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    Medicaid Funding Would Expand Psychiatric Beds Under New Bill

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    A Democrat and a Republican from New York will introduce the “Michelle Go Act,” named after a woman who was killed when a mentally ill homeless man pushed her in front of a subway train.As the nation faces a growing mental health crisis among people who are homeless, a bipartisan bill being introduced in Congress on Thursday may substantially increase the number of psychiatric beds covered by Medicaid.Proponents of the bill say that it will help address a severe shortage of psychiatric hospital beds and spur the construction of new beds and new facilities.The bill is sponsored by the unlikely-seeming New York City congressional duo of Dan Goldman, a liberal Democrat, and Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican Trump loyalist, along with Representatives Tony Cárdenas, Democrat of California, and Gus Bilirakis, a Florida Republican. Mr. Goldman is the lead author of the bill, the Michelle Go Act, named after the woman who was fatally pushed in front of a subway train in New York in 2022 by a man with schizophrenia, who had spent decades rotating from hospital to jail to street.Under current law, for people age 21 to 64, Medicaid covers stays in dedicated psychiatric hospitals only if they have 16 or fewer beds. The Michelle Go Act would raise the threshold to 36 beds.Mr. Goldman said in an interview that the legislation would “not only provide for significantly more beds for long-term mental health care but has the potential to increase the ability for those who cannot afford mental health care to get the treatment they need.”Mr. Goldman has said that he would have liked to remove the cap on hospital size altogether — one estimate put the cost at $33 billion over 10 years. But he said that the more modest measure was necessary to win support on both sides of the aisle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Niou vs. Goldman, Round 2? Won’t Happen, After All.

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      For weeks, left-leaning New York City Democrats have publicly debated whether to launch a third-party bid in a race for a rare open House seat in the heart of New York City.But on Tuesday, they decided to take a pass, as Yuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman who finished second to Daniel S. Goldman in August’s Democratic primary, declared that she would not seek a rematch using the Working Families Party ballot line in November after all.“We are conceding the primary and I will not be on the WFP line for the general,” Ms. Niou, 39, said, referring to the Working Families Party, during a seven-minute video she posted to Twitter around 9 p.m.“We simply do not have the resources to fight all fights at the same time, and we must protect our democracy now,” Ms. Niou added.The decision provided a reprieve not just to Mr. Goldman, a former assistant U.S. attorney who made his name prosecuting the first impeachment case against President Donald J. Trump, but also to some Democratic Party leaders, who feared a fight between the party’s left and more centrist wings would divert resources from races more pivotal to retaining control of Congress.Mr. Goldman, 46, is now all but assured of a victory in November; the Republican candidate, Benine Hamdan, is thought to have little chance in the heavily Democratic district.Progressive activists, who had eagerly stoked a fight to block that path, were certain to be disappointed in the outcome. They believe that Mr. Goldman was too moderate and accused him of buying one of the city’s most liberal districts, which connects Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, by pouring nearly $5 million of his own fortune into the race. With a 13-person primary field narrowed to just two, they argued Ms. Niou stood a better chance.But other allies bluntly advised Ms. Niou that she could not win a rematch given Mr. Goldman’s personal fortune, the compressed timeline and the institutional support rallying around him in New York and Washington. Ms. Niou and the Working Families Party, which was prepared to share its ballot line with her in November, grudgingly came to agree.Daniel Goldman won last month’s Democratic primary on the strength of his record as a Trump prosecutor and the $5 million he gave to his campaign.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThough it is its own fully fledged political party, the W.F.P. is more typically a force in Democratic primaries, acting to push candidates to the left. Only rarely does it back a challenger to a Democrat in a general election. It has never done so in a congressional race.“We have always been sober about the structural barriers we face when running grass-roots candidates against the power of immense wealth,” Sochie Nnaemeka, the party’s director in New York, said in a statement.Ms. Nnaemeka added that the party would be focused on defeating Republicans, and urged Mr. Goldman to “take note of the progressive positions shared by candidates who cumulatively received a majority of the vote.”Prominent New York City Democratic officials had worked to head off Ms. Niou in recent days by uniting around Mr. Goldman, making a possible electoral path even more tenuous. More

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      What Two Primaries Reveal About the Decline of Working-Class Democrats

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      The results of the Democratic congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday give us a hint of just how far the working-class liberalism once associated with city politics has declined. The winners of two races in particular, Jerrold Nadler and Daniel Goldman, who will almost surely represent much of Manhattan (and a bit of Brooklyn) in the House, emerged as the victors of complicated congressional primaries in districts that were redrawn to reflect national shifts in population.They represent different kinds of New York City Democrats — Mr. Nadler, a longtime congressman, has deep roots in the old grass-roots liberalism of the Upper West Side, while Mr. Goldman is a political newcomer whose star has risen through his association with opposition to Donald Trump — but their shared success nonetheless highlights socioeconomic divisions in Manhattan that have a long history.The primaries reflected the tensions and divisions within contemporary liberalism itself and raise the question of how (or whether) Democrats can effectively represent such radically different constituencies.The changes in the city districts were a result of math — subtraction, to be specific. New York State lost a seat in the House because its population came up short by 89 people in a census conducted in 2020, at the height of Covid in New York. Indeed, if so many New Yorkers had not died in the early months of the pandemic, these contests — particularly the one that pitted Mr. Nadler against his House colleague Carolyn Maloney — would almost certainly not have taken place.Beyond the numbers, though, the primaries were part of a continuing story of class divisions in New York City. In the mid-1930s, the Columbia University sociologist Caroline Ware wrote a study of Greenwich Village that focused on the Irish and Italian immigrants who moved there in the late 19th century and whose Catholic churches still dot the neighborhood.Some at the time saw the Village as a success story of immigrant assimilation. But Professor Ware had a different interpretation. The people of the Village, she suggested, lived side by side but had little contact with one another. They were left to navigate a complicated city as “isolated individuals rather than as part of coherent social wholes.”The national Democratic Party faces a similar class divide between highly educated urbanites and the working-class voters for whom it often claims to speak. It’s no secret that the party has moved away from the fiercely pro-union New Deal politics of the mid-20th century. For much of the 20th century, New York State’s congressional delegation included more than 40 representatives (compared with 27 today), a voting bloc that generally collaborated in support of an expansive social welfare state and working-class interests. New York representatives included many of the country’s most left-leaning politicians (like the Upper West Side’s Bella Abzug).Mr. Nadler and Mr. Goldman come from different backgrounds, politically and economically. Mr. Nadler grew up in the city and got active in politics opposing the Vietnam War. Mr. Goldman is a Washington native who attended Sidwell Friends, Yale, Stanford; he served as assistant U.S. attorney with Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York.For Mr. Nadler, despite his victory on Tuesday night, the political world he emerged from no longer exists as a vital force. This is in part because of transformations within Democratic politics.Mr. Nadler’s political career was forged