Will the real progressive please stand up in the race for state comptroller?

He’s a progressive, they’re a progressive. Is there anyone here who isn’t a progressive?

Democratic challengers are coming for state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli in his first primary in his nearly 20 years in the role, and they’ve all been trying to out-progressive each other. Now, things are getting messy as everyone is vying for a crucial endorsement from the New York Working Families Party.

Now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s success in the 2025 mayoral race may have changed the calculus for candidates in the state comptroller’s race, according to Democratic consultant Ryan Adams. But while it makes sense for multiple candidates to seek that left-wing lane, that doesn’t mean they’re doing a good job at it.

“I think people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened in 2025 and now they’re trying to chase the Mamdani magic,” Adams told City & State. “Now they’re fumbling with pulling rabbits out of hats. … The secret to his win is authenticity and anyone who is not is going to fall flat on their face.”

Drew Warshaw, a former affordable housing nonprofit executive, was the first to announce his challenge to DiNapoli spring of last year. Rather than focusing on where he and DiNapoli differed ideologically, from the start, Warshaw had a policy-heavy focus, hammering home how his vision for the office differed. And for a position as wonky as the state’s chief auditor – a job  the average voter likely doesn’t fully grasp – it made sense. “I am running because I have a fundamentally different vision for how to use all the power and all the money that (DiNapoli’s) been sitting on for the last 18 years to address the affordability crisis that is crushing New Yorkers,” Warshaw told City & State back in September.

Enter Raj Goyle, a former Kansas legislator turned tech businessperson. When he first announced his campaign last year, Goyle did not explicitly describe his campaign as “progressive” when asked if it would fit into that kind of mold. “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,” he told City & State in October – though he described himself as a progressive from his first 2006 electoral win in Kansas. 

By the start of the new year, though, Goyle had begun campaigning as an unabashed progressive, clearly seeking to occupy that lane in the race to unseat DiNapoli. Unlike Warshaw, Goyle had a conservative voting record in Kansas to defend against. Today, he contends every conservative vote he took while representing a right-wing district was meant to block something even more conservative from becoming law. “That record of fighting as a progressive in the hardest place in America to do it is actually exactly why I've got the experience to bring change to Albany,” he told City & State in an interview last week.

Despite having no apparent public stance on Israel before 2026, Goyle came out explicitly against the New York pension fund investing in Israeli bonds in January, citing the war in Gaza as a reason. In March, he announced endorsements from notable out-of-state progressive Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna. That came on the heels of the public support from election attorney Ali Najmi (who is also the campaign’s paid lawyer), a close ally and adviser to Mamdani (who has not endorsed anyone in this race). The Warshaw campaign also counts top Mamdani campaign aide Morris Katz’s firm among its paid consultants.

As Goyle and others look to lock up key support from the Working Families Party, a preliminary press release (changed after City & State’s reporting ahead of its broad release) touted the ties that influential left-wing group New York Communities for Change had to the WFP as it announced its support of Goyle. The candidate has also highlighted the endorsement of Zephyr Teachout, a progressive activist who previously had the WFP’s backing when she ran for governor in 2014. And he has made a point to be seen at left-wing protests. Goyle recently got arrested at the state Capitol along with climate activists opposing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed rollbacks to New York’s 2019 climate law.

“We're gathering great momentum in the progressive movement,” Goyle told City & State recently when asked about the progressive politics at play in the race. “I think it's because I've been a progressive activist my entire life.” 

While Goyle’s personal tonal shift was apparent between his October and May conversations with City & State, Warshaw’s seemed to stay more consistent. “How I think about my campaign is just a relentless focus on using the enormous and untapped power and money of this office for the working New Yorkers without power and without money,” he told City & State on Friday when asked about how he sees his position in the progressive jockeying happening in the race. He later added that “the beauty of a progressive campaign is listening and speaking with the communities most impacted by the policies that we are talking about.”

But on the public political stage, Warshaw’s campaign has also taken a sharp turn toward the ideological. The most potent example is likely his op-ed in the left-leaning Jewish publication The Forward – published during Passover – affirming his commitment to divest from Israeli bonds. “New York state must not enable or be complicit in such human misery any longer,” he wrote in the piece. While Warshaw had previously spoken about divesting from all foreign bonds, neither that proposal nor an explicit Israel focus on moral grounds had been central to his campaign.

Left-leaning groups have been organizing relentlessly around Israel and Palestine since the war in Gaza began nearly three years ago, including divestment from Israeli bonds. And the op-ed came a few months after Goyle made such divestment a centerpiece of his own campaign. But Warshaw denied the other candidate had any bearing on his decision to publish the op-ed.

And much like Goyle, Warshaw’s campaign has taken to highlighting his support among progressives, such as a recent piece from The Nation that is about as close to an endorsement the left-wing magazine has given so far in the race. (However, the author of that piece has since clarified she did not intend it as any kind of endorsement and called Goyle “the other strong progressive in the race.) Warshaw also filmed a video with progressive Assembly candidate Brian Romero alongside a number of left-wing activists. And Warshaw rolled out the endorsements of nearly 30 state WFP committee members and members of affiliated organizations ahead of the party’s endorsement vote. While most would not recognize those names, the letter of support they signed signaled where internal progressive conversations were leaning as the WFP considered who to back.

In perhaps the most outlandish example of the political fight over the progressive lane so far , both the Goyle and Warshaw campaigns claimed the backing of the same trans activist, who is a member of an organization with influence over the WFP. City & State confirmed she in fact supported Warshaw, prompting Goyle to remove a video featuring her on social media.

The progressive contest originally had another contender in Adem Bunkeddeko as well, who recently got kicked off the ballot. Among the challengers, he was the only to have a specifically New York track record of running leftwing campaigns having previously run against Rep. Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn. Although Bunkeddeko’s campaign never truly got off the ground before petition challenges knocked him from the ballot, he counted former Rep. Jamaal Bowman as a backer and validator for his progressive campaigning. 

And of course, the incumbent DiNapoli is not to be discounted in the debate, either. He, too, is seeking the continued support of the WFP and still enjoys robust support from labor around the state. A number of unions have funded a super PAC focused on getting DiNapoli reelected that recently spent on its first ad. 

“While Kansas Conservative Raj Goyle and Millionaire Real Estate Developer Drew Warshaw have spent the last few months adopting entirely new political personas, changing core aspects of their beliefs from what they held as well paid executives in the private sector, Tom DiNapoli has continued to fight for progressive values, labor unions, and our environment, as he’s done his entire career in office,” DiNapoli spokesperson Aaron Ghitelman said in a statement to City & State. “Progressivism isn’t about campaign promises, but about real work to improve people’s lives, and on that front Tom DiNapoli clearly has his opponents beat.”

Members of the state WFP interviewed candidates last week, and the committee is expected to take a vote this week to decide who to endorse. State WFP Director Jasmine Gripper did not respond to a request for comment about how the deliberations are going, but the decision of the progressive third party is sure to create massive waves in the race – and could make or break the challengers seeking to paint themselves as the best progressive alternative to DiNapoli.