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Politics Roundup, with Jeff Coltin on Mamdani's Endorsements, 2026 Races to Watch, & More
00:51:22
Jeff Coltin, Editor-in-Chief of City and State Ne…
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- [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 for the show. Speaking here on the morning of Thursday, April 30, 2026. Going to jump right into today's episode in just a minute. We're doing a politics roundup with Jeff Colton, editor in chief of City and State New York. And we have a lot to get to here on Mayor Mamdani's political endorsements and use of his political capital. Key 2026 races to watch in New York as we quickly approach the June primaries for state and federal races on the ballot this year and much more. Let me first quickly highlight two things. The next episode of the show is going to come out on the afternoon of Friday, May 1, and I'll be joined by New York State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Jaenerys of Queensland, a regular guest here on the show. He'll provide the latest on state budget negotiations from Albany. As a state budget hits a month late, but things seem to finally be moving toward a conclusion. If you recall, I had the Senate Majority Leader, Andre Stewart Cousins on the show a few weeks ago and she was very optimistic a state budget would be done by May 1. But we also got into a lot of detail about all of the policy and spending decisions that hadn't been agreed on yet. And it was clear that state leaders were still a long way from done with a new state budget that's going to come in at $260 billion plus and have a lot of policy involved in the final package. So Senate Deputy Leader Generos of Queens will join me on Friday, May 1, to share the latest on those state budget negotiations, including a variety of high profile policy items, questions around state aid to New York City and tax rates and so much more. And then second, if you missed any recent episodes of the show along with that conversation with Senate Majority Leader Stuart Cousins have had some good recent guests and conversations, including recently had on State Senator John Lew of Queens. And we focused on state budget negotiations generally, but especially on education issues because Lou chairs the Senate New York City Education Committee. So he has an outsized voice on things like the possible extension of mayoral control of city schools and the school aid formula where the state decides on billions and billions of dollars of school aid to the city, class size requirements and a lot of other issues there. So a good conversation with John Lew, State Senator of Queens. And then also just to highlight, I did an episode on Mayor Mamdani's first 100 days got into a lot of good analysis there with Sally Goldenberg of the New York Times and Bob hart of New York 1. And then lastly, I posted to the feed here most recently the audio of a candidate forum I recently moderated in the Democratic primary for New York's 12th congressional district. This is the district represented by retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler, covering a lot of the east and west sides of Manhattan. It's a very crowded and competitive race. Seven of the candidates were there for the forum, including George Conway and Jack Schlossberg, two of the higher profile candidates in that race. And it was a very interesting conversation despite the fact that two other high profile candidates, the two current elected officials in the race, assembly members Alex Boris of the east side and Micah Lasher of the west side, were last minute no shows after being long confirmed to participate. So we'll discuss that New York 12 primary on the show here today with Jeff Colton in a few minutes. Jeff is here. Editor in Chief of City and State New York. Jeff, welcome back. Thanks for being here. How are you?
- [03:34]
B
I'm doing great. What a time. I love a good special election week that was just a thrilling, fascinating election on so many levels. And it's also getting to be crunch time in the June Democratic primaries. It's ballot access week. There's people, people fighting for to get their name on the ballot and people fighting to get their opponent's name off the ballot.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah, there's some interesting dynamics going on with that, including in the state comptroller Democratic primary where Comptroller Tom Dinapoli is seeking another term and actually has a competitive primary for the first time basically ever. And some interesting ballot access decisions to be made in the state Comptroller primary. And I'm going to dig into that race a little bit here on the show in the coming weeks. So Jeff, I know you also moderated a candidate forum in the 12th congressional district. So we'll get back to that race in a little bit. But you just mentioned where we should start, which is the big political news of the week in New York, which was the special election in City Council District 3, which overlaps with New York's 12th congressional district. Council member, then council member Eric Bottcher left that seat midterm to go to the State Senate after briefly running in the Congressional primary in New York 12. Then that was after Brad Hoyman Siegel left the State Senate to become Manhattan Borough President. So a lot of musical chairs here. So there was an empty City Council seat in a very politically active, powerful Manhattan District. Two recent City Council speakers have represented that district, Christine Quinn and Corey Johnson. So the special election became very interesting in a number of ways. The presumed front runner and the ultimate winner, Carl Wilson, he had the backing of Bottcher, for whom he was the Chief of staff, and he had a lot of political support from Comptroller Mark Levine and current Council Speaker Julie Menon, Congressman Nadler, and many, many more. But then there was also Lindsey Boylan, running perhaps most well known in New York politics for accusations against Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment and accusing the Cuomo administration of a toxic workplace. And a lot of those allegations were substantiated in the Attorney General office report that was released back in 2021 and led to Cuomo's resignation. Boylan's been very active against Cuomo, including in the mayoral race. So, you know, she had a pretty high profile coming into this City Council special. She's been trying to get into elected office for a while now. This will be her third loss. But she made a lot of noise here in this special election, even though she wasn't, you know, that well ingrained or known in the district. And partly she got a late endorsement in the race from Mayor Mamdani, and he campaigned with her several times. She had been helpful to him in the mayoral race and, you know, the anti Cuomo efforts there. So there's sort of questions here about, you know, the mayor getting involved in the race and losing and, you know, what are your sort of big takeaways from this and how do you see the Mayor Mamdani endorsement here, why he made it, what it means for him that his candidate came in a distant second here?
