How 2 Downtown City Council Races are Shaping Up As they Head into the Home Stretch

Manhattan City Council District 1: the Financial District, Tribeca, Chinatown, Battery Park City, SoHo, and portions of the Lower East Side.

Given the built-in advantage that incumbents enjoy, Christopher Marte would have to be considered the favorite in the District 1 Democratic primary, especially off his landslide win in the general election two years ago. With early voting set to start June 14, ahead of the June 24 primary, a trio of challengers have qualified to get on the ballot and they are trying to stake out special-interest positions to try to unseat him.

Marte, who formerly worked in the financial world, is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and a lifelong resident of the Lower East Side. He’s been endorsed by the Working Families Party and has emerged as the top fundraiser, pegging issues such as housing as key. He’s also made ending the 24-hour wor day for home health aides a pet project, based on the long hours his own mother put in while he was growing up.

He is facing off against three challengers: lifelong Lower East Sider and lawyer Jess Coleman, MTA expense analyst and former USMC Reservist Eric Yu, and Elizabeth Lewinsohn, a former NYPD counterterrorism policy chief who spent 12 years on Community Board 1. She’s been endorsed by the person who held the seat before Marte, Margaret Chin. [Chin won a narrow 200-vote victory over Marte in 2019, but when she was term-limited two years later, Marte won decisively in a crowded field.]

Yu is pushing quality-of-life issues and wants more police as well as more mental-health social services. One key difference with Marte: Yu wants congestion pricing repealed entirely.

Coleman coached Little League and wrote for the Tribeca Tribune. He calls affordable housing a right, not a luxury. He’s a supporter of congestion pricing as a way to reduce traffic and fund subway and bus improvements.

Coleman entered the race after Marte voted against City of Yes initiative pushed by Mayor Eric Adams and passed by the Council. Marte said he felt the program undermines the strong advocacy role of community boards, while giving too much leeway to real estate developers and not enough to working-class people. Marte supports congestion pricing as a concept, but said it was unfair not to make a carve-out from the $9 toll for residents who live within the zone below 60th Street.

Marte, with over $267,000 in his campaign war chest, is the top fundraiser, but Coleman is not far behind with $242,600, according to the latest numbers from the Campaign Finance Board. Lewinsohn has raised $142,300, and Yu has $48,300.

District 2: Greenwich Village, Lower East Side, East Village, Midtown South, Flatiron, Union Square, Gramercy, and Murray Hill/Kips Bay

Carlina Rivera is term-limited, and that has attracted a wide open field of competitors in the District 2 Democratic primary race. The field includes: Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former Congressman and two-time mayoral candidate, who is attempting a political comeback after spending 18 months in prison for sexting a 15-year-old minor. He was formerly married to Huma Abedin, who was a close political adviser to Hillary Clinton. He has said he has undergone addiction counseling and considers his debt to society paid. He has said his past political experience on the state and federal level will help him on the local level.

Also running is Harvey Epstein, who ran unopposed in his reelection bid to the New York State Assembly last year and is now opting to stay closer to home in his new election bid. He spent 14 years on Community Board 3 and was a tenant representative on the Rent Guidelines Board. Epstein has picked up several big union endorsements, including from 1199 SEIU and DC 37.

Sarah Batchu, a former vice chair of Community Board 3, worked for former Mayor Bill de Blasio and more recently led programs at the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn, which pushes for affordable housing and adult education, among other causes, and the Lower Eastside Girls Club of New York, where she was chief of staff. Andrea Gordillo has worked at two local nonprofits—Loisada Inc. and the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center. She’s currently chair of Community Board 3 and picked up the endorsement of former City Council Member Rosie Méndez, who held the Council seat before Rivera, a former top aide to Méndez, won it.

Allie Ryan, a community activist and documentary film producer who with her husband is raising two daughters in Alphabet City, made a surprisingly strong showing versus Rivera in the Democratic primary two years ago, pulling in nearly 40 percent of the vote. She is running as an unabashed opponent of congestion pricing, wants to limit retail cannabis licenses, and wants all e-bikes to be registered. She made her mark as an outspoken opponent of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, which chopped down trees and shut down parks along the East River for years, and even got herself arrested at one rally.

All City Council races this year are ranked-choice, meaning voters can vote for five candidates in order of preference. The Working Families Party has endorsed three candidates in the District 2 Democratic race: Epstein, Batchu, and Gordillo.

Rivera has made no endorsement of a potential successor.

On the District 2 fundraising front, Batchu remains the surprise leader with $274,000 in her war chest, including $82,000 in private funds and $192,534 in matching public funds. Epstein is not far behind with $269,057, including $76,523 in private funds and $192,534 in public funds. Gordillo is following closely behind with $267,352, including $74,818 in private donations and $192,534 in matching funds. Ryan has raised $9,480 in private funds and in the last round of matching funds received another $56,916, for a total of $66,396.