Raj Goyle isn’t in Kansas anymore

He took on Kansas. Now, Raj Goyle is ready to take on New York. 

Goyle announced last week that he is running for state comptroller, challenging incumbent Tom DiNapoli in the Democratic primary. He’s the second insurgent to declare against DiNapoli in what is shaping up to be a far more interesting race than normal. (Normally, DiNapoli faces no primary challenge.) Goyle previously served as a state senator in the Kansas legislature, but after a failed bid for Congress in 2010, he relocated to New York City.

In New York, Goyle got involved with tech, first through a business he started and later through policy advocacy, like pushing for the recently-enacted school phone ban. He currently serves as the co-chair of the 5BORO Institute at Citizens Union, and he’s ready to jump back into the politician life. Goyle spoke with City & State about running for office in Kansas, his background in tech and his vision for the state comptroller’s office. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What made you decide to jump in and run for this position?

Democrats right now are at a 40-year low in terms of confidence and in our approval rating. … The office of the comptroller is embodiment, in my view, of missed opportunities and why the Democratic Party is in such a bad shape. It makes my blood boil to have political power and to waste it, and Tom DiNapoli has squandered 20 years of opportunity to help New Yorkers live better lives. And I won’t do that when I’m comptroller.

How long have you been in New York? You left Kansas in, what, 2010 or 2011?

2010, yeah. I have an interesting history. I first lived in New York City in 1997. I did six months here and then I lived here, sort of off and on after that. I won one of the toughest statehouse elections in the country for the Democratic Party in 2006, and I won a very Republican district as a progressive Democrat in 2006. I lost the race for the U.S. House in 2010 and I’ve been here ever since. We’ve never left lower Manhattan; we’ve never left New York. And I think what’s really interesting is that we moved my parents here. So not only do we have nothing left in Kansas, but my mom and dad, actually, we moved them onto the block and my in-laws, so we’re all on one block.

Why did you choose to run now?

I actually think one of the one of the main reasons I’m running is I think I have a singular combination both private sector experience and experience, obviously, as an elected official, and so that combination of understanding political power and the bully pulpit and the fact that I started a company from scratch that saved cost and waste and private sector legal budgets. You know, this job is the chief fiscal officer of New York. I sold my company just a few years ago, and so coming off of that experience combined with the reality right now of what Donald Trump is doing to America, also the war he is waging on New York is why I’m very passionate, and why I have a calling to do this right now.

What is your vision for the office? What is your plan to use the powers differently than they have been used by Tom DiNapoli?

As I said before, Tom DiNapoli has been the ultimate do-nothing Democrat, where he has squandered the immense power of this office. So very specifically, we will put more money in the pockets of our retirees. The pension fund is not managed as well as it should be. And how he runs that office needs to reflect our values, so I will act every day to improve the daily lives of New Yorkers. This office can literally invest in transformative affordable housing. It can attack junk fees that prey on our seniors. It can help create universal child care, tackle medical debt and, of course, transform the auditing power is a constitutional mandate to review every penny of the quarter-trillion dollars Albany spends and all the money local governments spend, and he does very, very little with it. There’s very little to show for what he’s done on that.

You’ve already faced some criticism over your past voting record in Kansas. What do you say to the criticisms that you were too conservative or that you were very conservative when you were a Kansas state lawmaker?

I think that the funny part about that is the attack on me was, in the reality, I voted with Democrats 93% of the time. And of course, a lot of votes in the legislature are more ceremonial. So it was in a 2-to-1 Republican area, so I will welcome that attack all day long. I was out there while a lot of these folks were having brunch. I was fighting on the front lines of American politics for Democratic values, a down the line pro-labor voting record. I was the guy who went to the well to defend Planned Parenthood from attacks in the Kansas legislature. So what’s funny is, I think there was some ad that said I voted with Republicans 80% of the time. It’s because they were attacking me for voting with Democrats 93% of the time.

How do you think that your previous elected position has prepared you for this race?