- [06:34]
B
Yeah, that. That probably is the most interesting thing about it, is just that this was the first test of the power of the Mamdani endorsement. You know, he endorsed Deonna Moreno to succeed him in the assembly, but that race was pretty clear from the get go. I guess he helped influence her get the Democratic nomination. So that was something. But, you know, the actual election, it was very clear. She had the Democratic nominee nomination. Moreno is going to win. This was the first test because this was a nonpartisan, open special election that the New York City Council does. And, yeah, I mean, he endorsed her the day before early voting happened. So people were complaining about the late endorsement, but it's like, no, I mean, look, anybody who voted, except maybe like 10 people who mailed in ballots, but pretty much anybody who voted, they knew that Mamdani had endorsed her. And this was a district that Mamdani won pretty Comfortably in both the primary and the general. And yet, you know, the Mamdani magic is not transferable. Boylan just did not have the kind of local support. She's not a local political actor. She has a somewhat of a citywide or even a statewide profile. Certainly she's a respected and well known name among progressives citywide and statewide because of her activism against Cuomo. Her endorsement list represented that, you know, the New York Working Families Party and, and tons of elected officials, but I don't think a single one in the district or really even close to the district. I mean, it was people like Tiffany Caban endorsed her and Julia Salazar endorsed her and Gustavo Rivera endorsed her. None of them close to the west side of Manhattan. Whereas we had Carl Wilson, not the beach boy, but the city council member. Soon he had the endorsements from all the, the local elected officials, all the previous council members, the local assembly member, you know, Tony Simone, Jerry Nadler, Eric Botcher, his predecessor, plus all the labor unions who threw in a lot of money in some cases with the United Federation of Teachers and the Carpenters to help elect him. So, like, this was just, you know, this was a classic race. Like, of course he was going to win. The only surprising aspect was Mom Donnie getting involved. And that didn't work out.
- [08:56]
A
Yeah, I mean, I'll say. I actually, you know, we're always making decisions in the work we do and, you know, you're leading a lot of day in, day out coverage, plus bigger, you know, magazine profiles and power lists and all sorts of things you do at city and state. So you're making all sorts of decisions all the time. You know, I'm deciding whether it's, you know, in various types of the work I do, including here on the podcast, you know, what to focus on. And honestly, I didn't pay a lot of attention to this race because I saw Carl Wilson was running. I saw he had the backing of, you know, he had been Eric Botcher's chief of staff, he had Botcher's backing. He had all these endorsements from the west side, you know, the former office holders of that seat as well, you know, in many cases, including Corey Johnson and Christine Quinn. And it just seemed like so clear that this wasn't going to be close. Now, you know, we have to be careful assuming those things. But, you know, it just seemed, it just seemed again like he was a heavy, heavy favorite. It is interesting how, you know, the initial voting went down. I mean, he didn't, you know, in a, in a race with four legit candidates, you know, he got 43% of the vote, Boylan 25 and Change, other candidates, 20 and 10% respectively. So, you know, it was a fairly split vote. It wasn't like he ran away with it and you know, to that big of a degree. But it seemed like a pretty cut and dry race there with his ties.
- [10:20]
B
That's right. And I'll agree, by the way. I mean, we, from the beginning, it was like, oh, this is going to be Carl Wilson's race until the Mamdani endorsement. And when that happened, then it really got in my head, oh, this could be really competitive. This could be close. This is so interesting. You know, it's going to be Mamdani versus Menon. I don't think we mentioned City Council Speaker Julie Menon endorsed Cara Wilson. And so that became a proxy war. But yeah, in the end it was like, sure enough, actually, the Mamdani endorsement didn't seem to move many votes or as many votes or enough votes. And. And Wilson came through. Right.
- [10:56]
A
We don't know what it would have looked like without the Mamdani endorsement. But you. There's some reporting at City and State by your colleague Holly Pretzky about why Mamdani got involved in the race. He got some, you know, was pushed for by one of his top political advisors, Morris Katz. But there's, there's people. Even without that reporting, there was a lot of questions as you were getting about, like, why was Mamdani getting involved in this race? I mean, I think my sense is two things. One, a sense of some loyalty to Lindsey Boylan after she had supported him against Andrew Cuomo and really done a lot of that sort of speaking out against Cuomo during the mayoral race. And that ties in, I think, with some legitimate feeling that she was a victim of Cuomo's and deserves support, not just the political side of it, but, but, but the other piece being sort of like maybe there was some too confident, you know, faith in the juice that Mamdani could extend to, you know, candidates that he would support. I'm curious your read on that one. And if you think there was an understanding among, you know, Mamdani world people that this was likely going to be a loss and sort of ding some of his political capital, but they were willing to sort of go in there or if there were really high expectations, do you think that, you know, his endorsement could really get Lindsey Boylan over the top in a low turnout, special election type of scenario?