at a pivotal moment in the aftermath of New York’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s. He was first elected to the State Assembly in 1976. In the following years, Democratic city officials were forced to increase subway fares, close public hospitals, charge tuition at CUNY and cease to embrace a politically ambitious role for local government. Mr. Nadler was elected to Congress in the early 1990s, when Democratic leaders like Bill Clinton proclaimed the end of the era of big government and were most optimistic about free trade and deregulation despite its impact on cities like New York.He has supported many measures over his long career that would aid working-class people, but at the same time the Democrats have generally backed away from politics that would more forcefully address inequality and the economic divide.Meanwhile, the economic fortunes of Manhattan were also changing — as part of an effort to secure a steadier tax base in the aftermath of the collapse of manufacturing, the city under Ed Koch began to reorient its economy toward Wall Street and real estate development.As Wall Street became an engine of the city’s economy in the administration of Michael Bloomberg, Manhattan’s demographics began moving in largely the opposite direction from the city as a whole. From 2010 to 2020, the white and Asian share of the borough’s population grew, while the Black and Latino share fell.Today, the institutions that had once helped to stitch together constituencies from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, like unions, are far weaker in the city and nationally than they once were. People confront the problems of living in New York through the lens of personal ambition — as “isolated individuals,” as Professor Ware put it — rather than through collective efforts to improve the city’s life.The narrow victory of Mr. Goldman illustrates even more sharply the political crisis of working-class New York. In addition to being an heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune, Mr. Goldman is a type well known to denizens of Lower Manhattan, a successful lawyer who was able to self-fund his campaign. He is clearly a candidate whose political appeal was strongest for the new leaders of the Village and Lower Manhattan, the professional upper classes who work in law firms and investment banks, who fund their children’s schools’ parent-teacher associations and the park conservancies.This is a social world that has little meaningful overlap with the working-class population, often Asian and Latino, that still dwells here but lacks the confident political organization and alliances with the middle class that it once possessed.Mr. Goldman’s political fortunes rose with his role as lead counsel in the first impeachment suit against Mr. Trump; his path to the House was largely paved by this rather than any deep engagement with the kinds of material issues that affect the lives of working- or even middle-class New Yorkers.Mr. Goldman’s race was very close — he won by roughly 1,300 votes. The runner-up, Yuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman, ran a campaign whose rhetoric focused on class appeals, but unions and progressive groups proved unable to act in a coordinated way to support any single candidate in a crowded field.Despite their different backgrounds, both Mr. Goldman and Mr. Nadler embody a Manhattan that has shifted in ways that affect not only its own politics but those of the country at large. Their careers point to the divides that Professor Ware pointed out decades ago.In her account, the Village — and New York, and America as a whole — faced the problem of how to respond to the collective problems of a modern industrial society through the lens of a political culture that had been shaped by ruthless individual acquisition. The particular problems have changed, and yet Lower Manhattan remains home to a population that, as dense as it is, is intensely divided by class and ethnicity, that is characterized (as Professor Ware put it) by “an almost complete lack of community integration.”The bitter politics of the August primaries, which reveal yet again the declining power of New York’s liberalism, are the result.Kim Phillips-Fein, a historian at Columbia University, is the author, most recently, of “Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics” and “Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      In N.Y. Primaries, a Fight for the Democratic Party’s Future

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      The party’s more moderate establishment declared victory, but a closer look reveals the battle for the soul of the party will grind on.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, a moderate Democrat from New York City’s northern suburbs, saw a clear-cut lesson in his lopsided primary victory Tuesday night over one of his home state’s brightest left-wing stars.“Tonight, mainstream won,” Mr. Maloney, who also leads House Democrat campaign committee, declared afterward. “Common sense won.”The 30-point margin appeared to be a sharp rebuke to the party’s left flank, which had tried to make the race a referendum on Mr. Maloney’s brand of leadership in Washington. A second, narrower win by another moderate Democrat, Daniel Goldman, in one of the city’s most liberal House districts prompted more hand-wringing among some progressives.But as New York’s tumultuous primary season came to a close on Tuesday, a survey of contests across the state shows a more nuanced picture. Four summers after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory ignited Democrats’ left flank and positioned New York at the center of a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party, the battle has entered a new phase. But it is far from abating.Mostly gone this year were shocking upsets by little-known left-leaning insurgents like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and a gaggle of challengers in Albany. They dislodged an entrenched block of conservative Democrats controlling the State Senate in 2018. Representative Jamaal Bowman defeated a powerful committee chairman in 2020. Those contests made the political left appear ascendant.Kristen Gonzalez, a State Senate candidate supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, won her primary race in a district in Brooklyn and Queens.Janice Chung for The New York TimesTwo years later, though, the tension within the party appears likely to grind on, as progressives struggle to marshal voters into movements as they did during the Trump presidency. At the same time, the party’s establishment wing has regained its footing after President Biden and Mayor Eric Adams, avowed moderates, won the White House and City Hall.“We are past that political and electoral moment,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, the director of New York’s liberal Working Families Party, said of the rapid gains of past election cycles. “The headwinds are a real amount of voter fatigue, economic malaise and just the pressures of everyday life.”Ms. Nnaemeka and her allies still found reason to celebrate on Tuesday though, particularly over state-level contests. Kristen Gonzalez, a tech worker supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, won a marquee Brooklyn-Queens State Senate race over Elizabeth Crowley, despite Mayor Adams and outside special interests openly campaigning against her.“Today, we really proved that socialism wins,” Ms. Gonzalez told jubilant supporters after her win.As moderates backed by well-financed outside groups and well-known leaders like Mr. Adams sought to oust them, progressives also successfully defended key seats won in recent election cycles.Among them were Jabari Brisport, a member of the Democratic Socialists, and Gustavo Rivera, another progressive state senator targeted by Mr. Adams. Mr. Bowman, whose district had been substantially redrawn in this year’s redistricting process, also survived.“We had some really good wins,” Ms. Nnaemeka added. “Despite the headwinds, despite the dark money, despite the redistricting chaos, we sent some of the hardest working champions of the left back to the State Senate to complete the work the federal government isn’t doing right now.”But in many of the most recognizable races, there were clear signs that those wins had limits.Mr. Maloney provided moderates with their most resonant victory, defeating Alessandra Biaggi, a progressive state senator who was part of the 2018 insurgency, by a two-to-one margin. This time, she had the vocal backing of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. She fiercely critiqued Mr. Maloney as “a selfish corporate Democrat with no integrity.”Alessandra Biaggi mounted an aggressive challenge to Mr. Maloney from the left.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut she was drowned out by a flood of outside spending that came to Mr. Maloney’s aid, with attacks centered on her harsh past criticisms of the police. She struggled to quickly introduce herself to voters in a district she had never run in before. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Bill Clinton also openly lent their support to the congressman.In the race for an open Democratic seat in New York City, Mr. Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, beat out three progressive stars in some of the city’s most liberal enclaves. All had once enjoyed the backing of the Working Families Party. And former Representative Max Rose, an avowed centrist attempting to make a comeback on Staten Island, handily turned back a primary challenger championed by activists.The outcomes — along with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s yawning primary victory in June over a left-aligned challenger, Jumaane Williams — left leaders of the party’s more moderate wing crowing over what they see as a more pragmatic mood among the electorate in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. More

