In Brooklyn, a State Assembly race has attracted the involvement of marquee figures like Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, and Letitia James, the New York State attorney general.
In East Harlem, race and ethnicity have cast shadows over another contest, with the question of whether the neighborhood should be represented by a Latino. And in Westchester County, a Democratic primary fight has included ugly accusations of lies, betrayal and purloined emails.
If there was any illusion that Democrats in New York would play nice until November’s all-important general election, these contests for the Assembly in Tuesday’s primaries suggest otherwise.
At the heart of many of these contests lies a long-simmering tension between institutional and progressive Democrats that has come to dominate many debates inside the State Legislature, including those involving housing and criminal justice.
“Democratic primaries are still a competition for the soul of the party. It’s not a formality,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant and strategist. “There are public policy differences and differences in approach.”
Progressives argue that their mainstream Democratic colleagues have not done enough to improve the lives of working-class voters of color, leaving them frustrated and open to switching parties, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of Black and Latino men who have become Republicans. To stanch the bleeding, progressives argue, Democrats must reignite their base by addressing society’s inequalities with housing and health policies that shift power from the corporate class to working people.
“This is absolutely the right time for change,” said Claire Cousin, 31, a mother of three who is challenging Assemblywoman Didi Barrett in the Hudson Valley. She said her own struggle to pay rent while running for office captured the problems that working-class people faced.
“There are so many elected officials that are just not doing a good job at keeping their finger on the pulse,” she said.
But centrists remain skeptical that progressives can turn catchy slogans about transformative change into policies that can be implemented. This skepticism has only grown as progressive gains of years past — from state climate goals to a cannabis program that aimed to right the wrongs of racially biased drug enforcement — have stumbled and lost ground.
As Republicans continue to make inroads on issues like crime and immigration, centrist Democrats see progressives as a threat to the delicate moderation the party has struggled to achieve. At stake is the kind of political power that communities build over generations.
One of the most hotly contested elections along those fissures is in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, where Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman is being challenged by Eon Huntley, a first-time candidate who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Although Mr. Huntley is Black, Ms. Zinerman sees the primary challenge as a direct attack on traditional Black political power; her candidacy is being supported by Mr. Jeffries and Ms. James.
“I think that the D.S.A. had decided a while ago that they wanted to take over this part of Brooklyn,” said Ms. Zinerman, a Black moderate.
Mr. Huntley, a married father of two who lived in public housing as a child, works in sales at Bergdorf Goodman. He said that too many moderate Democrats were siding with developers and not addressing housing affordability or calling for higher taxes on the wealthy to fund affordable child care.
“People are trying to protect the status quo,” Mr. Huntley said.
One issue that illustrates the divide is “good-cause eviction,” which is designed to protect tenants from being forced out of their homes under certain circumstances. Mr. Huntley supports the effort; Ms. Zinerman opposes it because she says it will hurt small landlords.
But Ms. James insisted that Ms. Zinerman cared most about “issues that she confronts every day: the conditions of public housing, child care expenses and education,” she said.
Ms. Zinerman said she supported tenant protections and aligning affordable housing costs more closely with the income of local residents. She said she was also focused on fighting the epidemic of deed theft, which she viewed as an effort to disenfranchise the “legacy” residents of Bed-Stuy.
The tension between more moderate Democrats and their left-leaning counterparts is clear across the state. In the Hudson Valley, Ms. Barrett, a six-term assemblywoman, stresses her experience fighting for mainstream Democratic issues like reproductive rights and green jobs.
But Ms. Cousin, who has the support of the Working Families Party, says that Ms. Barrett is not the environmental champion she claims to be, pointing to the assemblywoman’s support of a 2023 push to change the way methane was calculated that scientists said would weaken the state’s climate goals.
Ms. Barrett countered that she was “a lifelong environmentalist,” noting past achievements in expanding access to electric vehicles, making homes more efficient and modernizing the electric grid. She defended her record as practical, saying: “My priorities as energy chair have been how we reach our climate goals and how we are going to pay for it.”
Across the Hudson River, Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, who is backed by the D.S.A., is seeking to fend off a challenge from Gabriella Madden, a staff member for former Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, whom Ms. Shrestha unseated in 2022.
Ms. Madden has accused Ms. Shrestha of being too absolutist to be effective. Ms. Shrestha has pointed to the passage of the Build Public Renewables Act, which she championed, as proof that transformative change is a process.
Other races have included more personal attacks.
In East Harlem, Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs is facing a challenge from Xavier Santiago, the head of the local community board in a race about representation that has turned nasty.
Mr. Santiago, who is Latino, is backed by Representative Adriano Espaillat and former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Mr. Gibbs, who is Black, is backed by Mayor Eric Adams and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie. Mr. Gibbs said he believed he was being challenged because some people wanted a Latino to represent the district, which is 41 percent Hispanic.
Mr. Santiago said that he wanted to “unite” the district and “represent everyone” because Mr. Gibbs had failed to work well with members of the community to address affordable housing and gun violence.
“There’s been a blatant, utter lack of leadership in the community,” he added.
Mr. Santiago’s campaign has also mailed fliers referencing the fact that Mr. Gibbs served three years for manslaughter, a crime he committed as a teenager.
Mr. Gibbs said he thought that Mr. Santiago was relying on divisive racial politics; his own background as a formerly incarcerated person was one of the reasons he was elected, Mr. Gibbs said. He has since used his platform to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and has had five pieces of legislation signed into law.
“I’m an activist and a fighter,” he said. “I answer to the community.”
And in Westchester County, rancor has filled another primary rematch, this one between a former assemblyman, Thomas J. Abinanti, and the current officeholder, MaryJane Shimsky, a former county legislator.
Mr. Abinanti has accused Ms. Shimsky of selling out the district to wealthy neighbors by supporting a state law that would allow Edgemont, a well-to-do community in the district, to become its own village — leaving the town of Greenburgh and depriving it of significant tax revenue.
The law actually adds additional hurdles for areas looking to incorporate, such as an evaluation of the financial effects on the broader locality. But the final version of the law contains an exemption for Edgemont until 2040.
Ms. Shimsky maintains that she was blindsided by the exemption, which New York Focus reported was negotiated by a more senior member of the Assembly and by Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the State Senate majority leader, as a last-minute amendment.
Mr. Abinanti and Ms. Shimsky both oppose Edgemont’s incorporation.
Mr. Abinanti also accused Ms. Shimsky of using his office’s email list without authorization. He has highlighted those accusations and others in emails and mailers that say “Shimsky lies again” and “purloined emails.”
Ms. Shimsky said she did not steal Mr. Abinanti’s email list, and that his accusations show why she was the best person to represent the district.
“In solving the big problems that the state is facing, you need someone in Albany who is capable of working well with all others and building coalitions,” she said.
