoming kind of the new apac. And APAC was such a liability for Dan Goldman in New York 10. It's, it might be the biggest reason that he's going to lose his seat. Every New York 12 candidate very early on, especially, you know, at this was, at a forum I moderated, they all swore off aipac. You know, like it's, it's anything tied to like pro Israel spending, anything related to that has become really toxic, especially to very high information, college educated Democratic voters. But now you're seeing with the AI pacs that the polarization against the negative spending is, it translates just beyond kind of that one issue. And You've seen, even if Alex Boris doesn't win, he is, I think, masterfully manipulated some of this to his advantage. And I, and I do think that this will be a tremendous discourse in 2027 and 2028, especially as all of this spending only ramps up. And again, I'm specifically kind of talking about a Democratic primary and some of my other thoughts related to New York 7 in terms of specifically how, you know, there is this fight for what the left looks like, kind of between the working, you know, the Working Families Party, the nonprofit liberal or left liberal, like Warren faction of the party, and then kind of that Sanders Democratic socialist wing. There is that fight. But then this is also a really interesting test of, like, what does young voter turnout look like without that incredible force at the top of the ticket? You know, what does turnout in the 7th district look like without Mum Donnie? Right. It's like, it's kind of like a scenario of like, what if AOC does not run for for president? What is turnout? What does young voter turnout look like? And kind of where does that energy go? And then lastly, with the 13th district, so much of the race will come down to how Adrian Espied and Darieliza perform in Harlem, long the bastion of black political power in America. And I mean, it's kind of like set up quite well, especially Harlem, in particular, a lot of renters. The black voter population is generationally quite well distributed. So it's not just entirely older voters as well. It's kind of set up quite well for, like, here's an opportunity for the left to, like, win the constituency that often they have been derided for not winning or struggling with or that has kind of been an Achilles heel of the movement per se. And so on June 23rd, we're going to get a lot of really interesting answers to these questions. And, you know, people often other New York City's role in national politics. But I do think if you look at things here with a keen eye, that there's a lot that is foreshadowed and shown. So those are just kind of some of the things I'm looking at.
- [80:01]
A
I couldn't agree more.
- [80:02]
B
And there's more in your piece, so people should read it. And I couldn't agree more. And I've been saying this also about the Mamdani win, and people say, oh, it's New York City. But again, people are failing to see. Some of the parallels, I think, are with Trump, which is this scrambling of how we think about politics in ideological lanes.
- [80:21]
A
There's of Course, something to that, but
- [80:23]
B
it's also about anti establishment feelings, populism, who's a fighter, who tells it like it is. Some of these things that matter to voters more than whether you consider yourself a quote unquote, socialist or progressive or liberal or conservative or whatever it is. Right. And so I do think there's. There is more happening in New York. Of course I have to think this, but I actually, that speaks to other trends as well, both in New York State, which I think also, by the way, will be interesting as we head past primary day to the general election for governor. Yep. And some of the House races outside the city where in both the race for governor and some of the House races outside the city, we're gonna see people running against Mamdani, which will be fascinating. And of course, Hochul having to decide how much to sort of embrace him further and try to help her vote count by, by aligning with him in the city especially will be very, very interesting. So, so a lot there.
- [81:22]
C
Yeah.
- [81:22]
B
The other thing that'll be fascinating here, not to get ahead of primary day, but these assembly members running for Congress are giving up their seats. So that's interesting. Either Michael Lasher or Alex Boris will be, will be out of office next year, assuming one of them wins the House race. So that'll be, that'll be a little bit interesting. And then, you know, if Brad Lander does take out Dan Goldman, what's his next act? I think will be very interesting to watch, you know, what Goldman does. So, you know, and if, if Antonio Reynoso doesn't win this congressional seat, he gets to keep his Brooklyn borough presidency and then he gets to, you know, take another look at the 2029 New York City cycle and the, and the open public advocate race. So there's a lot of, a lot of other interesting things here that are on my mind as I watch this stuff.
- [82:11]
C
It's a changing of the guard politically in New York City and the state, without a, without a doubt. And I think to your point about Mamdani's effect on the Democratic Party nationally, I mean, I think there were people who somewhat in their own interest said, well, no one's going to copy him, you know, 100% or like, you can't just run Mamdani's everywhere. But I think anyone would be silly to not at least try and take bits and pieces of his success and try and apply it elsewhere. You see this with Abigail Spanberger opening the State of the Union, talking about affordability. You see it with James Talarico said, oh, we tried to pattern our videos exactly after Madani. You see it with Platner, with Abdul El Sayed. You know, it's, it's fascinating. So I'm glad we're in lockstep on that.
- [82:57]
B
And we'll be very like, you don't have to agree with all those positions on everything to take some of those lessons, you know, is what people forget. And also perhaps the most important underlying lesson, which I think some of his consultants have been taken with other candidates around the country or maybe even started before Mamdani, is that having a charismatic candidate is very important, whatever their politics are. So let's let's leave it there. Michael Lang, thanks so much for the time and thoughts, really appreciate. And everybody should, of course, read your substack the narrative wars, but thanks for
- [83:27]
C
the time, of course, such a pleasure. Thanks for having me on,
- [83:33]
A
Sam.
- [83:59]
C
It.