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      Daniel Goldman, Ex-Trump Prosecutor, Tops Crowded Field in N.Y. Primary

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      Daniel Goldman, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the first impeachment case against Donald J. Trump, captured the Democratic nomination for an open House seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to The Associated Press.The victory on Tuesday in the heavily Democratic district all but assures Mr. Goldman a seat in Congress come 2023; he will face Benine Hamdan, a little-known Republican candidate, in November. Mr. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has a net worth of up to $253 million and pumped nearly $5 million of his own money into the race.As of early Wednesday morning, Mr. Goldman had won 16,686 votes, or 25.72 percent of the total, according to unofficial results from the city Board of Elections. Yuh-Line Niou, the runner-up, a state assemblywoman from Manhattan, won 15,380 votes, or 23.71 percent of the total. Some absentee ballots have yet to be counted, and on Tuesday night, Ms. Niou declined to concede.During his victory speech Tuesday night, which he delivered before the race was formally called, Mr. Goldman singled out the Jewish and Chinese-American communities in the district for backing his campaign.“Tonight though is not a victory for myself, or any one person,” he said. “It is a victory for all of us, all of us who will not let authoritarian forces undermine the foundation of our democracy and the rule of law.”He vanquished several candidates who had stronger political ties to the area and who were drawn into the 10th Congressional District after an unusually messy redistricting process earlier this year.The district’s contours changed to include the northwest precincts of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan — prompting Representative Jerrold Nadler, who now represents the 10th District, to run in the 12th District against another incumbent, Carolyn Maloney, after that district was redrawn to include his Upper West Side base.The result was a rare open seat in the heart of New York City, and a political gold rush. Thirteen Democratic candidates were on the ballot Tuesday, including a former congresswoman, a current congressman from the northern New York City suburbs, two local state assemblywomen and a local city councilwoman.Carlina Rivera speaks to supporters and volunteers on the Lower East Side.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesMondaire Jones conceded to Daniel Goldman at his Park Slope election party.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMr. Goldman lacked the political connections of many of his opponents. He had never held elective office before, nor had he been particularly involved with local Democratic political clubs or neighborhood community boards. But his wealth enabled him to carpet bomb the district with television ads. And Mr. Goldman was able to successfully advance his case for election: that only a lawyer with his background prosecuting crime was equipped to protect American democracy in the age of Mr. Trump.In the waning days of the race, several of Mr. Goldman’s opponents sought to turn his financial stature and investment portfolio against him. According to financial disclosures with the House, which cover an 18-month period ending June 30, Mr. Goldman has a line of credit from Goldman Sachs worth up to $50 million, and has held investments in the weapons manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Company; in oil companies including Chevron and Exxon Mobil; and the parent company of Fox News.Yuh-Line Niou did not concede on Tuesday night.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMr. Goldman promised to put his assets into a blind trust upon taking office and argued his holdings were so politically diverse because his portfolio was structured to mirror the S&P 500.Last Monday, two of his competitors — Ms. Niou and Representative Mondaire Jones, the congressman who currently represents Rockland County and parts of Westchester — held a joint news conference accusing Mr. Goldman of trying to buy the election. Mr. Jones called Mr. Goldman a “conservative Democrat.”“He is using his inherited wealth to distort the Democratic process, to the point where he may well win this race if this grass-roots coalition does not stop him from doing so,” Mr. Jones said. Reporting was contributed by Téa Kvetenadze, Jasmine Sheena, Sadef Kully and Samira Sadeque. More

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      El Times respalda a Dan Goldman para el distrito congresional 10 de Nueva York

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      En el saturado panorama de personas con éxitos consumados que compiten por representar al distrito congresional 10, recientemente trazado, destacan dos candidatos: Dan Goldman, quien fue el abogado principal de los demócratas en el primer juicio político contra Trump, y el congresista Mondaire Jones.Goldman, quien fue fiscal federal, ha vivido en el Bajo Manhattan durante 16 años. Su inusual experiencia —en especial su conocimiento sobre la supervisión del Congreso y la vigilancia del Estado de derecho— podría ser particularmente importante en el Congreso en los próximos años. “He estado en la primera línea liderando la lucha en el Congreso contra Donald Trump y su Partido Republicano, y tratando de proteger y defender nuestra democracia, nuestras instituciones y nuestro Estado de derecho”, dijo en una entrevista con el comité editorial. More

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      The New York Times’s Interview With Dan Goldman

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      Dan Goldman, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was the chief investigator in the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.This interview with Mr. Goldman was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 27.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: What would you be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress? If you could, be as specific as possible.Sure.Kathleen Kingsbury: But also, is there one big idea that you’d pursue with bipartisan support?Yeah. I think in the unlikely event that it will be a Republican Congress, I actually think that my skills and experience are going to be even more valuable to the caucus. Because we can fully expect a Biden impeachment. We can expect a select committee to investigate Hunter Biden.The Republicans are out for blood and out for revenge. And so my experience, having led the impeachment investigation and being right in the throes of that kind of complex and high-stakes investigation, will be even more valuable, I think, to the Democratic caucus than reasonably a first-year Congress person would be even in the majority without any seniority.As for what I think we can achieve in a bipartisan way, look, my approach to this is sort of twofold. I think on the one hand, we need to be really aggressive in attacking the Republicans and attacking our policy prerogatives. We need to defend our democracy, which is under attack. We need to defend and protect our fundamental rights.We are dealing with a very different Republican Party today than even 10 years ago. And so what we have to recognize is there are bad-faith actors, in my view, who are trying to sabotage anything the Democrats do in order to acquire power of their own. So the old traditional way of negotiating with them or going directly to them and begging them or having a meal with them or whatever, it’s not working. What we are going to have to do is convince them that it is in their self-interest to do something.And I think there are two ways of doing that. One is aggressively investigating, and using the investigative and oversight powers to change the hearts and minds of the public, as we’ve seen a little bit with the Jan. 6 committee, or to expose their special interests or their — the folks, the lobbyists or the other special interest group that control them. And the other way is to figure out a way of reframing an issue so that they can recognize that it is in their self-interest to do it.And I’ll give you an example of each real quick. Actually, it happened today. A few weeks ago I called for an investigation into gun manufacturers and gun dealers, so that we can know what they’re marketing and advertising, whether it is they knowingly were targeting young adults with radicalizing on social media and trying to sell a AR-15s. There’s, I think, a lot there not dissimilar to the tobacco companies or the opioid companies who knew what they were selling was addictive.There is a path there to expose the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers, which is really the only way to impact the Republicans. Because 70 percent, 80 percent of the country believes in much stricter gun legislation than we have. So that’s a way, I think, we can use investigations and oversight.