- [12:27]
B
Yeah, look, I think there was confidence on that one. I think that there Is look, among the people that are close to Mamdani, I think they really believe that this guy is amazing and can move mountains and, you know, good for them in many ways. He can move political mountains in this way. He couldn't. And I do think that they probably overestimated that. His endorsement record has just been really interesting so far. And, you know, if you look at each individual choice, they can make sense. But then if you like take a step back, it's, it's kind of confusing. You know, I mean, like choosing or supporting Brad Lander over Alexa Avilis against Dan Goldman, you know, kind of going against the DSA candidate in favor of Brad Lander and then pushing out Chiyose to help Hakeem Jeffries and then pushing out Antonio Delgado to help Kathy Hochul, but then endorsing Claire Valdez over Antonio Reynoso. I mean, each one of these choices we could be talking about for half an hour. So I'll just kind of lay them out there. I'll just leave them hanging. But it's, it's so interesting puzzle. Yeah. And then to have Boylan, I mean, Boylan is not a long time loyal DSA member. She joined DSA after Mamdani won in July. So, you know, there's not even that justification. I think the justification is, as you alluded to, Zoran Mandani simply never could have won the mayoral race with, if, if New Yorkers had forgiven Cuomo for sexual harassment. And Lindsey Boylan was one of the top agitators, advocates who made sure that that narrative was front and center with Cuomo. She was protesting outside of his fundraisers, of his events. She was constantly speaking out on social media and in interviews. She really hammered point, the, the point home that Cuomo had been accused of sexual harassment by roughly a dozen women and that is how Mamdani won. He won for a lot of other reasons, but he could not have won without that. And so I do think that at its core there were other things that went into it, but at its core this endorsement was a thank you for helping me win the mayoral race and
- [14:58]
A
some similar dynamics at play in the Lander situation where it was sort of a loyalty, you know, response from, from support in the, in the mayoral race as well.
- [15:09]
B
That's right, that's right. And, and yes, by the way, you did allude to my, my colleague Holly Prezky story about Morris Katz, that that's another interesting aspect about Mamdani's endorsement choices is yes, Katz is, is like one of his top political advisors. Katz was advising Boylan, and there's. Yeah, our reporting is that he was kind of the one that said, you know, mayor, you should. You should really do this. You know, you should go out on a limb and endorse her. And so we'll be looking closely because we expect the mayor to make several more endorsements before the June Democratic primaries. He hasn't endorsed any DSA legislative candidates, for example, but I would very much expect him to endorse David Orkin, who's running against Jennifer Rajkumar. I would expect him to endorse Samantha Kattan, who's running for Claire Valdez's open Assembly seat. There's a lot of, like, real layups for him like that. And then there's the harder decisions that Mamdani will have to make. And that is like, does he support Darielisa Avila Chevalier over Adriano Espion? Does he endorse Conrad Blackburn over Jordan Wright? I don't think he does either of those, but I agree. We'll see.
- [16:21]
A
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I mean, I think, as you were ticking off some of those decisions, again, just sort of in, you know, pure political punditry moment, you know, I think most of those were smart choices. You know, we don't know how they'll all turn out. But I do think the idea of not supporting a challenge and actually actively dissuading a challenge to Hakeem Jeffries, you know, in the long game, made sense for him, even though, you know, it frustrated a lot of, you know, more sort of ardent DSA voices. I think, you know, the strategic play there made sense on its face. We'll see how it turns out. You know, especially if Jeffries becomes the House speaker and how much, you know, he's really a Mamdani ally in that role. You know, I think one of the ones that really is perhaps the biggest test of Mamdani's decision making and his juice Here is the 7th congressional district, where he split from Nydia Velasquez, who had been such a supporter of his in the mayoral primary and, you know, is backing Claire Valdez along with the DSA against Nydia Velasquez and her chosen successor, Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn Borough president. How do you see the dynamics of that race and the mayor's sort of political capital on the line there? If, you know, if he wins, if, you know, if he wins, meaning Claire Valdez is successful, but he gets that win as an endorser of hers, what does it mean for him? And if he loses that race, which would mean Antonio Reno so likely wins it. I should also say Julie Wan, the city council members in that race. So you never know, you know what happens. But you know, what's on the line for him there and what does it mean if his, you know, backed candidate, Claire Valdez, is successful or unsuccessful there?
