If you live in Red Hook, Gowanus, or Sunset Park, you have a second blockbuster primary on your ballot this Tuesday, and it is a rematch of the fight that just consumed the city. Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who finished third in last year’s mayoral primary, is trying to take a seat in Congress from the man who currently holds it, Representative Dan Goldman.
The district, NY-10, covers downtown Manhattan and a long stretch of brownstone Brooklyn, and it is about as Democratic as districts get, which means Tuesday’s primary, June 23, is the whole game. Lander announced his challenge in December, and he has run hard to Goldman’s left ever since.
His case is blunt. “NY-10 is a progressive district and representative Goldman is out of step with it,” Lander told ABC7. To CBS he was sharper: “My real beef with [Goldman] is that he’s not taking on the wealthy special interests and billionaires.” He has hammered Goldman’s foreign-policy backers, pointing to “AIPAC who are cheerleading Trump in this hideous war,” and framed the race as a “five-alarm fire for our democracy.” He has also said, “Donald Trump is abducting our neighbors.”
Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who became nationally known leading the first Trump impeachment, is running on Washington effectiveness, and he has the governor in his corner. “When we need something from Washington, D.C., Dan Goldman is our good, go-to man,” Hochul said, per CBS. “He knows where the levers of power are. He knows how to fight.”
The endorsements show the split. The party has divided down the middle. Lander has been endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and the Working Families Party. Goldman has Hochul. The coalition that just put Mamdani in City Hall is now trying to flip a House seat, and the establishment is digging in to stop it. NY-10 is the next round of a fight for control of the city’s Democratic Party, and it is on your ballot.
The primary is Tuesday, June 23, early voting is already underway, and in a district this blue the winner Tuesday is almost certainly your next member of Congress. Look up your poll site, read where Lander and Goldman differ beyond the slogans, and vote. This is the second seat the Mamdani-era left is trying to take in a week. Whether they get it depends on who shows up.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