[In a recent Gallup poll, 66 percent of people said gun-control laws “should be made more strict.”]On the other hand, I look at renewable energy as one thing that we might be able to figure out a creative compromise for — not dissimilar to mass incarceration, where Democrats pushed for it for a long time, Republicans resisted it because of their tough-on-crime stance. Ultimately, Republicans got onboard with decarceration because of the fiscal benefits. And so you first started seeing it in states, and then you saw it with the First Step Act.I think we can do something similar with renewable energy, which Democrats — we want for climate purposes, for job purposes. But we hear a lot from Republicans about energy independence now, with gas prices going up and with the issues in Russia and Ukraine in terms of oil and natural gas and our dependence on the Middle East. The best way to be energy independent is to invest in renewable energy that we create here. And so I think there’s an avenue that, in the minority even, I think we could pursue some sort of climate legislation that would be — we could agree on for very different reasons.Mara Gay: OK, thank you. What would you do in Congress to help build more new housing in New York so that New Yorkers can stay in the city that they love?I think we need to do two things in terms of housing. One is we need more money for NYCHA so that we can fix these dreadfully maintained buildings. I met with the tenants association at the Jacob Riis Houses a couple of weeks ago and it was really, really unacceptable conditions. So we have to figure out a way to repair that.I am open — I support the preservation trust. I am open to creative ways of providing some sort of funding streams so that we can fix NYCHA. But the bigger issue I think you’re hitting on is we need more and we need better housing. I would work very hard to increase the number of Section 8 vouchers, especially for the homeless, which are often — it’s often undesirable for some of the affordable housing or transitional housing places to take the homeless. But I think we need to be pushing for more Section 8 vouchers.I think we need to be funding nonprofits that focus on this, on homelessness and housing, much, much more. Because they’re really in the sort of nexus between some of the for-profit real estate developers and the city. And so what is starting to happen more, and I’m a big fan of, is that you have for-profit companies that are providing some capital for more housing. But they can’t really get that last 25 percent of the way.And then you have the nonprofits who are ready and expert at managing the housing and providing the services that in permanent sustained housing, that the residents and the tenants need. And then you have the city that’s often providing the land. But it’s often that last bit of money that is needed in order to push the project over the top.And so it’s not necessarily a lot of money, but it is something that the federal government can do to help provide that last bit of capital, help to provide grants to nonprofits. And, by the way, I think that providing grants to nonprofits is something I’m going to push across the board. Because what you see with nonprofits is they are expert in their area and they are closest to the community. They’re closest to the ground, and they know what the communities need.A couple of weeks ago, I went down to the Lower East Side and met with some of the settlement houses executives. And the programs they have are fantastic, but they just don’t have the scale that can serve enough people. And so, to my mind, that is an avenue that we need to fund more from Congress to provide the services that the community needs, and to provide them in a high-quality way.Mara Gay: Thank you.Jyoti Thottam: Just stepping back a minute — what do you think Democrats can do at this point to protect American democracy, which, as you sort of alluded to, is under threat from various places?Yeah. Well, this is a huge thrust of my campaign and my experience in leading the impeachment investigation and trying to protect and defend our democracy at that point, which seems somewhat quaint now, where we are now. But even before I left the House Intelligence Committee, I helped Adam Schiff draft the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which at the time, those provisions also seemed somewhat quaint, pre-Jan. 6.But I actually released a five-point plan to protect and defend democracy. Because I think it is, first of all, the No. 1 issue. We have so many policy objectives that we want to do, whether that’s protecting the right to choose, gun control legislation, as we’ve talked about, climate change, immigration, infrastructure, housing. All of these are incredibly important things that I would very much like to tackle.But our first priority has to be to protect and defend our democracy. Because Donald Trump still controls the Republican Party, he still is the front-runner to become the 2024 nominee. And he is still pushing the Big Lie, and he has his acolytes in the states around the country and some of the swing states — in Pennsylvania in particular, which is very scary — of trying to change the laws so that partisan elected officials can overturn the will of the people in a way that they failed in 2020.So this is the unprecedented existential threat that we are facing, and it frankly is why I’m running. Because I was on the front lines, I have dealt with Donald Trump before, and I am very, very concerned about our democracy. We need to do a couple of things I’ll just briefly summarize.We need to maintain free and fair elections, where not only do the voters decide but that everyone can vote and gets access to the ballot with Election Day as a holiday and other ways of making voting easier. Registration should be a lot easier. We need to make voting as easy as possible. It is the right in our Constitution from which all other rights flow.And so that is a significant thing. And there are lots of ways that we need to do that, whether it’s the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or banning gerrymandering or getting rid of the Electoral College altogether. There are a lot of ways, I think, that we can make voting free, fair and consistent with one person, one vote.The other thing that we need to do is combat disinformation. When I was on the House Intelligence Committee, that was the House committee that had the Russia investigation. And a lot of what we were focusing on — because Mueller had taken over a lot of the criminal investigation — we were focusing a lot on the disinformation. We got a tremendous amount of intelligence that was classified on this issue. And so I’m familiar with a lot of the foreign efforts to use disinformation and misinformation.But it happens here at home, too. And in fact, it affects not only our democracy and our elections. It affects climate denialism. It affected Covid. So one of the things that I have been pushing for is we need to regulate social media companies more, but we also need to expand the public broadcasting media arm to include independent online media platforms.Jyoti Thottam: OK. I’m just conscious of time. We have a lot of things to cover.I’m sorry. I go on too long.Jyoti Thottam: That’s all right. Patrick, are you going next?Patrick Healy: Yeah, thank you. Do you think Democratic elected officials are out of step with Democratic voters on immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any particular issue, just as you hear kind of the messaging and the Democratic Party priorities with where voters are at, as you talk to them?It’s a good question. I think the biggest disconnect is that there are a number of Democratic representatives who are very ideologically strident and uncompromising, if it gets down to it. And I think what Democratic voters — at least what I hear — what Democratic voters want more than ideological purity is results and solutions. And I think I, and others, were very frustrated in the fall that the $1.5 trillion or $1.75 trillion reconciliation package didn’t get through not because of the Republicans, but because the Democrats couldn’t come together and figure it out.