The ensuing struggle for survival in New York exposed and escalated the same roiling debates over ideology, identity, gender and the influence of money that have come to dominate Democratic Party politics across the country.
Now, on the eve of Tuesday’s vote, pushed back to late August from its originally scheduled June date, even the most seasoned campaigners and operatives are bracing for the aftershocks — and the formation of a new political landscape that seemed unimaginable as recently as this spring.
A progressive pile-up in Manhattan and Brooklyn
The award for most chaotic Democratic race in this ramshackle primary season, though, likely belongs to the 10th District.
Goldman has also come under criticism for his decision, in March 2020, during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, to leave the city with his family to live for months in a second home in the Hamptons, on Long Island’s East End.
Niou, in an interview after her presser with Jones, described her experience during that same period, recounting the story of an elderly woman who suffered a stroke but, because her home care worker caught Covid-19, was stuck in her home for days without help. By the time Niou was alerted to the situation and able to get inside the apartment, with the help of building management, the woman was “sitting in her own urine and own feces.”
“This is the kind of situation that my district was in during the pandemic,” Niou said. “And if you weren’t here, you don’t know.”
Rivera, 38, a native of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, worked in the area as an advocate and community board member until she was elected in 2018 to the city council, where she quickly rose in stature.
Rivera’s deep involvement in fraught local debates, such as a contentious, long-germinating plan to rebuild and climate-proof a major park on the East River by raising it above a floodplain, has underscored the complexity of seeking a seat in a district deeply engaged in both local and national politics.
Asked about the exchange last week, after a joint appearance with primary rivals denouncing the squalid conditions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail, Rivera’s exasperation was clear.
“You can tell which candidates haven’t done their homework. They are late to class,” she said, adding with a grin, “They don’t even go here.”
Jones, though, has been the most willing to express frustration over the traffic in the race’s left lane creating an opening for Goldman.
“It’s clear that if this were a one-on-one between me and Dan Goldman, it wouldn’t even be close. I’d be running away with it,” he said after his news conference with Niou. “I was friends with some of (my competitors) and continue to be. I adore Yuh-Line. There are people who are not polling as well as me and Yuh-Line, who I think should do some soul searching.”
Goldman’s message, consistently delivered — and almost unavoidable given his resources to advertise on television in what can be a prohibitively expensive media market — has focused more on national concerns.
“We have existential threats that we must address in the near term,” he said. “But we also must bring new strategies to Washington, to Congress, that I have used effectively before in order to deliver results, not only for this district, but for people around the country.”
Uptown frenemies face call for ‘generational change’
The 10th District contest, with its deep and varied roster of candidates, is rare in another way: the four front-runners are all, by congressional standards, quite young. Goldman, at 46, is the oldest. Jones, Niou and Rivera are all under 40. For a party that often laments a thin bench of future stars, talk there about generational change has been at a minimum.
Uptown in the new 12th District, the story is different.
Leading contenders Maloney, 76, and Nadler, 75, were both elected to the House in 1992 and hold committee gavels earned through seniority. But their power has, by definition, invited questions about age and the party’s future.
A third candidate in the primary, Suraj Patel, 38, has sought to make the contrast, treading carefully in a district with a traditionally older electorate. Maloney and Nadler, by the simple fact of their combined six decades in the House, are removed from the “urgency” of the moment, Patel said.
“These two have been in office since 1992. Prior to that, I think, in some form of elected office since the 1980s,” he said, sipping chicken soup in an Upper West Side diner after some streetside politicking late Wednesday. “That’s a lot of time to be surrounded by staff.”
“The only people who mention age in this race are Carolyn and Jerry Nadler, who consistently say things like ‘no time for a rookie’ or ‘training wheels’ or ‘on the job training,'” he said.
With little to separate them ideologically, Maloney and Nadler have turned back the clock, touting their shinier accomplishments — and highlighting the other’s lowlights. Maloney has also pointed out that, should she lose, Manhattan would be without a woman representing any of its congressional districts — assuming a woman does not win in the 10th District. Nadler has noted that, if he were to fall, the city’s delegation in Capitol Hill would lose its only Jewish member — a remarkable fact, given the vibrancy, population and political power of its Jewish community. (Goldman and Holtzman, among others running in the 10th District, are also Jewish.) Patel, though he has been less keen to discuss it, would be the first Indian American to represent New York in Congress if he scored an upset victory.
Maloney, without naming names, said, “The whole boy’s network has come out against me, including powerful men that don’t even live in the district.” Schumer’s residence is in Brooklyn. The fact, though, is that no matter who prevails, the design of the new map guarantees that a significant constituency will come away disillusioned.
“One of us is going to lose — hopefully Carolyn — but one of us is going to lose,” Nadler said. “That’s very unfortunate for New York. Two of us losing would be catastrophic for New York.” (For all their recent quarreling, Nadler added that he would still prefer Maloney to Patel.)
In the suburbs, all politics are national
The interwoven questions dominating the two most ballyhooed city races are also on display just north in another redrawn district, the 17th, which includes Rockland and Putnam counties, along with parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties.
Both candidates made decisions to change districts after the new map emerged. Biaggi had earlier been running for a gerrymandered seat that linked parts of Long Island, Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County. But Maloney drew heat, especially from the left, for choosing to leave the majority of his current constituents, who are now in the new 18th, to run in redrawn 17th, where he lives. That decision, critics said, gave him a leg up at the expense of Jones, who represents the current 17th District, though his home was drawn out of the new seat. (Jones, after considering his options, decided to move to the city. Biaggi, who lives outside the district, is relocating to it.)
Biaggi, while acknowledging Maloney’s argument about living in the district, called his move “very self-serving” — largely because he would have been such a strong candidate in the neighboring 18th, where he is more familiar to many voters. And that, as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “his job is really to maximize the number of seats we’ve got in Congress.”
The infighting over map-driven maneuvering, though, flows from a deeper divide between the pair.
“It felt like a game when Roe was overturned,” Biaggi said. “To send out fundraising emails, and that was the only thing that was planned in response to Roe, feels so absolutely offensive.”
“It knocks the legs out of the argument that Democrats aren’t getting it done,” Maloney said.
