Progressives rout Mayor Adams-endorsed centrist Dems in NYC state Senate races
Mayor Adams’ endorsement record took a beating this week as three centrist Democratic state Senate candidates he threw his weight behind lost their primary races against left-wing progressives critical of Hizzoner’s policies on public safety and other hot-button issues.
The most significant defeat of an Adams-backed state Senate hopeful came in the new 59th District, which had no incumbent due to this spring’s chaotic redistricting process.
Kristen Gonzalez, a political novice endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, drubbed ex-City Council member Elizabeth Crowley by nearly 6,000 votes in the open district’s primary Tuesday night, according to Board of Elections returns. Gonzalez’s win came in spite of the fact that Crowley netted an endorsement from Adams and was bolstered by supportive independent expenditure groups tied to real estate interests that shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars on her race.
“We didn’t just prove that socialists can win, but that our movement is undoubtedly growing,” Gonzalez, whose district includes parts of western Queens and Brooklyn as well as a chunk of Manhattan’s East Side, said in a statement Wednesday.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (Andrew Harnik/)
Adams campaign adviser Evan Thies downplayed the significance of the mayor’s spotty endorsement record in Tuesday’s elections and blamed the results on low turnout.
“Five of the eight Senate candidates the mayor endorsed won,” Thies said. “When New Yorkers come out to vote, they elect moderate candidates like the mayor. He follows his conscience in who he supports — and will every time. The lesson of this very low turnout election is something all should agree on: We have to motivate voters to get out and vote.”
Three of the five winning candidates referenced by Thies are incumbents, and most of them did not face especially competitive primaries. Brooklyn state Sen. Kevin Parker, one of the Adams-backed incumbents who did face a competitive primary, defeated his democratic socialist challenger, David Alexis, by a relatively narrow margin of 1,435 ballots, according to the Board of Elections.
Another district where an Adams-backed candidate lost was in Brooklyn’s 25th, which covers Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sunset Park and other Brooklyn neighborhoods. There, democratic socialist state Sen. Jabari Brisport handily defeated the Rev. Conrad Tillard, a controversial former Nation of Islam member who earned Adams’ endorsement despite a history of bigoted rhetoric about Jews, women and LGBTQ people.
According to Board of Elections tallies, Brisport crushed Tillard by 9,255 votes — a 55% margin.
Kristen Gonzalez (left) and Elizabeth Crowley
On the other side of town, another lefty incumbent, Bronx state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, beat Miguelina Camilo, a lawyer endorsed by Adams and the borough’s Democratic Party, in the Boogie Down’s 33rd District.
In addition to endorsing Camilo, Adams held a fund-raiser for her at Midtown restaurant Osteria La Baia last week, and, though the margin was tight, her loss marked a stain on his political record.
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Camille Rivera, a political strategist in the city who worked on state Sen. Rivera’s campaign, argued Adams could have difficulty advancing his agenda in Albany going forward, as legislators question why he expended political capital this summer to boost candidates who tried to oust them or their colleagues.
“He needs to really reset and get out of this bubble that he has been in and go back into these communities and listen to what the people are saying,” she said. “I think he has time to repair and make amends, but I think he needs to start to rebuild his relationships with these senators. You can’t just do politics with a bulldozer.”
State Sen. Jabari Brisport (left) and Rev. Conrad Tillard
Adams has picked fights with his party’s left flank at an increasing clip in recent months, while lamenting progressive Albany lawmakers’ refusal to heed his calls for stricter bail and criminal justice laws. In June’s Assembly primaries, Adams also endorsed a flurry of centrist candidates, though his favored picks fared better that time around.
Ken Frydman, a veteran political consultant who used to work for ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said that if he was advising Adams, he would urge him against offering any more state legislative endorsements for the foreseeable future.
“In your first two years as mayor, I would not roll the dice on risky races,” he said. “I think he’s emboldening the left unintentionally.”
