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Reps. Ocasio-Cortez and Goldman face primary challengers. Who are they?
By
Brigid Bergin
Published May 23, 2024
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By
Brigid Bergin
Published May 23, 2024
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The run-up to next month’s state and federal primary elections has been dominated by the fight for the Democratic nomination in the 16th Congressional District as Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer notch headlines over endorsements, multimillion-dollar fundraising and the candidates’ views on the Israel-Hamas war.
But two other congressional incumbents representing parts of New York City are also facing primary opponents: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose 14th Congressional District includes neighborhoods in northwestern Queens and the eastern Bronx, and first-term Rep. Dan Goldman, whose 10th Congressional District includes Lower Manhattan and much of the Brooklyn waterfront.
While these races lack the Bowman-Latimer matchup's competitive gusto — both Ocasio-Cortez and Goldman are far outpacing their respective challengers’ fundraising by millions of dollars — low turnout primary elections mean a well-organized challenger could score an unexpected result.
And in these two heavily Democratic districts, the winner of the June 25 primary will likely head to Washington, D.C., after the November general election.
Here’s an introduction to the candidates running against incumbents in the 14th and 10th Congressional Districts.
New York's 14th District
In this district straddling Queens and the Bronx, registered Democrats will choose between Martin W. Dolan and Ocasio-Cortez.
Dolan, 66, has worked for decades in financial services, with a focus on risk insurance, he told Gothamist in an interview.
While the New York City Board of Elections lists his address as in Dobbs Ferry in Westchester County, outside of the boundaries of the 14th Congressional District, Dolan said he moved to an apartment in Astoria for this race. Congressional candidates do not need to live in the district they seek to represent — they just need to live in the same state — but it can become a campaign issue if they live outside the district.
Dolan said that although he considered running against Bowman, he instead opted to take on Ocasio-Cortez when Latimer jumped into the 16th Congressional District race. Dolan said both incumbents are not the right representatives for their districts.
“The issue is not Jamaal Bowman or AOC, the issue is radicalism,” he said. “America has to decide after, let’s call it five years or six years of radical influence on the Democratic Party, whether that’s a good thing or whether they’ve had enough.”
When asked to explain his definition of “radicalism," Dolan cited Ocasio-Cortez’s support for New York City’s sanctuary status for immigrants and her opposition to Amazon's plans to build a corporate outpost in Long Island City in 2019. He said such positions put her at odds with large numbers of voters in the district.
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign cited her repeated re-election victories, noting that she won by more than 70 points in 2020 and 2022. “Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has a strong mandate from the Bronx and Queens to fight for a better world,” campaign spokesperson Diego de la Vega said. “The investment banker millionaire running out of Dobbs Ferry does not.”
The latest campaign finance filings show Dolan has not yet secured much financial support for his bid. He raised about $17,000, loaned his campaign $225,000 and had roughly $20,000 in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings through the end of March. Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez raised more than $6.6 million and had more than $6 million in cash on hand.
That fundraising gap isn’t enough to dissuade Dolan from continuing his campaign. He said he plans to visit local grocery stores and subway stations to engage voters, and added that he has a van that allows him to travel easily around the district. He said he would keep engaging voters in that way if he wins the 2024 election.
“We're going to set up a van in Queens and a van in the Bronx and just go around and make sure that we're connected to the voters,” Dolan said. “People call it the Scooby-Doo van. We didn’t expect to get that reaction, but we’ll take it.”
New York's 10th District
Democrats in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn will see the names of Bruno Grandsard and Evan Hutchison on the ballot, along with Goldman's.
Grandsard, 59, is a Park Slope business consultant who specializes in how to combat climate change, according to his campaign website. After volunteering for other Democratic campaigns, including those of President Joe Biden and Sens. John Fetterman and Raphael Warnock, Grandsard said he was frustrated that there was no return to “normalcy” in politics.
His experience led him to conclude that there was a structural problem with politics, starting with the party primaries, he added. “Primaries are too narrow, very few people vote,” Grandsard said.
When he realized that Goldman was unlikely to face a challenger this year, Grandsard said he decided that he needed to step up and run himself. He said climate policy and reforming the current political system, such as by reducing money in politics and making elections more accessible and competitive, are among his top issues.
Two Democrats are vying to challenge the freshman lawmaker.
Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Grandsard said he walked every street in the district beginning in January to speak with voters and hear their complaints about the incumbent. “Dan Goldman's all about ‘Trump, Trump, Trump,'" he said, arguing that Goldman overplays the threat of the former president in a deep-blue district like the 10th Congressional District. “If all we do is talk about Trump and don't actually try to change our local democracy, it appears hypocritical to a lot of swing voters in swing states.”
Hutchison, 46, currently lives outside the district, in Bushwick, and is a progressive political organizer. He said he is running in the primary to push for “a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and peace in Palestine and Israel.”
Goldman has not done enough to stand up to the Israeli government, according to Hutchison, who also had harsh words for Grandsard. “He claims to be for open government and access in primaries, but he spent tens of thousands of dollars suing me to try and knock me off the ballot and took me to the appellate court,” Hutchison said. “I would say he’s a hypocrite.”
Neither of Goldman's challengers are mounting any serious fundraising, according to the most recent FEC filings. Grandsard posted no fundraising, while Hutchison raised just enough to pay for people to gather petition signatures and cover legal fees for his campaign. Both candidates said they plan to raise more in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Goldman raised $2.5 million and had $1.4 million in cash on hand. A spokesperson for his campaign said Goldman remains focused on delivering for the people of the 10th Congressional District and retaking Democratic control of the U.S. House in November.
“The path to a Democratic majority runs straight through New York,” spokesperson Madison Andrus said. “And Congressman Goldman will do everything he can to make his neighbor Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House, so we can deliver for our communities by fixing public housing and building affordable housing, fully expanding the Child Tax Credit, investing in renewable energy, passing meaningful gun safety legislation, and protecting reproductive freedom for all.”
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Politics
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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