Former Controller Brad Lander reportedly says he’s pulling punches in his challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-New York) because their potential Democratic congressional primary race could get shaken up by an ongoing redistricting court battle.
The Brooklyn progressive claims he doesn’t want to attack Goldman too hard because the incumbent might wind up running against Rep. Nicole Malliotakis if courts uphold a ruling that her Staten Island-based district should be redrawn to include Goldman’s lower Manhattan home turf.
“I’m rooting for redistricting because as many problems as I have with Dan Goldman, he’s a lot better than Nicole Malliotakis,” Lander told City & State New York on the sidelines of an Albany political event over the weekend. “I look forward to the court letting us know what the district is.”
Lander said Goldman is going “no holds barred against me, but I am holds barred against him.”
Team Goldman scoffed at the idea that Lander is taking the political high road in their primary scrap and accused him of running for Congress because he didn’t land a plum job in Mayor Mamdani’s new administration.
“Now he’s looking for an off-ramp for his sputtering campaign,” tweeted Simone Kanter, a spokesman for Goldman.
The political drama comes as Lander and Goldman, along with Malliotakis and other would-be candidates, sweat the outcome of the contentious redistricting lawsuit.
A Manhattan judge opened the door for Democrats to flip the seat held by Malliotakis when he ruled last month that the district violates the state’s voting rights act by lumping Staten Island, where minority voters have traditionally faced steep hurdles gaining representation, with a GOP-friendly slice of south Brooklyn.
The successful suit claimed the NY-11 district should instead include part of deep blue lower Manhattan, a switch that would instantly transform Malliotakis from a likely winner to a longshot for reelection.
It might also hand a lifeline to Goldman, who polls say would face a tough primary fight with Lander in his current NY-10 district that spans lower Manhattan and a larger chunk of Lander’s strongholds in brownstone Brooklyn.
A New York state appeals court put the original ruling on hold while it considers a Republican appeal. Malliotakis last week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the ruling and leave the district the way it is, but it has not decided whether to hear the case.
Lander and Goldman’s beef aside, a new shape for NY-11 could give Democrats an incremental leg up in the nationwide redistricting fight as the midterms approach with control of Congress up for grabs.
President Trump launched the feud by ordering Texas to redraw its congressional maps in hopes of flipping as many as five Democratic seats. But Democrats have struck back in blue states like California and Virginia and most analysts believe neither side will gain a significant edge.
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