- [18:11]
B
Yeah, I mean, if she wins, that is largely on the mayor. He has really thrown himself into this race more so than the others. Fundraising, running advertisements, just putting his name behind her. So if she does pull it off, that's, that's a real feather in his cap as well as dsa. This would definitely show the power of DSA in this district. However, it is a real gamble because there are many of his allies on the other side of this race with Reynoso. This isn't like choosing Brad Lander over Dan Goldman. There aren't many people that Mandani is close with that are backing Dan Goldman, for example, and Goldman didn't back him. So that was an easier choice. This one, Reynoso was a Mandani supporter in the primary or, you know, along with Brad Lander. He was, he was a cross endorser, but he was with him. And there's also like the Working Families Party is with Reynoso. Nydia Velazquez is with Reynosa, Letitia James, just about every single labor union in the entire city and state are with Reynoso. You know, he's, he's really dividing the left side of the Democratic Party in this one. And also it is notable, by the way, that basically all of those unions chose Reynoso after the mayor already endorsed Valdez. And there has been some reporting by city and state and others that, you know, the mayor and the mayor's allies have been making calls to the WFP and making calls to unions saying, please, please endorse Valdez. And they didn't. That that alone is already a bit of an embarrassment for the mayor, that, that his, his political sway, again,
- [20:04]
A
it
- [20:05]
B
can be overestimated, I guess, to say, you know, this is not an Andrew Cuomo who, you know, made one phone call to anybody and they would bend to his will. No, Mamdani just has a different way of politically moving. And of course, you know, the conversation will be different on June 24 once we know the results, but already this has kind of created some tension among the left.
- [20:28]
A
I also think there's two other interesting dynamics here. One is, you know, again, this is a mayor who is the mayor which is extremely powerful and persuasive when making Those calls, you know, especially to labor unions who of course want to be in the mayor's good graces. But this is a mayor who is really still very new on the scene. You know, was five minutes ago, you know, a rank and file assembly member with very little clout other than, you know, this sort of clear and growing ability to kind of marshal, you know, public opinion in some ways behind campaigns that he would run and develop, you know, allies in certain cases like Michael Jaenerys and others, but, you know, but still relatively new and doesn't have a lot of those deep relationships. And in a situation, you know, the second part where you're going against someone who does, Antonio Reynoso has really been around and developed those relationships. And I think in many, many cases where it might be someone a little more marginal than Reynoso, it would be a lot, you know, those, those endorsers would heed those calls from the mayor or his operatives. Whereas, you know, Reynoso's relationships are so deep with so many of those activist groups, labor groups, elected officials, that this is one where, you know, they're just mostly not willing to, you know, to go elsewhere. Because Mamdani is also supporting someone who really hasn't been around that long. Claire Valdez is brand new to the assembly and you know, she's been an activist and she's organized with DSA before that, but, you know, isn't a known quantity either. So, you know, it's very interesting dynamics there. You know, we're talking about all this politics and the question always comes back for me, and I know it does for you too, about, like, what does any of this really mean? Like, okay, Madani's political standing takes a hit if his chosen candidate doesn't win. His political standing gets a big bump if his chosen political candidate wins. What does that actually mean, you know, moving forward on the political side, on the policy and governmental side, what's the difference for mom, Donnie, on the governmental and policy side, if Claire Valdez is in Congress versus Antonio Reynoso, like, does this actually matter? You know, in some of those ways, and those are the questions a lot of us are putting to these candidates. Like, what's the difference really between you two? Like, why does this, why does this really matter? You've got like a very progressive Antonio Reynoso versus the socialist Claire Valdez and the pretty progressive Julie Wan. Like, you know, what are the differences? And they can lay out some gradations, of course, on the Democratic spectrum and stuff they would focus on if they were elected. To Congress or whatever the office might be. But it is fascinating just on one of those points and then, you know, have at it in terms of what, what any of this means in your view, on the political side or the governmental side. But one of the things you just got at is Claire Valdez is running as sort of like a union organizer that she has been, and sending a unionist to Congress. Meanwhile, virtually all the labor unions are saying, we appreciate that and we like you, but we're going with Antonio Reynoso, which undercuts a lot of her argument, you know, from the moment she's making it there, at least with, you know, on the sort of, like, established organization side. So, anyway, any other ways you think about what, what any of this means, other than some of those political sort of parlor games? I mean, I know those things wind up having an impact, though, on the way that the mayor has cloud or doesn't have clout right when he wants things from Albany or he wants things from the City Council. So how are you thinking about some of that?