[Last fall, divisions in the Democratic Party stalled the $3.5 trillion domestic agenda.]I blame Joe Manchin for a lot of it. But, at the end of the day, he did seem willing to agree to a significant package that would have provided universal child care, that would have provided climate change and renewable energy incentive legislation — many things that now, as we look back, we’re not going to get. And that’s a wasted opportunity. And I think part of it is because there were some folks in Congress who felt stuck to their sort of perfect view of what it should be and were uncompromising.[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]So I’m not sure, to answer your question directly, that it is that there’s a particular policy that is out of step. I think it is more what’s out of step is a little bit what the objective is. And, for me, I’m going down there to get results and to find solutions.Kathleen Kingsbury: Eleanor? We lost Eleanor.[Eleanor rejoined this interview via Google Meet after getting a stable internet connection.]Kathleen Kingsbury: OK. We have a series of questions that are yes or no questions. If you could stick to yes or no, we’d appreciate it. Do you support expanding the Supreme Court?No. It’s anti-democratic.Kathleen Kingsbury: Do you support ending the filibuster?Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Should there be a term limit for members of Congress?I would support a term for members of Congress. Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: How about an age limit for members of Congress?I actually would support an age limit for every federal government employee.Kathleen Kingsbury: So that’s a yes, basically.Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Should Joe Biden run for a second term?Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Alex?Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask you about Ukraine. I know you support the war there. What I’d like to know is should there be an upper limit on the amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars that gets spent in that conflict? And how should we think about conditions that are attached to that money, if any?I would not put a limit on it because this, to me, is purely a fight between a democracy and an authoritarian regime. And we cannot give up on a Democratic nation that is a bulwark against an authoritarian regime. That has to be the central part of our foreign policy. It has been for a long time. And I think that in this particular case, where Ukraine became a democracy on its own, we need to support them.I think what we really need to do as well, which President Biden has done a really good job, is rally allies around the country to also pay into it, and to also help Ukraine so that the financial burden is not all on us.Nick Fox: What do you think are specific measures on climate change that Democrats should be prioritizing right now?Well, we talked about renewable energy. I strongly believe in incentives and subsidies to encourage private corporations to invest in renewable energy. I think our climate change issue is so significant that the government cannot solve it by itself. And so what the government should be doing is using its funding for incentivizing and subsidizing private corporations to also spend their own money. That’s one.Two is I think we need a lot more funding for electrification of mass transit. I support congestion pricing in New York City, and I would hope that the money that’s derived from that will go to electrifying buses and other transportation. And then, here in New York City, resiliency is a huge issue and making sure that we don’t suffer from another superstorm Sandy.Mara Gay: Yeah. I’m just going to shorten this question. Can you just name one further action that Congress can take to protect abortion rights?I have several. Now, other than repealing the Hyde Amendment and codifying Roe — which I of course support, but I think it’s not going to happen tomorrow — I’ll list them quickly for you since I know we’re trying to move. One is to pass a law preventing prosecution or other prohibition for anyone receiving medication abortion across state lines. Two is expanding funding to veterans hospitals and military bases to provide medical care, such as for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies or even I.V.F., which some state doctors will be concerned about.And three is to lease federal lands to medical providers or others that can provide services to women in the states where abortion is banned.Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: I’m curious, given your experience as prosecutor, what you think Congress should be doing to address the increasing threat of domestic terrorism.We need to make it very clear that domestic terrorism is terrorism. We need to redefine it as terrorism. And I know there are free speech issues on that, and I get and I understand both sides of it. But when the F.B.I. director says that domestic violent extremism is the No. 1 threat to our country, we have to take action.The other thing that I would do is — that I think in some ways is even more important — the most commonly charged international terrorism charge is material support of a terrorist organization. If we were able to declare the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys or some of these domestic groups as domestic terrorist organizations and we prohibited material support to them, we’d avoid a lot of the free speech issues.Mara Gay: Thank you. Quick pop quiz for you — how does Plan B work?Plan B is a over-the-counter medication that you would take to sort of prevent —Kathleen Kingsbury: Do you know how it medically works? How does it work in your body, in one’s body?How does it work in one’s body? I don’t … I don’t know.Mara Gay: It prevents ovulation.OK.Mara Gay: Do you own a gun?No.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?I have — no, only at riflery at camp [chuckles].Mara Gay: OK. What is the average age of a member of Congress?Oh, man. Congress or Senate?Mara Gay: Congress.I would say the average age of a member of Congress is … 52!Mara Gay: Fifty-eight. What’s the average age of a senator?I would say that is 68.Mara Gay: Sixty-four. Please name a member of Congress, dead or alive, who you most admire and would emulate if elected to serve.Well, it’s got to be Adam Schiff, who I worked hand-in-hand with and admire tremendously.Mara Gay: Thank you. And finally, what is your favorite restaurant in the district?Well, my favorite restaurant has morphed into my kids’ favorite restaurant, which is Bubby’s in TriBeCa. Somehow the mac and cheese with extra crusty topping is the dish that they need frequently.Mara Gay: I like the biscuits.The biscuits are amazing, too.Kathleen Kingsbury: You’re a former prosecutor and have never held elected office. You live in Manhattan, but the majority of the voters in this district are in Brooklyn. Can you talk a little bit about why you think you’re the best person to represent the district, and what your path to victory is?Sure. I have lived in the district for 16 years. I’m raising my five children in the district, a couple of whom have or still do go to school both in Brooklyn Heights and others in TriBeCa. So I’m very familiar with the entire district. I also worked in the district as a prosecutor in the Southern District, protecting the communities, supporting victims’ rights, and protecting and trying to make the community safe.But ultimately, I’m running for Congress because I think I have a unique set of skills and experience that meet the moment that we’re in. And I think we’re in a really different moment than we’ve been in with these threats to democracy that, you know, even under the George W. Bush administration we would have never imagined. I long for the days when we get back to arguing about policy and we’re not actually arguing about what the facts are or whether we have a democracy.But because I have been on the front lines leading the fight in Congress against Donald Trump and his Republican Party and trying to protect and defend our democracy and our institutions and our rule of law, I think that is a set of skills and experience right now that is really needed. In addition, I think my experience as an investigator in Congress is more uncommon than some other people’s experiences. And I think that both the New York delegation — which has some wonderful firebrands that are pushing that Overton window on policy — I think we in the New York delegation, but also around the country, could use someone who’s very experienced in the investigations and oversight role. And part of it is because I think we’re going to have to be creative and use investigations and oversight in order to get results.Patrick Healy: I mean, building on that, given that background and that role, though, how would you approach the challenge that some voters may see you as kind of narrow, as essentially an investigator going after Trump yet again, or that you wouldn’t