The state lawmaker wants to go to Congress to take on MAGA, but says Democrats need to show Americans they’re “going to improve their lives.” Quickly “.
New York State Assembly Member Micah Lasher marched with his neighbors at a pre-march rally organized by his campaign during the No Kings March in New York City on March 28.(Courtesy of Micah Lasher) On a recent Thursday evening, I went late to a Democratic meeting on Broadway, in a community room at the Cathedral Parkway Towers, to hear New York Congressman Micah Lasher address a group of about 25 constituents. Lasher, who is running to succeed Rep. Jerrold Nadler in the newly redrawn “East Side/West Side” 12th Congressional District, spoke animatedly about the importance of enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, a New Deal law intended to protect small businesses from large industrial consolidators.
The choice of subject seemed obscure. “Why is he talking to the UWS Democrats about this? » I scribbled to myself. (By the way, this is my neighborhood.)
It turned out to be a forum specifically for discussing food affordability, with active and intelligent Democrats from the West Side, which I would have known about had I been on time. Still, I marveled at how on-brand Lasher was that night, as a man who, new York magazine reportsboasts: “Our brand is nerd. He also told writer David Freedlander: “I can’t help but think I’m going to emerge as a pretty boring character in your story.” He was right.
Daniel Squadron, a former New York state senator who for nearly 10 years has run the States Project, a nonprofit dedicated to electing the state’s Democratic legislative leaders, tells me that all 7,386 state legislators nationwide“none has been more effective than Micah in pushing back against the Trump administration.” But Squadron is slightly frustrated that the media is categorizing Lasher as the staunch one in the June 23 Democratic primary, rather than one with clear policy accomplishments and accomplishments and a wealth of local support.
“There are a shocking number of people who are extremely excited about Micah going to Congress and who have known him for a decade, two or three,” he says. “And it’s actually very rare to have a candidate who excites so many people that they’ve known for so long, professionally or personally, and for whom he has solved complex personal and political problems.” The choice of voters in this primary, he said, “should be obvious.” But he adds: “There is a question [about whether] these qualities matter as much as they were or should be.
So far, there is no clear favorite in the race. Lasher might attract more attention if he weren’t pitted against President John F. Kennedy’s underqualified and overly handsome grandson Jack Schlossberg, 33, a foul-mouthed YouTuber best known for his rants against his cerebral, anti-science uncle, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. (a productive pastime for JKS) as well as shirtless videos of him dancing on the beach (where he looks more like a relative RFK Jr. relative than he could hope).
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Then we have famous Republican turned rabid Trump opponent George Conway, Kellyanne’s ex-husband, previously best known for his behind-the-scenes work with Ann Coulter laying the groundwork for Clinton’s impeachment, now hoping to represent a district that was represented by Nadler, Ted Weiss, Bella Abzug and former Mayor Ed Koch, when he was a liberal. Conway is personally wealthy, and he said new York magazine that if he loses the primary, he’ll “probably go skiing a little more.”
NY-12 is a wealthy district, but I don’t think that’s a good fit for many voters. If they saw it.
But while Schlossberg led in early polls and Conway came in first, recent polls have shown both losing support. Lasher’s most vocal opponent is East Side Assemblyman Alex Bores, who could become the best-known candidate because of the presence of several political action committees on both sides of the artificial intelligence debate that are pouring money into his race — one side attacking it, the other promoting it. (The two are actually linked in the latest survey.)
Leading the Future, a PAC affiliated with the founders of Open AI, has invested millions in attacking Bores, apparently because he boasts about sponsoring New York’s RAISE Act, which regulates AI (co-sponsored by Lasher). Former Palantir employee of Peter Thiel, Bores now earns millions in campaign contributions from PACs and other donors aligned with the Anthropicthe AI company that got credit for insistent that the Pentagon could not use its products for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance (but still works on a wide range of defense and military-related projects). Anthropic and its allies are trying to present themselves as the titans of “good AI,” open to sensible regulation. The 12th District race has become a proxy war over which version of AI regulation — which neither side wants to be particularly heavy-handed — will prevail in Congress.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, who lives in San Francisco, just announced a plan to for $3.5 million in Bores’ candidacy, apparently because of his leadership on AI regulation. But Larsen was one of the biggest supporters of pro-crypto lawyer John Deaton who tried to unseat Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2024. And on the other side, Larsen is the leader of a new PAC called “Grow California,” aimed at limiting the power of progressives and unions and fighting a proposed wealth tax. “Whoever designed this union wealth tax, wow” Larsen Customs The New York Times. “They woke up the sleeping giant like I’ve never seen him before.”