- [24:08]
B
Definitely. And actually, labor unions are so poor. To this, as an example, I will say, well, I guess to lay the groundwork here, Mamdani himself got barely any labor union endorsements in the primary. It was limited. The lion's share of the big endorsements went to Andrew Cuomo. And the ones that Mamdani did get were often shared among, like, the five non Cuomo candidates. You know, I think like DC 37, it's like, yeah, like they gave him like a second ranking after Adrian Adams or something. And, you know, after the primary, it was all love. It was all support. Mamdani and HTC embraced each other and are very close. Even though HTC endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the primary, same as 32 BJ. They were with Cuomo. And then come the general election, it was all love with Mamdani. Mamdani's been good to bj. BJ has been good to him. Like, it's honestly, it's going to be the same with Claire Valdez. I mean, you know, labor unions don't need individual Congress members the way they need the mayor, but they know they, you know, if Valdez does pull this off, she's going to be such a friend of labor in, in Congress. It's kind of, it's kind of funny. I don't know that, right. That we're, we're discussing the differences between the candidates because they're going to vote the same on 99% of votes, literally, probably more than that. But when it Comes to the mayor's clout, right? I will say that yes, labor unions are a perfect example this, because as this city council race was happening, there's this veto override discussion. And you know, a lot of the labor unions are actually with the mayor on this one. They're saying they don't like this buffer zone protest bill outside of educational institutions. Interestingly though, they are also many of them, most of them are endorsing Carl Wilson, I guess, for one example, like the uft. The UFT is against this buffer zone bill. However, they were joining Julie Menon and endorsing Carl Wilson, who both like the bill over Mamdani and Boylan, who do not like the bill. So the, the politics of this are complicated, but big picture, what matters with all of these endorsement fights, what matters with the mayor's clout is when it comes to stuff like this, when it comes to the bills that are before the city council, when it comes to laws that the mayor is going to have to implement, when it comes to veto override fights and whether the mayor does veto or decide not to veto, that's when all of this clout and all of these relationships come to a head. And that's the kind of stuff that matters. When the mayor is making endorsements and which candidates he's with and which side he's with, it all comes out there. So, you know, it's rarely a real like one to one clear cause and effect. But there's just this mix of how much influence the mayor has, how much clout, who has the say with him, who has his ear and it all. We'll find out over the following months and years how that all works out with the mayor.
- [27:34]
A
Right. And so much of this comes back to can you move votes, can you move budgets and can you move policy? Right. And who has.
- [27:41]
B
That's right.
- [27:41]
A
The real clout on, you know, those three fronts. And that was one of the interesting dynamics, you got it earlier, of Mamdani's decision to endorse Governor Hochul early on, also with that endorsement, plus conversations with the Working Families Party basically get them not to endorse Antonio Delgado. And that basically got him out of the race. And he seems to have done that. You know, again, generally not necessarily like there was a meeting that said, give me this, I'll give you that. But, you know, generally for the early big bump in childcare funding that the governor announced to help him, you know, week two, basically be, you know, showing real progress on one of his major campaign promises and then other ways that the governor, you know, has seemingly been helpful, but it's not like stopped them from having disagreements about, you know, how the state should help the city and tax rates and things like that. So, you know, interesting political decisions about whether that was worth it in his leverage when he's at his most powerful, you know, to sort of give the governor that, that bump and be so helpful to her in not having to deal with the primary in exchange for, okay, you know, what has that seemingly gotten him? And then what happens, you know, what happens next after this first budget cycle is, you know, very interesting to see. Okay, so many different dynamics here. But let me come back to some of these congressional races. So, you know, we talked a little bit about the seventh Congressional race there. Claire Valdez, Antonio Reynoso, Julie Wanna, the 10th congressional district. We briefly touched on what is your sense of where that race stands. Brad Lander trying to unseat Dan Goldman. Again, Mamdani's backing Lander. Lots of the progressive world, as you got at backing Lander. Goldman has a lot of support from Manhattan establishment figures and elected officials. A variety of labor unions are supporting Goldman. I mean, this seems like a real battle. The polling that we know of seems to indicate Lander would be the favorite. And just some of how, you know, the mayoral race went in this district and so forth. Goldman's pumping some of his own money now into the race. He challenged Lander to a bunch of debates and Lander agreed to do only two. So that tells you a little bit about how they both see the dynamics of the race. Any other, you know, thinking that you're watching for in the final weeks of, of that really, really interesting congressional primary there in parts of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.
- [30:15]
B
Yeah, look, this one is about Brad Lander being a political mainstay in the district since he's been in office since 2010. And even before that, I think he was active locally around Park Slope and certainly in like the, you know, political and the development worlds. Whereas Dan Goldman is still kind of a political newcomer to New York. You know, he made his career in D.C. and then he ran here and it really worked out for him. You know, got elected in 2022 thanks to also putting in millions of his own dollars into the race, into a big, crowded open race at the end.
- [30:58]
A
But yeah, and barely winning with a very split, you know, very split field, which is part of now we're seeing this one on one race and part of why Mamdani wanted to make sure it was a one on one race. And.
- [31:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, and I think that, look, a lot of people will be voting ideologically on this race with Lander, you know, running to the left of Goldman. But, but also, you know, a lot of people are simply going to be running on like, oh, Brad Lander, I've known him forever, versus Dan Goldman. Yeah. Have I seen him around like, not that much. And so that's, that's hard to overcome for Goldman. I mean, I think, yeah, I think it's pretty widely considered that Lander is actually the favorite in this race. You know, maybe not a strong favorite. You know, Goldman is still a wealthy incumbent. That's always hard to overcome. But like Lander is running a strong campaign, doing what he needs to do and has that base. And yes, obviously Goldman, months ago he told city and state that he was not going to self fund in this race and that he was fine. And then just last week he goes on New York 1 and makes this announcement, you know, look out, Brad Lander, you're screwed. I am going to put my own money in this race now. And that clearly shows that he is worried that he feels like he needs to throw more money into this, get his name out there, TV ads, flyers, all of that because he's scrambling. So yeah, I would rather be in Lander's position right now. That said, again, never want to underestimate Dan Goldman, who also is again, an incumbent and has done a relatively good job of actually defending against the attacks against him from various angles. I guess, to put it simply, I'm saying he came in and a lot of people were like, oh, he, he hates progressives. He's, you know, he's not one of us. And actually he did a good job of reaching across the aisle and building relationships for a while with lefties. Some of that's now being torn apart because Brad Lander is running against him. But, but I do give him credit. He, he really worked hard to kind of make peace with progressives for at least his first term. Maybe, maybe until October 7th in Israel. Kind of ruined those relationships.