necessarily be seen as someone advocating for the policy needs or the community needs in the district? That you’d be kind of a committee person driving at another prosecution of Trump or dealing with the Biden issues?Yeah. No, I understand the question. And I think part of the reason why I was framing it a little bit more broadly than Trump is because it wasn’t by accident that we proved the case against Trump. And we used different strategies, rather than going directly at them, to get the whistle-blower complaint and to get the July 25 transcript. We went around and had applied indirect pressure through other people in the administration.And the reason I cite that is that those same kind of strategies apply to all of these policy prerogatives and priorities that we have. We need to use that same kind of creative strategy, not necessarily to go after Trump, but to get the Republicans to come to the table. And so it is an attribute that I can bring that I think will help move the conversation forward.Another quick example — I want to investigate voter fraud. It doesn’t exist. And the Republicans have claimed to investigate it, but I want to expose the fact that it doesn’t exist with hearings. Because all of these state laws are based on the fiction that voter fraud exists. So I think it’s not just that I have a narrow view of investigations as to Trump. I actually want to expand the purpose of investigations and oversight into policy areas that we want to push forward.And I will say I have been, I’ve been a public servant my whole life. I have been committed to social justice, to criminal justice reform. I worked with Michelle Alexander on her book “The New Jim Crow.” That long precedes my role as a prosecutor or my role in impeachment. These are issues that I feel very passionate about. And I am really eager to represent the district and to push them forward and get results.Nick Fox: You haven’t used your wealth to your advantage in your campaign yet. But you’ve used the wealth of other people, particularly from real estate executives, including Steve Ross, a major Trump donor. These are the type of donors who’ve had an outsized influence in New York politics, often to the detriment of New York tenants. Is there no problem with taking that much money from real estate interests?I think there would only be a problem if for some reason I catered to anyone’s special interests. I think that is anathema to me. I will not do that. And I have had conversations with real estate developers where I have told them that I support real estate development but I think that developers themselves need to give back a lot more to the community.I’ll give you an example — 5 World Trade Center. I have come out very strongly in favor of it being 100 percent affordable housing, and not because the city should pay $500 million or $900 million to subsidize it. But the real estate company should be paying their fair share for the affordable housing, that some of this money should come off of all of the profits that they made from the entire World Trade Center. We can’t just look at it as one building. It’s an entire development.And that is one of the ways that I want to increase affordable housing — provide encouragement and incentives for developers to make enough money, but also require them to give a lot back. So I can assure you — look, the campaign finance system needs dramatic overhaul. We need public financing. I fully support that.Even in this race, we’ve got someone coming from another district with a war chest running here. We’ve got someone in the City Council who’s taking money from lobbyists and special interests before the city. The whole thing needs to just be revamped, and we need public financing. But I can assure you that a $2,900 or a $5,800 donation from any one individual is not going to influence anything that I do.Eleanor Randolph: We are sort of up against our time limit. But you told a local news outlet that you would not object to a state law banning abortion after the point of fetal viability, and in cases where there was no threat to the life of the woman and the fetus is viable. You later said that you misspoke and that you do not support restrictions on abortion. Which is it? And could you clarify your personal views and how you feel you would vote on some of these issues if you were a member of Congress?Absolutely. Thank you for asking the question. I’d love to clarify. I was in an interview where I was getting a series of lengthy hypothetical questions. And, frankly, the lawyer in me felt like I was back in law school with the Socratic method, and I started focusing in my mind on the legal standard that was outlined in Roe and that has been adopted by New York State and their Reproductive Health Act, and is also the standard in the Women’s Health Protection Act in Congress.What I realized soon after I answered that question is, wait a minute, I don’t think that’s what he was actually asking me. I think he was asking a much more normative question on what my views are on abortion. And my views on choice and abortion is that it is unequivocally 100 percent a woman’s right to choose. And the decision should be made solely by a woman and her doctor, and the government should have no role in that medical room to make a determination.Before we were talking about some of the different ways that I will fight to expand access to abortion. I listed three that I don’t need to repeat again. But I have been thinking about this intensively since Dobbs, and it is not enough just to say we’ve got to codify Roe, we have to repeal the Hyde Amendment.That’s not going to happen until we elect a lot more Democrats to Congress. So that needs to be an objective. It is to try to figure out a strategy to get more Democrats elected and perhaps to use choice as a wedge in some of these races. But I’ve been thinking very seriously and aggressively about how the federal government can increase access to abortion. So not only will I fight for it, but I will be very thoughtful and creative about it as I already have been.Mara Gay: Thanks. Really quickly — did you spend more than a few weeks outside of the district during the height of Covid in 2020?Yeah.Mara Gay: And if so, where?I was in the Hamptons from — well, I got Covid on March 10, very early. We went to the Hamptons. And then we came back in August, and then we’re in the city the rest of the year.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Carlina Rivera and Yuh-Line Niou Rise In Race for NY’s 10th District

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      Two months ago, the megawatt contest for a rare open House seat in New York City seemed destined to be shaped by one of a handful of nationally known candidates.There was the former New York City mayor, an ex-congresswoman, a former federal prosecutor who helped impeach Donald J. Trump, and even a sitting congressman from the exurbs.But with the Aug. 23 primary less than three weeks away, the contours of the race have been redefined. Two women with local bona fides but little national stature have surged toward the front of the pack, upending early conventional wisdom and scrambling the race.In recent public and internal polling for the Democratic primary, Carlina Rivera, a councilwoman from Manhattan, and Yuh-Line Niou, a Manhattan assemblywoman, are running neck-and-neck with the two well-resourced men considered heavyweights: Representative Mondaire Jones, a recent transplant to the district, and Daniel Goldman, the impeachment investigator, who has never held elective office.Ms. Rivera and Ms. Niou have one particularly compelling advantage: they already represent parts of the congressional district, and have proven bases of support among voters and Democratic groups in the area — a likely boon in a late-summer contest where voter turnout and interest are expected to be low.Ms. Niou, speaking at a recent candidates forum in Brooklyn, is backed by the Working Families Party.