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NYC Local News: Israel Becomes Focus of Brad Lander’s Challenge to Daniel Goldman for Congress in New York's 10th District in 2025 Election
Left Clears Lane for Brad Lander’s Challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman
In a video announcement, Lander accused the NY-10 incumbent of “doing AIPAC’s bidding” as he quickly cleared the field with the support of mayor-elect Zorhan Mamdani.
The left wing of the party quickly fell in line behind Lander in an attempt to unify against centrist incumbent Goldman, with Lander’s announcement quickly followed by the endorsement of the Working Families Party, and with City Council member Alexa Avilés, another potential progressive Goldman challenger, swiftly pulling her candidacy.
“The challenges we face can’t be solved with strongly worded letters or high dollar fundraisers, and not by doing AIPAC’s bidding,” Lander said, in a video announcement released Wednesday morning. “While the oligarchy drives an affordability crisis, they shouldn't be able to buy a seat in Congress.”
Both statements are knocks at Goldman, whose seat in New York’s 10th Congressional District spans Lower Manhattan up until around 14th Street and stretching into Brooklyn from Carroll Gardens through Park Slope into Sunset Park.
Maddy Rosen, a spokesperson for Goldman’s campaign, pushed back on Lander’s charges and said Goldman “is focused on stopping the Trump administration from what they're doing to immigrant families in his district right now,” and is “proud of his progressive record in Congress and will deal with Brad and other challengers in the new year."
Goldman, a former Trump impeachment prosecutor and heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, first won his seat in 2022, narrowly beating progressive candidate Yuh-Line Niou in the Democratic primary after sinking $4 million of his own money into the race. Besides Goldman, City Council Member Carlina Rivera and former congressmember Mondaire Jones were also in the race, effectively fracturing the left-wing of the party.
The Congressional race is all but certain to be decided in a most-votes-wins Democratic primary. With that in mind, Niou tweeted on Wednesday that she had reluctantly decided not to run this year to avoid Goldman again prevailing over a crowded field of more progressive challengers.
The Working Families Party also released a statement on Wednesday backing Lander.
“We are extremely proud to endorse his campaign for Congress in NY-10, because we know he will represent New Yorkers with the same moral courage and determination that he has demonstrated throughout his time in public office,” Ana María Archila and Jasmine Gripper, the Co-Directors of the party, wrote in a statement.
Goldman, who received $194,350 from AIPAC members in the previous election cycle, called the situation in Gaza a “humanitarian catastrophe” this summer but has largely continued to voice his support for Israel even as the death toll in Gaza now tops 69,000, though a fragile ceasefire was declared in October.
Both Lander and Goldman are Jewish and call themselves Zionists, but Lander has aligned himself with the progressive left wing of the party that’s been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has become a litmus test in the Democratic party since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel’s two-year-long war in Gaza that followed.
In the buildup to next year’s elections, many of those Democrats have announced that they would not take money from AIPAC, a potent pro-Israel lobbying group, even as critics of that decision in both parties have charged that doing so fuels antisemitism by singling out Jewish money and speech as somehow nefarious.
Lander, a former City Councilmember, has served as the New York City Comptroller since 2022. Earlier this year, he gave up on a second term in that office to make an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for mayor, ultimately cross-endorsing Mamdani in the Democratic Primary.
Mamdani, who won only about 30% of the Jewish vote citywide in the general election according to a CNN exit poll, is in turn backing Lander’s Congressional challenge , the New York Times first reported, calling him a “true leader” with “unwavering principles, deep knowledge and sincere empathy.”
“He has been a trusted ally and partner of mine and I’m proud to support him as I know he’ll continue delivering for those who need government to show up for them the most,” Mamdani wrote in a statement.
Lander had been reportedly seeking the high ranking post offirst deputy mayor, in the Mamdani administration, though the mayor-elect ultimately went with the more seasoned Dean Fuleihan, who previously served as former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first deputy mayor.
This is the second Congressional race the mayor-elect, who ran on a platform blasting when he called Israel’s genocide in Gaza, has become involved in.. After his private attempts to discourage Council member Chi Ossé from challenging House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries for his Congressional seat in Brooklyn fell short, in another potential primary run centered on AIPAC, Mamdani publicly urged local DSA members not to support Ossé’s bid and, after they voted narrowly against doing so, Ossé dropped his nascent campaign.
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