I have already won a supposedly impossible to win election. I know what it’s like to take out an incumbent who is perceived as unbeatable and beat that incumbent. So the relentless work ethic, the understanding of how to talk to people, of how to go reach every community, and relentless focus on message is in my blood. It was actually the same skill set that took me from an idea on a cocktail napkin to a very successful business. And so that experience fighting for Democratic values in the hardest part of America is exactly the kind of training you need to defeat Donald Trump right now. I mean, Donald Trump right now is inventing powers he doesn’t have, while Democrats aren’t even using the powers we do have. The last thing we need is a caretaker. The problem with the Democratic Party hasn’t been the lack of white papers or the lack of policy ideas. The problem with the Democratic Party has been not enough people who fight and know how to win.

How would you translate your technology background into the comptroller’s office?

The Times Union, and I’m sure you saw that piece in May, has done a bang-up job, where Tom DiNapoli has botched a massive PeopleSoft implementation that is millions over budget, years late, and pensioners and retirees already have died before they got their final pension calculation. So that basic fact right there is that he doesn’t even know, and why would he, he has no experience whatsoever outside of hanging around Albany. So that technology experience will be extraordinarily helpful. My business exposed waste in corporate budgets. It used machine learning algorithms to actually say, hey, there’s a big data set here that we can learn from. Let’s use it to identify patterns of waste to return better value and ROI. And that’s the same mentality that the comptroller’s office should have. I’ll give you a great example, which is, he doesn’t divest from fossil fuels because he has an old school mentality that you need to have some part of Exxon in your portfolio. But anybody knows that the growth in the stock market right now is powered by technology stocks, so he has just, again, an old school way of thinking.

Do you see your candidacy aligning with any of the broader movements, whether it’s generational change or challenges from progressives? Or are you running a policy driven, singular kind of campaign?

I’m running because I know this is a change election, and so I 100% stand with anybody who says we need new ideas and people who fight for Democratic values and know how to fight again. It’s not just a bunch of technocratic policy white papers. It’s not just a bunch of caretaking. It’s somebody who gets in the trenches and knows how to actually effectively win. And so it’s really not about age per se, you know, if you look at it nationally, you’ve got a 33 year old Zohran Mamdani with Bernie Sanders. It’s really not about the age of the person, it’s about the age of the ideas. I am running absolutely, of course, on my critique and my ability to transform New Yorkers’ lives with the state comptroller’s office. And yes, I will stand with anybody who says the status quo is not cutting it. And if you believe in the status quo, then sure you should stick with Tom DiNapoli. But if you believe that the Democratic Party needs change, and moreover, that government needs to be run more effectively and more efficiently to do real things to help people live better lives than you go for Raj Goyle.

How much thought have you given to what would be the historic nature of your victory, if you were to win? I think you’d be the first Asian and South Asian person to hold statewide office in New York.

That would be, obviously, something I’d be very proud of, but it's not why I’m running. And I think what’s happening is New York, New York City, America is changing. And there is, of course, always changing of the guard. So I think it would obviously be a wonderful testament to the diversity of New York. So I do think that having more diverse voices in the seat of power is wonderful.

Why are you running specifically for comptroller? Is it because it has such a long term incumbent who you feel isn’t up to the task? Is it because there hasn’t been a challenge in so many years?

Yes to the former, which is, I’m running for this because this, as I said at the outset, is the greatest squandering of political power in New York. The office has, obviously, a sole trusteeship on the administration of the pension fund. It has really a limitless ability, if used properly, to help New Yorkers to live a better life. So I’m animated by the transformative power of the office, and that’s why I’m running for it. One analogy I might give you is that before Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general’s office was kind of a backwater paperwork job until he transformed that office.

What do you make of the competition in the race? You’re the second person to announce, and there’s a third person who has filed but hasn’t announced. What do you make of your opponents and the interest in the position this year? 

I'm focused on my race. I think there is going to be a very clear contrast between myself and Tom DiNapoli that will emerge over the course of this primary campaign. And so I look forward to it. I’m excited about it, and I just had one tough election before (and) I’m going to win this one.