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesIndeed, in a brief canvas on Thursday of would-be voters in Ms. Rivera’s district on the Lower East Side, the vast majority said they were not following the race. Campaign signs were almost nonexistent — save a couple for Mr. Goldman.But Wilfredo Lopez, a 73-year-old resident walking by Hamilton Fish Park, was an exception. He said he was voting for Ms. Rivera because “she’s from the neighborhood and she’s for the neighborhood.”On the surface, Ms. Rivera and Ms. Niou have similarities; both are 30-something women of color with far-left roots.When she was first running for Council, Ms. Rivera, a 38-year-old Lower East Side native of Puerto Rican descent, was a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America; her campaign said that she attended only one meeting.New York’s 2022 ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.N.Y. Governor’s Race: This year, for the first time in over 75 years, the state ballot appears destined to offer only two choices: Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, and Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican. Here is why.10th Congressional District: Representative Mondaire Jones, a first-term Democratic congressman who faces a highly competitive race in the redrawn district, has won the endorsement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.11th Congressional District: Recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion and guns are complicating the re-election bid of Representative Nicole Malliotakis, New York City’s lone Republican House member.State Senate: New district maps are causing some incumbents to run in neighboring districts, forcing them to campaign in unfamiliar territory and contemplate new living arrangements.She has since tacked toward the center, resisting the anti-development predilections of the left and defining herself as a pragmatic progressive, as someone who gets things done.Ms. Rivera has nonetheless won the support of the progressive Brooklyn political establishment — the borough president, Antonio Reynoso; Nydia Velazquez, the congresswoman whose current district overlaps with the newly redistricted one; and several unions — even as she has also more aggressively courted the real estate sector.Ms. Rivera has been endorsed by Representative Nydia Velazquez, whose current district overlaps with the new contours of the 10th District in Brooklyn.Kirsten Luce for The New York TimesMs. Niou, 39, has never been a D.S.A, member, but has retained her far left posture, winning the support of left-leaning organizations like the Working Families Party and the Jewish Vote, the political arm of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice. Since she was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2016, Ms. Niou has focused on combating racial discrimination and sexual harassment. In the past six years, she has been the prime sponsor of 15 bills that became law, according to her campaign, including one establishing a toll-free hotline for complaints of workplace sexual harassment.During the tail end of Andrew Cuomo’s tenure as governor, Ms. Niou could sometimes be found sparring with him and his staff. After The New York Times reported on a $25,000-a-couple fund-raiser hosted by the governor during the legislative session, Ms. Niou and two colleagues held a news conference to express their outrage. Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman responded by calling her and her colleagues “[expletive] idiots.”During this race, Ms. Niou has assiduously courted the left-most flank of the Democratic Party, even expressing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — a decision that may cost her votes in a district with a substantial Jewish population.John Mollenkopf, a political science professor at the CUNY Graduate Center who analyzes voter data, estimates that at least 16 percent of the primary voters in the 10th Congressional District will have Jewish surnames. He said those voters might take issue with Ms. Niou’s B.D.S. stance, “partly because there are other quite acceptable candidates to center-left Jewish voters in the race.”Ms. Niou’s and Ms. Rivera’s national policy stances are similar: They both champion federal abortion rights; the Green New Deal plan advanced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and more liberal immigration and refugee policies.But at the local level, pronounced distinctions have emerged.Ms. Rivera staunchly backs the ongoing effort to tear down and then rebuild East River Park at a higher elevation, to make the neighborhoods it abuts less vulnerable to storms like Hurricane Sandy. Protesters booed Ms. Rivera for that stance at a recent environmental forum, but on Monday she won the backing of the forum’s host — the New York League of Conservation Voters.Ms. Niou took issue with the plan to make the area more resilient.Ms. Niou and Representative Mondaire Jones, embracing after the candidates forum, are among the more left-leaning contenders in the primary contest.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“The city and the way that the city operated raise a lot of questions for me,” Ms. Niou said.In the City Council, Ms. Rivera has acted as the first primary sponsor on 25 pieces of legislation that have become law, including a bill requiring restaurants give bathroom access to delivery workers.Ms. Rivera also supported a bid to build low-income senior housing in a wealthy neighborhood’s community garden, a project codeveloped by Habitat for Humanity. Ms. Niou sued to stop the development, alienating the former local councilwoman, Margaret Chin, who has endorsed Ms. Rivera instead.“I’m so disappointed in her,” Ms. Chin said of Ms. Niou.“Normally I would support an Asian woman, we need more representation, but in this case,” Ms. Chin said, trailing off.Ms. Rivera has also backed a bid to allow more density, including affordable housing, in the Manhattan neighborhoods of SoHo and NoHo, an initiative Ms. Niou says she had doubts about.This year’s unusually messy redistricting process fundamentally reshaped the 10th District. Where the district once stretched from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Bensonhurst Brooklyn, the new map makes it more compact, encompassing only Lower Manhattan and the northwest precincts of Brooklyn.Jerry Nadler, the congressman now representing the district, opted to run in the 12th District against a longtime colleague, Representative Carolyn Maloney, after his Upper West Side home base was moved there. The result was a rare open seat in the heart of New York City, and a political gold rush that drew a dozen or so candidates, including Mr. Jones, the congressman who currently represents Rockland County and parts of Westchester.Mr. Jones and Mr. Goldman are by far the race’s best-resourced candidates. At the end of June, Mr. Jones had $2.8 million to spend. Mr. Goldman had $1 million, though he also has a vast reservoir of personal wealth to draw from and told NY1 he intends to use it. He has up to $253 million in personal wealth, according to Bloomberg News.“I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and that is why I’ve committed my life to public service,” Mr. Goldman said in a statement. “I’m running for Congress to continue that service, to build a better future for all of our children, and to give everyone the opportunity to succeed.”His financial disclosures with the House, which cover an 18-month period ending June 30, indicate that he has a line of credit from Goldman Sachs worth up to $50 million, and hundreds of investments, including in weapons manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Company; in oil companies, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil; and even in Fox Corporation.A spokesman for Mr. Goldman said he will put his assets into a blind trust upon entering Congress, as he has done in the past, and that he has such a wide breadth of investments because his portfolio is structured to mirror the S&P 500. “How the hell can this guy claim to believe our democracy faces a five-alarm fire, and to care about public safety, when he’s got investments in Fox News and deadly gun manufacturers?” Mr. Jones said in a statement. (On Friday, after the article had published online, Mr. Goldman’s spokesman said that the former prosecutor no longer holds any stock in Sturm, Ruger and Company.)Even so, Mr. Goldman’s paid role as a legal analyst on MSNBC, and his time as an impeachment prosecutor have won him supporters, including Joan Manzioni, a 67-year-old restaurateur who on Thursday said she was considering voting for Mr. Goldman or Ms. Holtzman.Mr. Goldman and Mr. Jones are the only two candidates with television ads, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm. As of Thursday, Mr. Goldman had spent $2.2 million on television, while Mr. Jones had spent $684,000.The third presumed heavyweight, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, dropped out of the race in July, citing his inability to sway voters. Elizabeth Holtzman, the former congresswoman, is doing better than expected in some of the polls, but is far behind in fund-raising and is combating doubts about her age, 80.Ms. Rivera trails two Democratic rivals in fund-raising, but has $150,000 more than Ms. Niou.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAs of late June, Ms. Niou had $202,000 on hand; Ms. Rivera had $354,000. In an effort to compete financially with Mr. Jones and Mr. Goldman, Ms. Rivera has raised money from major developers, including the CEO of Two Trees, which is based in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo. In recent weeks, she has reached out to at least two other executives in the real estate industry for donations, according to recipients of her outreach.And, in apparent expectation of super PAC support, she has also put a so-called “red box” on her website, which candidates use to communicate indirectly with super PACs. More

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      How Many N.Y. Democrats Does It Take to Fill a House Seat? Try 15.