- [33:19]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's obviously one of the clear dividing issues of this race. You know, one thing I think that's really interesting in that race. So Goldman will, will almost certainly do pretty well on the Manhattan side of the district. That's where he, you know, really got most of his votes in that initial win in 2022. And there's, you know, pretty different dynamics in a lot of the Manhattan parts versus a good chunk of the Brooklyn parts where Lander will clearly do well. And you know, mamdani did extremely well in the, in the mayoral race. But one of the fascinating aspects, I think, of this race, and it speaks a little bit to the money Goldman will spend getting his just face and name and message out is, you know, in this midterm, this Trump midterm, you know, it's like, what are voters looking for in sort of Trump resistance here in the Democratic primary? And is it the more progressive Lander voice tight with the mayor who's, you know, just won an ascendant and known in the community and will fight? You know, I expect at some point perhaps, you know, AOC will come in and endorse Lander in this race, although she may want to stay out of, you know, endorsing against one of her House Democratic colleagues. But, you know, sort of that alignment and that pushback on Trump versus the Goldman sort of. I led one of the impeachment investigations against Trump in the first term. Former prosecutor, good in the hearings, you know, especially that type of thing. You know, I think, I think it's interesting to, again, there might be some really die hard progressive voters in this district who are clearly with Lander no matter what, but then some of the more sort of mainstream Democratic voters in this district, especially voter, you know, sort of more moderate Jewish voters, would be really interesting to see where they land in this race. I don't think, you know, and I'm not saying you said this, I don't think it's by any means a done deal for Lander here. You know, I think it'll be really, really interesting. But you have to think he's the favorite.
- [35:14]
B
Yeah. And another aspect, as you mentioned, Manhattan that's interesting here is almost all of the overlapping assembly and Senate districts of this congressional race in Manhattan are open. So you've got Debbie Glick retiring, and so there's a competitive open assembly race in her district. Senator Kavanaugh is retiring. So you've got that matchup between Grace Lee and you lean new for that Senate seat. And so then Grace Lee's assembly seat is open. That's all of lower Manhattan. So we might actually see inordinately high turnout in the Manhattan section of this district because there's all these competitive open races, whereas the Brooklyn side, I think it's pretty much just incumbents either cruising to reelection or not getting, not even having primaries. So, you know, that's actually probably a point in, in. In Goldman's favor, assuming that he does better in manh. Of course, the counter argument from Lander would probably be that every single Yuli New voter is a Brad Lander voter. And, you know, there's also progressives running in the other seats. So, like, you know, maybe, maybe it will all come out in the wash. But. Yeah, that's an aspect I'm watching, too. Manhattan, like every seat in Manhattan is turning over this year. It's crazy.
- [36:31]
A
Yeah. Very interesting. All right, give me your, your thoughts on the 12th congressional district race. So Mamdani has not playing so far in this race, and it is a congressional district where he barely, barely won it in the primary once the ranked choice tally came in, and then he lost it in the general. Not that the general is that indicative for, you know, the primary that we're talking about here. But, but it was a, it's a district where Andrew Cuomo did pretty well in both the primary and the general here, largely because of parts of the east side of Manhattan. But Mamdani hasn't endorsed at this point. I would imagine he won't. But he could come into this race at some point, you would assume for Michael Lasher if he did, which would be, again, a fascinating. Michael Lasher's got his former boss, Mike Bloomberg, backing him. He's got Jerry Nadler. He's got endorsements across a lot of the Democratic political spectrum and beyond. What's your read on this race? I continue to feel like Lasher, because of his Upper west side base, the Nadler endorsement, etcetera, Is the favorite. But we've got, you know, this Jack Schlossberg Kennedy family boom of sorts. Some of the polling we've seen says, you know, undecided is in the lead, but Schlossberg is closely behind undecided. What's your read on that race and should everybody be taking Schlossberg seriously? Alex, Boris, maybe, as someone from the east side, could clean up on the east side and therefore come through this thing. What's your read on that race? As we're six, eight weeks away from
- [38:10]
B
primary day, it's a little bit of everything. I agree with all that. It's a fascinating race. Sure enough, all of Manhattan's turning over. Here's this seat, this open seat. I do think Michael Asher is still the prohibitive favorite for basically the same reasons that Carl Wilson just won the special election on Tuesday, because Michael Asher is the heir apparent and has the support of all of the the west side Democrats, you know, including Jerry Nadler, who's retiring. So he's got a big. He kind of starts with the lead there, and then it's up to the other Candidates to, to try and close that gap. You know, ignore the polling because I know in the polling Schlossberg is technically ahead, but like, you know, like taking a step back. Lasher has the lead. Everyone's trying to catch up with him. Schlossberg, fascinating character. I mean, I don't even know where to begin. Like, it's just a. Interesting fact that he is trying to jump into politics in this way. Running for Congress, I guess you could say he's not playing by the political rules. He would probably love hearing me say that. He has had kind of a mess of a campaign. He's had a lot of turnover. They have not been communicating well with journalists. Speaking for myself, he's, you know, turned down some public events, he's gone to others, and yet he has undeniable political celebrity status. And he just put out a TV ad with Nancy Pelosi speaking, which is also an interesting choice. I mean, I guess that speaks to a Democratic primary electorate. But it is funny that you have,
- [39:51]
A
especially in this district, right? You know, especially.
