This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The newly-opened Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in East Flatbush has it all: a massive pool, a media lab, a teaching kitchen, a gym, a working track, a bunch of classrooms and a local council member who's been pushing for it for years. Council Member Farah Louis, whose district is home to the new center, described the center’s opening as “an answered prayer.” And who better to name it after than the first Black woman elected to Congress?

How does Gov. Kathy Hochul follow-up last week’s wins? She just keeps winning. So far this week she watched Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s gubernatorial primary campaign collapse and saw Bruce Blakeman get egg on his face with a lieutenant governor candidate lasting roughly 5% of a Scaramucci. Plus, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani admitted the city budget deficit is $5 billion smaller than first thought, lessening the pressure on her to tax the rich. Will Hochul go for the hat trick?

The lawmaker with the shortest name in the state Legislature had one of the biggest smiles in Albany this week after he was promoted to a leadership role. Assembly Republicans unanimously chose Assembly Member Ed Ra to lead the 47 GOP members in the lower chamber. At 44, Ra is also one of the youngest to hold the post in decades, and the first Long Islander to lead the minority since 1978.

Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s longshot campaign to oust his boss from office ended much as it began: unceremoniously. After failing to get the Working Families Party nomination for governor, Delgado saw the writing on the wall and called it quits much earlier than anyone had expected. The only question now: How will he spend his last 10 months in office?

Remember those plastic whistles? Former Mayor Eric Adams left them on chairs at a press conference last year as a jab at Andrew Cuomo – arming women journalists who interviewed the disgraced former governor with whistles. But the stunt proved to be a costly one. Adams had to pay the Conflicts of Interest Board $4,000 after the watchdog group found it violated the city’s ethics laws that bar campaigning during official government duties.

The co-founder of “Hot Girls for Zohran” isn’t doing so hot himself right now. Following reporting from Jewish Insider about pro-Hamas content he shared on social media, Kaif Gilani found himself out of a job as congressional candidate and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander quickly let him go. When you’re a self-described liberal Zionist, it’s not a great look to have someone pushing Israel/Sept. 11 conspiracy theories online.