Brad Lander, the outgoing comptroller of New York Metropolis, introduced Wednesday that he’s working for Congress, difficult U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman in a Democratic main for a liberal district in decrease Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn.
Lander, a progressive ally of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, launched his marketing campaign in a video and social media posts, promising to supply “courageous leadership in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on New Yorkers.”
“At a moment of dark oppression, we can shine by fighting back together,” he mentioned. “While the oligarchy drives an affordability crisis, they shouldn’t be able to buy a seat in Congress. While our immigrant neighbors are being demonized and attacked, we can put our bodies on the line to protect them,” mentioned Lander within the video.
He additionally evoked the late kids’s TV host Fred Rogers in his video, singing “Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”
“I know it’s corny, but I love the idea that democracy is just neighbors working together to make our lives in common better,” mentioned Lander, who scheduled a public speech about his marketing campaign Wednesday night close to his house in Brooklyn.
Lander has been eyeing a problem to Goldman since he misplaced the Democratic mayoral main to Mamdani this summer season.
In his endorsement, Mamdani praised Lander’s “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 added.
Each Lander and Goldman have been vocal critics of the federal authorities’s deportation agenda, showing at a high-profile immigration courtroom in Manhattan to watch proceedings over the past a number of months.
Lander was arrested there twice and faces a misdemeanor obstruction cost stemming from one of many incidents.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders additionally endorsed Lander.
“Brad Lander is a relentless fighter for working people,” mentioned Sanders, an unbiased who caucuses with Democrats. “He’s spent the past two decades taking on big corporations, winning better wages and fair working conditions for New Yorkers, including major victories for fast food workers, delivery workers, and tenants.”
Goldman, a two-term congressman and inheritor to the Levi Strauss denim fortune, is a former federal prosecutor who was lead counsel for Trump’s first impeachment. He’s thought of a average Democrat, although he has supported elevating taxes on rich folks in addition to the Inexperienced New Deal local weather change proposal.
An e-mail in search of remark was despatched to Goldman’s marketing campaign.
Lander, who can be a former metropolis council member, will go away workplace as comptroller subsequent 12 months after deciding to not search reelection.
Lander and Mamdani endorsed each other in the course of the mayoral main in an effort, as a part of town’s ranked alternative voting system, to affix forces in opposition to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who on the time was the front-runner.
The partnership appeared to assist them each. Mamdani’s assist boosted Lander among the many progressive base, whereas the backing of a high-profile Jewish candidate helped Mamdani as he confronted assaults over his criticism of the Israeli authorities’s navy actions in Gaza.
Related Press author Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