- [39:54]
B
I mean, I, yeah, they're, they're, you know, this is a, this is an MSNBC watching district or an Ms. Now watching district. And there is a lot of appreciation for Pelosi. There's also appreciation for George Conway. I mean, it's funny that he's running with Pelosi because you would think George Conway would be that kind of candidate, right? He has this national profile as a TV talking head. I don't see Conway as a real contender, but I do see him as somebody who will get a chunk of the vote and will get a lot of air and spend a lot of money. So, you know, I don't think he'll win, but like he's a factor. And then, yes, as you mentioned, Alex Boris, he is running an interesting campaign that's all about AI has to be because he's getting attacked by so far $3 million of AI money. But then he's also getting support from the other side of the AI divide. You know, there's all these AI companies and some of them like him and some of them hate him. He just had another super PAC that just filed San Francisco based that's going to start spending running running TV ads for him. This was just breaking news in Politico this morning. This is going to be an incredibly expensive race with millions of dollars pouring in already. Mike Bloomberg pouring in $5 million for Lasher. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean that $5 million has almost already been spent. So I wouldn't be surprised if Bloomberg goes back to the wallet, pulls out another $5 million check re ups that in order to compete with the AI Super PACs that are now supporting Boris, and then it's probably just a matter of time before Schlossberg gets a super PAC that supports him even though he calls himself no Pack Jack. Like, I would be shocked if a super pack doesn't come out for Schlossberg. So this is stupidly expensive and it time will tell if it works or if this ends up being like a, you know, Cuomo had the most super PAC spending wasn't enough. Mamdani didn't have that much. He won. So, yeah, I'll be watching this one closely.
- [41:55]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think on the Conway front, I haven't dug into this district enough to know and I'm sure once I say what I'm going to say, there'll be people who listen and, and tell me that it's very clear cut. But I've been trying to think about where his vote comes from, whether it's the west side or the east side more and, you know, again, haven't dug into it too much. But I think that's interesting. And in a race that winds up being close could be, you know, potentially determinative. If George Conway gets 5, 8% of the vote, I don't know, 10%, you know, if more of it comes from the east side and undercuts Boris, you know, that could be particularly helpful to Lasher. If it comes from the west side and hurts last year, then you got Slashberg, you know, getting a bunch of vote, you know, that could influence the race in a significant way, you know, one, one direction or another. So I think that's, that's something. I don't know if you have a sense of where Conway's support would more come from or if it would be evenly split or not a great one.
- [42:47]
B
Yeah, I mean, Conway lived on the Upper east side for decades before moving to Washington. Now I believe he lives like at Columbus Circle on the west side, but he's not, you know, he's not like a local political figure, so that doesn't matter as much where he lives.
- [43:02]
A
Right.
- [43:03]
B
But I, yeah, I think of him as probably just picking up, you know, little pockets of votes throughout the district. Same for Schlossberg. You know, he lives on the east side, but he went to school on the west side. Actually, he started, he grew up on the east side. Now he lives on the west side from school on the west side. I'm sure he's going to get some, you know, votes downtown, you know, maybe among like the younger electorate in like Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen. So, you know, the vote. This race is often considered a West side Lasher vs East side Boris race. But yes, Conway and Schlossberg kind of complicate that narrative because I think their vote is a little bit less geographically constrained than the two assembly members.
- [43:49]
A
Yeah, very interesting. All right, you mentioned the Adriano Espaillat's reelection bid and getting a challenge from a DSA backed candidate there. There's other congressional races that, you know, have somewhat interesting primaries. Grace Meng's got a challenger. Richie Torres has multiple challengers. Are there any others that you're most watching? Is it, is it the SBA race? You know, what, what's sort of at the top of your list beyond these big three of New York 7, New York 10 and New York 12? What else are you most watching? And then I'll, I'll let you go.
