A Very Interesting Primary Is Brewing in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn
In a wave of upcoming primaries, none will be like Brad Lander versus Dan Goldman.
It is, ironically enough, the mirror image of a titanic 2024 primary that occurred just north of the city. That year, George Latimer, the popular Westchester County executive, was recruited by pro-Israel donors and activists to challenge a sitting leftist congressman, Jamaal Bowman. Bowman, a proud member of the Squad, was arguably too left-wing for his more moderate district, and Latimer, thanks to his own record and an onslaught of outside spending from a powerful Israel-backing super-PAC, won easily.
Now it’s Goldman, the incumbent congressman and proud Israel supporter, who is going to take a great deal of heat from a challenger who both resides to the left of him and, on the balance, is probably a better ideological fit for the district. Ever since Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani made it clear he was not going to make Lander, who ran against him for mayor but co-endorsed him in the primary, his first deputy mayor, rumors swirled that the current city comptroller, soon to be out of a job, might run for Congress. Lander has now made it official, and he’s already secured endorsements from Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the Working Families Party.
Just as Latimer, once he began fundraising and campaigning in earnest, became the favorite despite his insurgent status, this battle for the Tenth Congressional District is probably Lander’s to lose. The district spans the vote-rich Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn Heights, and Sunset Park. Mamdani, in the primary, carried all of these neighborhoods, and Lander is very well known there, having represented many of them for 12 years in the City Council. In liberal, affluent Brooklyn, Lander is a household name, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where he’s not running up the score there against Goldman.
Goldman has several challenges to overcome. One is that he was only elected in 2022, triumphing in a primary where multiple progressives split votes. Gaining popularity for serving as an attorney on the first impeachment of Donald Trump, Goldman was a cable-TV fixture who was never that deeply rooted in the district. An heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, he grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended Yale and Stanford. While Lander didn’t grow up in New York City either — he is a native of suburban St. Louis — he has built his entire political career in the city and has been a fixture in local progressive activism, in one form or another, since the 1990s.
Goldman, a resident of lower Manhattan, could be expected to lead Lander on the Manhattan side of the district, which includes wealthy neighborhoods like Tribeca, the Financial District, and Battery Park City. But while Goldman has an edge, it’s not as big as Lander’s is in Brooklyn. Four years as city comptroller and a mayoral run has made Lander plenty well known in Manhattan. He will compete there.
On domestic policy, Lander and Goldman aren’t necessarily far apart. Of late, Goldman, like Lander, has been forcefully confronting Trump over his deportation policies. He has co-sponsored new legislation that would prohibit Department of Homeland Security agents from arresting or detaining an individual that is physically present at an immigration-court facility for the purpose of attending or participating in a hearing, except pursuant to a judicial warrant. Lander got himself arrested at 26 Federal Plaza during the mayoral campaign, but Goldman can’t be said to be neglecting immigrants. Overall, his anti-Trump bona fides are, on a variety of fronts, as solid as any Democrat’s in America.
The dividing line between the two men, for now, is Israel. Lander is a liberal Zionist who has called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide and supports conditioning military aid to the Jewish State. Goldman is a hawk who refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim and pro-Palestine, in the general election of the mayoral race. Goldman has not been nearly as critical of Israel. For younger, Israel-skeptical voters, Goldman tends to be seen as out of step. And older, left-leaning voters who live in the district and back Israel could also find themselves more in line with Lander. They generally feel that Israel has a right to exist, but just about everything else it has done since the October 7 attacks is deplorable.
When Latimer unseated Bowman, he enjoyed a significant outside-spending advantage. It’s plausible those forces, including the PAC Democratic Majority for Israel, appear again, and Goldman at least partially self-funds with his family fortune. But Lander, with the help of Mamdani and Bernie Sanders, shouldn’t struggle for dollars. Both self-identified democratic socialists can deploy small-donor fundraising machines on Lander’s behalf. The money race won’t be a blowout.
One notable missing progressive from Lander’s endorsement roster is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC and Goldman are colleagues, and it will be interesting to see whether she endorses against her fellow House member. Given that she’s friendly with Lander, it should be inevitable. But it’s worth watching when she makes her move. Launch day didn’t lure her into the fight.