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Two NYC councilmembers battle in South Brooklyn over a new Council seat
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Giulia Heyward
Published Oct 22, 2023
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By
Giulia Heyward
Published Oct 22, 2023
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Recent redistricting has made for a chaotic election year in the City Council. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in South Brooklyn’s contest between two sitting councilmembers: Democrat Justin Brannan and Republican Ari Kagan, a former Democrat who switched parties last December after electoral maps were redrawn.
Like all current members of the Council, both men were elected to an abbreviated two-year term in 2021 due to post-Census redistricting. The newly drawn 47th District includes territory from each of their old districts and represents one of the more politically mixed sections of the city, where voters split closely between the Democratic and Republican candidates in the 2021 mayoral and 2022 governor’s races.
Voter turnout, which was crucial in those contests, will also be key in this one, with the general election scheduled for Nov. 7. And the fact that both Brannan and Kagan have incumbency advantages, including name recognition and political connections, makes the race tricky to forecast.
“To have to run against someone who has actually won the same office, it’s very daunting,” said Carolyn Abott, an assistant political science professor at Baruch College. “Even if you think that you have an advantage, in this new district you have to beat someone who has already won an election.”
The new district includes Bay Ridge, Coney Island and parts of Bath Beach. Most of its registered voters are Democrats, but a “red wave” in the area in last year’s elections has left some observers wondering if Democratic candidates remain vulnerable there.
As of 2021, the district had more than 173,000 residents, including more than 53,000 Democrats, 16,000 Republicans and 23,000 independents, according to an analysis by the Center for Urban Research at CUNY’s Graduate Center. It is racially diverse, though after redistricting, the number of Asian residents decreased while the white, Hispanic and Black populations increased.
In interviews with Gothamist, both Kagan and Brannan expressed confidence about winning the election and said the other candidate barely stood a chance.
“He is an incumbent, but he really hasn’t done anything,” Brannan, a former punk rocker from Brooklyn, said of Kagan. Brannan chairs the Council’s finance committee and ran unopposed in the Democratic primary in June.
Kagan, a former journalist who immigrated to the city from Belarus in 1993 and beat two other Republicans in his party’s primary, said South Brooklyn residents have grown dissatisfied with Brannan due to concerns over public safety and the migrant crisis. He said he and Brannan have “opposite views” on nearly every issue.
“People are sick and tired of what’s going on in this city and they are blaming progressives, like Brannan, for what’s going on,” Kagan added.
While the neighborhoods in the new 47th District have historically elected Democratic councilmembers, Kagan may benefit from what Abott said was a rightward shift among the area’s immigrant and working-class communities in recent years. Should he win the race, it would be a boon for the Council’s small conservative faction. Kagan is part of the eight-person, right-leaning Common Sense Caucus, which is aiming to become a more influential voting bloc in the chamber.
But he is new to the Republican Party, and ran as a Democrat when he won his Council seat in the last election. His switch in party affiliation occurred shortly after the new district lines were approved, causing some to question his motives and leading him to relinquish his chairship of a Council committee after the Council speaker, a Democrat, indicated he might be ousted from it.
Kagan told Gothamist he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party mainly over public safety issues and suggested other voters have as well. Recent polling has shown that many New York City voters are worried about crime and the ongoing migrant crisis, with most local respondents describing those issues as “very serious” problems in two surveys this year.
“Many of my supporters are disillusioned Democrats,” he said. “You cannot win this race only with Republicans.”
The race has attracted significant money, with Kagan and Brannan each having raised more than $340,000 in contributions and public matching funds to date, according to data from the city’s Campaign Finance Board. (Brannan has raised over $100,000 more than Kagan in private donations.) But as of early this month, Kagan had much less cash on hand than Brannan: about $85,000, compared to $133,000.
During a recent debate on the “Max Politics” podcast, hosted by former Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max, Brannan accused Kagan of switching parties “because he knew he didn’t have a shot at beating me as a Democrat.”
“He was a Democrat just a couple of months ago, a Democrat his entire life,” Brannan said.
Abott, of Baruch College, said Kagan could be seeking to capitalize on New Yorkers’ anxieties about a host of issues, including the migrant influx, crime rates and changes in public education.
“A lot of people are going to be very confused to see the Republican label next to Kagan’s name,” she said.
Still, Kagan’s party switch doesn’t seem to faze some South Brooklynites, according to interviews with district residents last week.
Carl Caltabiano, a retiree who identifies as an independent, said he wasn’t “too happy with Democrats right now” but was still deciding which candidate to vote for. He said crime is his biggest concern.
Nusrat Tahara told Gothamist she wouldn’t vote for Kagan, as she wasn’t impressed by his record in the district so far.
“I already decided to give my vote to Justin Brannan,” she said. “I think he’s better than Kagan, generally,” she said.
Gus Neamonitis, a Republican who’s lived in the area for more than five decades, said he would vote for Kagan to support his party. He also said he disagrees with how the city is handling the migrant crisis.
“[The migrants] should be vetted,” Neamonitis said. “And they should criticize the Biden administration for not making the border more safe.”
Tensions in the race are ramping up as Election Day draws nearer and both candidates trade barbs over social media and in campaign communications. Kagan has issued several pointed criticisms of Brannan’s response to the migrant crisis, while Brannan has publicly challenged Kagan’s credibility.
The exchanges echo those between Brannan and his last Republican opponent, Brian Fox, whose campaign blanketed Bay Ridge with law-and-order-focused signs in 2021. Brannan narrowly beat Fox by several hundred votes, though in a different district from the one he’s competing in now.
Abott warned that unfriendly interactions between Brannan’s and Kagan’s campaigns could alienate voters whose support they’ll need to win.
“They have to walk this fine line between attracting the voters who are still a part of this district, the voters that they had before, and also showing the new voters, who are coming from a different part of the old district, why those voters should vote for them now,” she said.
And if the words the pair exchanged during their debate on “Max Politics” are any indication, the next couple weeks are likely to remain contentious.
Max, the podcast’s host and moderator of the debate, routinely stopped Brannan and Kagan from interrupting one another.
At one point, Kagan said Brannan has been “playing political games” during his Council term and claimed that he himself – unlike Brannan – is “not afraid to talk to constituents in my district.”
“Ari Kagan, I think, has one of the easiest jobs right now,” Brannan said in turn. “All he has to do is point at stuff and say, ‘that’s a problem. I don’t like it. Justin Brannan sucks.’”
Tagged
Politics
City Council
brooklyn
elections
Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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