The Roast of NY-12
A voter's guide to the hotly contested Manhattan race. (No endorsements. Just hot takes.)
Early voting is underway across New York City with the Primary set for June 23.
Voters will cast ballots for members of Congress, state legislators, judges, and a collection of offices you've never heard of despite paying for their salaries your entire adult life.
For this substack, I’ll just focus on the race attracting the most attention: the crowded Democratic primary in NY-12. AKA one of the wealthiest districts in America.
It stretches from Chelsea all the way to the tippy top of Central Park and up to Columbia University with one-bedroom apartments regularly going for $5,000 a month. It is the type of place where some of its richest residents dropped six figures on Knicks Finals tickets despite never having watched the team before two weeks ago. It’s a place where a golden retriever named Edmund may very well have a better healthcare plan than you.
In short, a very New York place. Arguably the most New York place.
Here’s a screenshot of my Google Maps roughly covering the district and all the pins I have for restaurants and random cultural stuff I want to go to but probably never will.
If you’re voting in the primary, you can find your polling place here. (Also, if you click that link, I earn $1.50 lol so just do it. I don't know if admitting that violates some sacred affiliate-marketing code, but while you’re at it, you can sign up for this platform too and say I sent you.)
Full disclosure: I don’t even live here. I live in Queens, so nothing I write below should be mistaken for an endorsement or sound electoral advice. Jack Schlossberg said, “That’s ok, we can still be friends.” I have met 3 of the top candidates over the last 6 months and will tell you about them here.
According to the Emerson Poll from May, the rankings look like:
🥇 Micah Lasher 22%
🥈 Alex Bores 20%
🥉 Jack Schlossberg 11%
George Conway 10%
Micah Lasher (44)
He’s been the frontrunner since he first announced his candidacy last fall, but things are getting close.
He’s got overall, nice-nerdy-Jewish dad-energy. Lasher has positioned himself as the adult in the race that includes younger, flashier personalities. He is the competent career politician’s career politician. Purely based on his résumé, he is by far the most experienced, and it’s not particularly close.
He was an aide to Nadler, Director of State Legislative Affairs under Bloomberg at 28, Chief of Staff to the State AG, Policy Director under Hochul, and now State Assemblyman. He has worked at every level of government short of Rat Czar.
He’s endorsed by Jerry Nadler —who is stepping down after serving this district for 34 years—!!— and Michael Bloomberg. He’s basically been knighted by the old guard. (literally. they’re both grandpas).
A lifelong Upper West Sider, he grew up ten blocks from where he currently lives, belongs to Congregation Rodeph Sholom, has three kids in public school, and goes to chess tournaments on weekends. He is as local a yokel as they come.
Who likes him: People who liked Nadler and value his experience. Upper West Side liberals who still read newspapers made of paper. Also, people over the age of 50. In this district, that could matter a lot.
He’s got an extensive policy platform which you can find here.
Top positions:
Economy/Affordability: Housing is his signature issue — he literally wrote New York’s big housing bill, the one the Times called the first serious attempt since the 1960s to fix exclusionary zoning. Wants to raise minimum wage, index it to inflation, massively expand child care funding, repeal Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.
Jewish stuff: He has introduced legislation to create buffer zones around houses of worship after anti-Israel protesters began showing up outside synagogues. His website talks about antisemitism extensively.
Trump/Democracy: This is actually where he's most fired up. He wrote New York's version of "fight back against Trump" legislation which gives the state AG stronger tools to take over consumer protection when federal agencies get gutted.
Fun facts:
When he was 12 years old, he performed magic on David Letterman and at 14 published a book from Simon and Schuster titled: The Magic of Micah Lasher: More Than Fifty Tricks That Will Amaze & Delight Everyone Including You.
Was roommates with Aziz Ansari for an NYU semester in London.
Alex Bores (35)
A software engineer turned two-term state assemblyman, Bores is the hot young candidate who has gained enormous clout being attacked by tech billionaires. That’s because he authored New York’s RAISE Act, one of the country’s most ambitious attempts to regulate AI.
He’s built his campaign around a simple argument: maybe Congress could use at least one person who understands the technology that’s about to completely eat the economy. He is betting that the district will decide that understanding technology (and let’s face it, being young and hot) will take him to the top. It just might.
Who likes him: The native Upper East Sider has developed perhaps the most oddball coalition ever assembled. His supporters include pro-Israel rabbis, anti-Israel socialists, tech nerds, drag queens, and people who watched those congressional hearings with Mark Zuckerberg and thought, "Dear God, somebody needs to know how the internet works."
Fun facts:
Time magazine put him on their 100 Most Influential People in AI list.
His wife is Jewish. Like “Weird Al,” many seem to think he is too, but alas, he’s #NotAJew.
Jack Schlossberg (33)
He has nearly 2 million social media followers, a Yale degree in Japanese history, a Harvard JD/MBA, and the singular distinction of being the only grandson of JFK.
He grew up on Park Avenue and is now running as the race's progressive insurgent. This has created a small branding problem.
To the establishment crowd, he has no experience.
To the activist left, he’s too privileged.
He has spent the campaign trapped in an unusual political no-man's-land: too famous to be a true outsider, too untested to be an insider.
"No PAC Jack" as he calls himself has taken no corporate PAC money while his opponents have benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending.
On Israel, he supports funding Iron Dome while opposing funding offensive weapons. That has earned him the ire of the anti-Israel crowd for not going far enough. The comments on his posts the past month have been particularly ugly.
Who likes him: Voters who believe taking no PAC money should actually count for something. People who were fans of his Instagram Reels from the past couple of years. And people who would like to see the Kennedy dynasty continue.
George Conway (62)
The former Republican is famous for being one of Trump's most relentless critics while simultaneously being married to one of Trump's closest advisors, Kellyanne Conway, until their divorce in 2023.
His whole schtick is vowing to serve just two terms while doing everything in his power to bust Trump's balls. That's not exactly a novel position in a Democratic primary, but few candidates can claim they've been doing it professionally for nearly a decade.
Who likes him: ‘Never Trump’ conservatives who are registered as Democrats and probably older law nerds who like his elite legal background. He’s a real lawyer’s lawyer.
That’s all I’ve got. If you live in New York and can vote, please do. And if you live anywhere else and read all of this just for shits and gigs, thank you. I hope you enjoyed and maybe learned a thing or three. Also, if you haven’t already, please click this link so I earn a dollar fifty. That’s like 3 bananas.