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      A congressman, an ex-congresswoman, an ex-mayor, a Trump prosecutor and several state and city officials are eyeing an open congressional seat in New York City.Beneath a maple tree by a red brick elementary school in Brooklyn, a lanky, recognizable figure lingered on a recent morning, hoping to catch the attention of moms, dads, the custodial worker mowing the lawn.“Registered Democrat?” asked Bill de Blasio, the former two-term mayor of New York City, as he cajoled potential voters to help him get back in the game.Mr. de Blasio, who once believed he could be elected president, has now set his sights lower, aiming to represent a newly redrawn House district in New York City. But he is far from alone.Others contesting the seat include a Levi Strauss heir who helped impeach Donald J. Trump; rising stars from the City Council and State Assembly; a Chinese American activist involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; and a pathbreaking liberal who was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — 50 years ago.There is also a sitting congressman currently representing a suburban region, who only recently moved into the district. Exactly when, he couldn’t say.“Time is a blur,” said the congressman, Mondaire Jones, pivoting away from questions about his new residency, “when you’re fighting to end gun violence in America.”Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do politicians. So when New York’s redistricting fiasco last month unexpectedly opened up a House seat in a safely Democratic area, stretching from Lower Manhattan through much of brownstone Brooklyn, the political floodgates opened wide.A total of 15 Democrats, representing a broad range of ages and backgrounds, have taken steps to enter a summertime primary that may prove to be one of the largest and most freewheeling in the nation.“It’s like a sweepstakes contest,” said Steven M. Cohen, a longtime government official and frequent donor from the district who said he has been inundated with fund-raising requests. “Everyone can potentially be a winner, no purchase necessary.”Bill de Blasio hopes his name recognition as the former mayor of New York City will carry him to victory in the race.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesThe candidates only have until Aug. 23 to win the sympathies of primary voters who represent some of New York’s most politically engaged and diverse neighborhoods: Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Chinatown, Park Slope, Sunset Park and even parts of Borough Park, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish stronghold.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.The Mapmaker: A postdoctoral fellow and former bartender redrew New York’s congressional map, reshaping several House districts and scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.The result is not so much a contest of ideas — almost every major candidate has condemned threats to abortion rights and bemoaned the lack of strict limits on guns — as of brute force, blunt ambition and identity politics.“Let me start by saying this: I fear no man,” said Mr. Jones, the sitting congressman who decided to try his hand in the reconstituted 10th District, rather than run for re-election in the 17th District or contest the neighboring one to the south. Either option would involve competing against a House incumbent.Mr. Jones did not have to move to Brooklyn to run for the seat; House candidates must live in the state they represent, but not the district. Mr. Jones, who grew up in Rockland County, contended that his status as a newcomer was irrelevant. He suggested that he is sufficiently tied to the district by virtue of his time living elsewhere in the city and socializing in Greenwich Village, as a young gay man of color trying to discover his “authentic self.”In any case, he said, regular voters care more about what a congressional candidate has done and whether he can fight for their interests rather than where he hails from or when he moved. (A spokesman later clarified that the move occurred June 6.)“Harping over the length of someone’s residency in a district and lines that were just drawn a few weeks ago is something that the political class, including many journalists, give outsize weight to,” Mr. Jones said.Jo Anne Simon, a former disability rights lawyer who currently represents parts of the district as a state assemblywoman in Brooklyn, adamantly disagreed as she pitched her own candidacy.State Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon’s district in Brooklyn is part of the newly redrawn 10th Congressional District.Hans Pennink/Associated Press“People vote for people that they know, that they trust and they have reason to know show up,” said Ms. Simon, referencing her decades of activism on local issues like pollution from the Gowanus Expressway. “Nobody here has voted for Mondaire Jones.”Then again, in such a crowded race, there may be no such thing as home-field advantage.Take Carlina Rivera, a city councilwoman who lives just outside of the district, and Yuh-Line Niou, another state assemblywoman. Both are up-and-coming progressive women of color representing parts of Lower Manhattan and could end up cannibalizing each other’s base of support.Ms. Niou said she had more than 600 volunteers eager to carry petitions for her. Ms. Rivera on Friday won the endorsement of Representative Nydia Velázquez, who currently represents much of the new district and is expected to wield substantial sway among voters. She is expected to win re-election in a neighboring redrawn district covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens.Carlina Rivera, a New York City councilwoman.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesYuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesThey, in turn, will face off against a progressive rising star from another era, Elizabeth Holtzman, spurred to re-enter the arena by the threat to abortion rights.In 1972, Ms. Holtzman became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, when she defeated a 50-year incumbent at age 31. Now, at age 80, she is trying to become the oldest non-incumbent elected to the House of Representatives in history.In between, she had a trailblazing career as the first woman elected district attorney in Brooklyn and as New York City comptroller, racking up experience that she argues positions her to make an immediate impact in Washington. Still, she has not held elected office since 1993, when several of her competitors were in elementary school.“Somebody said to me, your slogan should be something like ‘Google me,’” Ms. Holtzman said.Former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman.David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesMs. Holtzman, in 1974, with President Gerald Ford.Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesThe Chinese American activist, Yan Xiong, who after his role in Tiananmen went on to become a chaplain for the U.S. Army and now believes he can attract a significant number of votes from large Asian populations in Manhattan’s Chinatown and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park.Voters can be forgiven for being overwhelmed. There was not even supposed to be a primary race in New York’s 10th District until a court-appointed expert so thoroughly scrambled New York City’s congressional map in May that the technical incumbent, Representative Jerrold Nadler, decided to run in the 12th District in Manhattan instead.That decision set him on a collision course with a longtime ally, Representative Carolyn Maloney, but it also left a rare open seat in Manhattan and Brooklyn — political gold to which no one had a rightful claim.“Anyone who tells you that they know what’s going to happen in this race, or that there is an obvious outcome, is lying to you and themselves,” said Chris Coffey, the chief executive of Tusk Strategies, who is unaffiliated in the race.Mr. de Blasio has his claim. He enters the race with near universal name recognition, years of electoral successes and some policy triumphs too — most notably, universal prekindergarten. But Mr. de Blasio does not have a fund-raising advantage. That belongs to two other candidates.As of March 31, Mr. Jones had $2.9 million on hand — a huge sum in a race so short it will make fund-raising difficult. Last week, he dropped his first in an expected deluge of television advertising, a placement of at least $169,000, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm.Daniel Goldman, the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of Mr. Trump, and a frequent legal analyst for MSNBC, is running on his record fighting for democracy and public safety.He is also a former federal prosecutor who spent a decade working in the Southern District of New York, a lesser-known part of his résumé that may help him stand out with voters as the city confronts what Mr. Goldman called “the biggest public safety crisis in decades.”“The core experiences of my professional career, which has been devoted entirely to public service, happen to be very timely for the circumstances we are in now,” he said in an interview.Daniel Goldman served as the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesStill, he is a relative newcomer to electoral politics and starts the abbreviated race with few of the institutional relationships other candidates will draw on. To try to make up the difference, Mr. Goldman, the Levi Strauss heir who rents a Tribeca apartment listed for sale for $22 million, said he was prepared to “put some of my own money into this to level the playing field.”But given the timing of the contest, and its brevity, the race is also widely expected to turn on get-out-the-vote efforts, which may help candidates like Ms. Niou.“Field is the most important thing,” she said. “We’re running against folks with 100 percent name recognition.”Labor unions and outside political groups could also help turn the race. The retail workers union has endorsed Mr. Jones. Aspire PAC, an outgrowth of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Members of Congress, has been reviewing candidates and will make a decision soon, according to Grace Meng, the Queens congresswoman and PAC chair. It remains unclear if other unions will engage.It is also difficult to gauge how many voters will be in the district in late August, when the city gets torrid and all those who can, leave town. Matthew Rey, a prominent Democratic consultant who is unaffiliated with any of the campaigns, estimated voter turnout could be between just 70,000 and 90,000 in a district of 776,000 residents.The other Democratic candidates are Brian Robinson, John Herron, Maud Maron, Peter J. Gleason, Quanda Francis, Laura Thomas and Jimmy Li.Given the overcrowded field and the late summer election date, the race is hard to pin down.Last week, after dropping off his two children at school in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, Nicholas McDermott said he would absolutely consider voting for Mr. de Blasio.“I think it’s great to have someone with experience who’s from the area,” Mr. McDermott said.He was less certain if he would be around in August to vote.“That’s a good question,” he said. More