Exclusive: Health Activist Nina Schwalbe Enters Race to Replace Congressman Nadler

Health expert and community activist Nina Schwalbe is the latest candidate to toss her hat into the crowded race to succeed Jerry Nadler in Congress. She says the attacks on the public healthcare system by the Trump administration is a motivating factor. “The destruction of the public health system is dangerous now and it will get worse,” she warned in an exclusive interview with Straus News.

“Washington is systematically dismantling our democracy, putting New York, America, and the world at risk, and Congress is failing to stop it,” says Schwalbe. “This administration is fueling disinformation, propagates false science, and has cut even the most basic services.

“The list is endless and the attack relentless—stopping vaccine programs, denying climate change, slashing the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, housing and education, bringing fear to communities through unlawful immigration policies, and attacking basic rights. At a time when more and more New Yorkers are struggling with costs, the situation is going from bad to worse.”

Nadler, who is in his 34th year representing New York’s 12th Congressional District, set off a stampede for the Democratic nomination when he stunned the political world last September saying he would not seek re-election when his current term expires at the end of this year.

Eleven people are vying for the nomination in the heavily Democratic district, which takes up most of Manhattan. While Schwalbe has held positions in government in the past, it is the first time the 59-year-old scientist and mother of two grown sons has sought public office.

“I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and I think there is space for people who have experience outside elected office,” she said.

She worked as special government employee during the Biden administration supervising a $7-billion program to distribute COVID vaccines overseas through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). That agency was gutted by the Trump administration.

And she said she has been active in local politics since campaigning for Jimmy Carter as a high school student.

“My family has lived in District 12 for six generations. I grew up and gave birth to my two sons here. I cared for my parents as they died here. District 12 is my home,” said Schwalbe, who launched her campaign website on Jan. 9. She noted that is the six-year anniversary of the date that the World Health Organization (WHO) identified the novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. Two months later, on March 11, 2020, WHO declared the rapidly spreading disease a global pandemic.

Schwalbe makes no effort to hide her disdain for the current healthcare system under Donald Trump. “From day one, the Trump administration has started to destroy the public health system.”

Asked about recent moves by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Humans Services, she said, “Impeach him.”

“We have to have a rationale, evidence-based public health policy.

“I’d be the only Dem with a PhD in public health, and I don’t come in owing anyone any favors. I would come in with a clean slate.”

Schwalbe’s father died of COVID in the early days of the pandemic, in April 2020, she said. And it was a painful death at home.

She said after vaccines were developed, she formed a community clinic in downtown Manhattan because she realized that many older adults were not getting vaccinated and many did not know how to schedule appointments by computer.

“During the pandemic, we were working with people in lower Manhattan. The state government offered money to set up community clinics,” she said. “And we fought very hard to set up a community clinic.” But much of the work was for naught. “The vaccines never came,” she said, due to bureaucratic screwups between government agencies.

“I want to come in laser-focused on getting the government to do the right thing.

“Public health is not an issue that anyone pays attention to until it is broken. And it is broken now,” Schwalbe said “We need someone to be laser-focused on the details,” she said, adding, “Congress is not doing its job.”

In terms of campaign funding, the Upper West Side resident said, “I’m coming into the race with $200,000.”

She said it is a good sign that so many candidates are vying for the seat Nadler is vacating. “We’re all very different, and I think that is good for democracy.”

The field has grown to 11 people, even with the early candidate Liam Elkind dropping out and City Council member Eric Bottcher changing his mind after declaring (he now seeks to run for the New York State Senate seat recently vacated by Brad Hoylman-Sigal following the latter’s election as Manhattan borough president).

The other candidates vying for the seat include:

* George Conway is a lawyer and onetime Trump supporter who has turned into a fierce critic of the president. He also entered the race this week. He’s a co-founder of the Trump-bashing website the Lincoln Project and is the former spouse of Trump mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway. He said that Trump is “running the government like a mob operation.”

* Micah Lasher is a State Assembly member for District 69 on the Upper West Side and is a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul and Nadler. He is widely expected to get Nadler’s endorsement. Lasher endorses Medicare for all and wants to redraw New York congressional districts in response to Republican efforts to gerrymander districts in Republican states.

* Alex Bores, is a State Assembly member for District 73 on the Upper East Side. An unusual note on his résumé: The 35-year-old was a computer science major who worked in tech and cybersecurity before running for his assembly seat. He heads the assembly’s Future Caucus of millennial and Gen Z legislators.

* Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, is seeking public office for the first time. He is the sister of Tatiana Kennedy, who recently died of a rare blood cancer, the latest in a series of tragic deaths in the Kennedy family. Their mother is Caroline Kennedy. Schlossberg has been sharply critical of his anti-vaxxer cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Schlossberg made “12 promises to the people of New York” when he unveiled his candidacy in November and said he is running to respond to constitutional and cost-of-living crises.

* Laura Dunn, a civil rights and victims rights attorney, is pushing for Congressional term limits and for banning insider trading by members of Congress. She worked on getting passage of the Violence Against Women Act.

* Jami Floyd is an attorney and journalist who has worked as the host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” on WNYC and has worked at Court TV and as a legal analyst on ABC News. She’s the author of a soon-to-be-released book, Dream Interrupted: Searching for Thurgood Marshall and the Struggle to Save the Soul of a Nation. She has headed the Transportation Committee as a member of the UWS’s Community Board 7 for the four years and served in the Clinton administration. If she runs and wins, she’d be the first black woman to represent the district.

* Cameron Kasky is a gun-control advocate and, at 25 is the youngest candidate in the race. He is a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at his high school in Parkland, Fla. In his 12-point platform: Stop funding what he called Israeli genocide in Gaza. He supports Medicare for all and wants to abolish ICE.

* Mathew Shurka is another first time candidate who is a lifelong New Yorker and an LBGTQ activist who said he survived five years of conversion therapy as a teenager. He is focusing on affordability and rebuilding infrastructure. He started Born Perfect, an LBGTQ advocacy group.

* Alan Pardee is a Wall Streeter who was a managing partner at Merrill Lynch before co-founding Mercury Capital Advisors. He was born and raised in Manhattan and is the son of a Dominican immigrant. He has one of the largest campaign war chests with over $1.1 million raised. Making NYC affordable is a central part of his platform.

* Micah Bergdale is a tech executive and political newcomer whose diverse platform includes completing the Second Avenue subway within a decade and enacting federal legislation to protect free and fair elections and restore and expand the Voting Rights Act.

There are no official debates scheduled as of yet. Presentations to various local Democratic clubs will begin soon. The clubs are important because once a club makes an endorsement, it supplies volunteers to gather signatures in the petitioning process to get a name on the ballot. The primary is a little over five months away, on June 23.