Winners & Losers
This week’s biggest Winners & Losers
Who’s up and who’s down this week?
What’s the matter with New Jersey? First failed Democratic gubernatorial candidates pledged to sue New York, and now Republican state legislators want to steal Staten Island. New Jersey Assembly Member Bob Auth and 20 colleagues want to create a Staten Island Annexation Committee to plot nefarious conspiracies. A Staten Island conservative activist asked Auth and company to consider grand larceny after Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral nomination. Maybe Miranda Priestly was right: and “everybody wants to be us.”
Justin Brannan & Adrienne Adams -
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan may have lost their respective races in the mayoral and comptroller primaries, but they still got their day jobs done. For the first time in years, the City Council voted unanimously to approve the budget for the new fiscal year. And as council member after council member put it, the credit for that accomplishment largely rests on their shoulders. Talk about a good note to end their tenures on.
Harvey Epstein & Virginia Maloney -
Some folks unfortunately confused his name with Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein – no connection to either, see this Saturday Night Live skit – but that didn’t stop Harvey Epstein from winning the Democratic primary for a lower Manhattan City Council seat after ranked choice votes were tallied. Further uptown, Virginia Maloney didn’t have a name recognition problem. The daughter of former Rep. Carolyn Maloney also declared victory in a tight primary race for an Upper East Side City Council seat.
Kenny Burgos & Ann Korchak -
It wasn’t quite as much as they wanted, but NYC’s Rent Guidelines Board approved a 3% hike for one-year rent-stabilized leases and 4.5% for two-year leases, – the 4th increase in as many years. Burgos, CEO of The New York Apartment Association, and Korchak, President of the Small Property Owners of New York, should enjoy it while they can. If Mamdani is elected mayor, this could be the last rent hike for a while.
Kirsten Gillibrand -
New week, new strike against the Democratic establishment: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand went on Brian Lehrer’s radio show and falsely (and repeatedly) claimed that Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani had made “references to global jihad.” Mamdani has spoken publicly about his reluctance to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” but he never mentioned jihad. It’s never a good sign when the head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is making comments that resemble right-wing Islamophobic talking points about 9/11 and Mamdani’s citizenship. Gillibrand later apologized, which Mamdani accepted but many of his supporters did not.
Dermot Smyth -
Once the heavy favorite to succeed New York City Council Member Bob Holden, United Federation of Teachers operative Dermot Smyth finished last in the Democratic primary for the Queens seat. It’s both a big loss for him and for the Democratic political establishment from which he hails, as the central Queens district moves further toward the right.
George Latimer -
Rep. George Latimer broke one of his own rules by missing a key House vote related to Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Weather trouble and corresponding flight delays are to blame, he said, but he was the only Democrat not in attendance. It’s especially awkward because on the road to his primary win last year, he criticized former Rep. Jamaal Bowman for allegedly missing votes. But with the shoe now on the other foot, he says Republicans would have passed the procedural vote regardless.