- [44:25]
B
Yeah, no, those are the big three. But then also definitely am watching 13. That espayat race. I've been a long, long time scholar of the squadro Adriano, as I call it. I think Adriano Espailte runs a really interesting political operation in upper Manhattan. And this is just a really interesting race. Traditionally that district has been Dominican versus black. We saw that when Adriano took on Charlie Rangel a couple times. And then when Rangel retired, it was Espeotte versus Keith Wright. That was the divide. It was kind of a racial vote. Now we have Darielisa Avilas Chevalier running, who's Dominican but she's Dominican DSA member. And so it's a Dominican on Dominican battle. But it's much more ideological in the divide here. And of course the interesting aspect is always that Espailant is a progressive in Washington and a conservative in New York City. He's being attacked as, you know, this, like this tool of big business. And like he, he, he really, I mean he has an incredibly progressive voting record in Washington. He's like top five in all of Congress. But when it comes to supporting candidates in, in, in New York, he often does support, you know, much more moderate candidates and support like it's, it's just a very interesting divide there. And so there is room for DSA to attack him. However, this is not your typical like DSA comes into a race and just runs away with it. Like this is a hard district for them. Espaille has a lot of support. This is one where I think a Lot of DSA members are aware that it might not go their way. So you're really watching this closely.
- [46:08]
A
Mamdani did pretty well in the primary, where there's a growing DSA presence, where there's been a lot of gentrification, which can often align with more progressive voting.
- [46:21]
B
Absolutely.
- [46:22]
A
A younger, you know, a lot of younger people moving in. You know, really interesting. We also saw in parts of this district. When was it back in 2021. Chris, Kristen Richardson, Jordan winning a city council race as a. As a social.
- [46:38]
B
Good reminder. That's true. That's true.
- [46:40]
A
You know, just a lot of interesting things. Clearly a lot of, you know, demographic change in Harlem and Washington Heights and up, even up into Inwood. And so, you know, really interesting dynamics there. You got it. One of the biggest questions, of course, is whether Mayor Mamdani gets involved here to oppose espa. You know, I think either either he supports his challenger or he. He doesn't get involved. You know, so that'll be one of the most interesting dynamics of these next six weeks or so is where Mamdani decides to endorse. You got at a bunch of potential races also on the state level. That'll be really interesting. Obviously, Mamdani will come in, you know, and back DSA legislators who are incumbents. But, you know, some of the question is which challengers to sitting legislators. He supports open seats. And then this congressional race, I think, is the big one to watch whether he gets involved on that. All right, Jeff, anything else? Top of mind right now in New York politics. You want to just shout out or. We covered a lot of down here.
- [47:42]
B
I'm really glad to be focusing on the elections. Obviously, we're in the middle of two budgets, still waiting on state, still looking ahead for Citi, but I think you can save that for a different conversation. I love talking elections, and I hope Everybody goes to cityandstateny.com to read our election coverage. We've done a congressional primary preview. We have a state legislative preview upcoming. We have newsletters every day. We're all active on Twitter.
- [48:09]
A
So, you know, you put out your 2026 New York City Power 100 list, which is always an interesting.
- [48:15]
B
That's right. That's right. Mayor Mamdani was number one in New York City, But I don't know, we might have to dump into number two after that, that loss.
- [48:25]
A
You know, I actually, if we had more time, I was going to ask you a little bit about some of the other people on that list and the dynamics with the mayor and political power. But we won't do that now. But that includes, you know, more about the sort of Julie Menon Zora Momdani dynamic. I think there's really interesting, you know, Mark Levine, the comptroller, Mamdani Dynamics here. The Jessica Tisch is like sixth, I think on your power list. And of course that's a fascinating relationship to watch. So a lot of interesting politics.
- [48:54]
B
I will simply give your listeners a preview that City and State is working on a good package of stories about who's next. Next. Who's next for all of these offices. And so, you know, never too early. Keep on reading. City and State. Never too early.
- [49:12]
A
Never too early for that. And then lastly, let me say something. I'm gonna probably dig in a little bit real soon on is I think and maybe this is silly, tell me if this is actually more of a slam dunk race than I think it is. But I think maybe the most interesting race on the ballot is the state senate race where Jessica Ramos is trying to keep her seat in Queensland being challenged by assembly member Jessica Gonzalez Rojas. You know, is a fascinating, fascinating race and Gonzalez Rojas has tons and tons of endorsements and Ramos looks like she's in really big trouble there. But you know, is a several term incumbent and you know, has ties in the district, certainly has, has a lot of accomplishments in the legislature. So I think that one's really fascinating. So I'll just not that we're listing every race that's interesting but that one's particularly interesting at the state level.
- [50:02]
B
I agree. That's one of them. And we will that we'll be monitoring that very, very closely. I was joking with some people yesterday. What will be the percentage of confused voters at the polls in the Jessica vs. Jessica race, you know, who, who actually really wants to support Ramos, but they, they just see the name Jessica and they vote wrong. I think it's only going to be 1% or something but you know, hey, in a close race that could be decisive. So we'll, we'll see where it goes.
- [50:28]
A
Very good. Jeff Colton, editor in chief of City and State New York. Thanks very much for the time.
- [50:33]
B
Thank you for having me on, Ben.
- [50:58]
A
It.