Bores’ position on AI earned him the support of Our Revolution, affiliated with Senator Bernie Sanders. “Alex Bores is not afraid to name or take on the oligarchy,” the group’s executive director, Joseph Geevarghese, said in a statement. He admitted has Policy”When you ask someone ‘What would come to mind when you say left-wing progressive,’ it’s probably not Alex Bores.” (Sanders himself did not support the race.) And when you ask someone what would come to mind about Our Revolution, it’s probably not about supporting the same candidate as an anti-union crypto-billionaire. But it’s a fool’s errand.
Lasher gets irritated at the credit Bores gets for his AI stance, at least a little. He worked on a RAISE bill with then-Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and Lasher and Bores have similar platforms on AI regulation, although Lasher called for a national moratorium on the construction of data centers, and Bores does not have. But Bores’ crypto links are another matter, Lasher says.
“I think it’s clear that the Open AI attacks were a very useful distraction from the crypto industry’s role in this election,” he adds. “And also the much more complicated story that’s happening within the AI industry.”
While out-of-town tech insiders and crypto executives line up for and against Bores, Lasher has the support of many high-profile elected leaders in New York, from retired Rep. Jerry Nadler to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Gov. Kathy Hochul. Local Democratic leaders like Manhattan Borough President Hoylman-Sigal, Comptroller Mark Levine and Upper West Side state legislators Linda Rosenthal, Erik Bottcher and Brian Kavanagh also support him. The borough’s beloved former progressive president, Ruth Messinger, is a strong supporter. Lasher also has the support of most of the district’s party committee infrastructure, from the venerable Village Independent Dems to Third Act NYC. (The “Silk Stocking” Upper East Side merged with the more progressive and Jewish Upper West Side in a 2022 redistricting debacle.) But to criticism, channeled by new York magazine, which made Lasher the face of the “establishment.”
Lasher was an early political upstart, and his supporters argue over who has known him the longest. “I’ve known him since I was 16,” Nadler says. But Nadler now believes that the newcomer has the maturity, at 44, to take back the seat he has held for 33 years. “[Retiring] It was difficult,” Nadler admits. “I still feel ambivalent about it. And if it wasn’t for someone I trusted who would do a good job and continue to do the things I want to do, like Micah, I wouldn’t have retired.
Nadler mocks the attention paid to some of Lasher’s rivals, particularly Schlossberg.
“He’s completely unqualified. I have nothing in particular against Kennedy running or not, but candidate Kennedy should be someone with public accomplishments. And he has none. And no private accomplishments, really, you know?” Schlossberg does indeed have a limited professional resume.
Nadler refutes the idea that Lasher would be diminished as politicians fail in the race.
“I don’t think people think he’s too serious or too wacky. If there’s anything people want in this district, it’s a serious, wacky candidate. We need that.” He continues: “I watched him, in all his jobs. He worked for me. He worked for Bloomberg. He worked for [former Attorney General Eric] Schneiderman did great work on antitrust, and then he served as the governor’s policy director. It’s a very political, very intellectual neighborhood. People know what he did and they appreciate it.
I ask Nadler what he’d like to see Lasher do when he gets to Congress. “Well if we get a trifecta [in 2028]which I think we will do, and then you will pass my bill expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court to 13. Thirteen is justified, because the Supreme Court has always had one justice for each circuit, and there are now 13 circuits. And also install term limits of 18 years. But you can’t do it right away. (Lasher tells me this will indeed be a top priority for him.) Nadler says he’s confident Lasher will continue the work he’s done for the district.
Stephanie Lasher, the candidate’s mother, tells me that the relationship between her son and Nadler “certainly goes beyond the professional. I think there’s a lot of mutual respect and affection, and they’re so similar in some ways. I mean, ‘integrity’ is a word that, unfortunately, we’re often unable to use in this business. Both have impeccable integrity. … I mean, if you want to put it in lofty terms, Micah believes in the nobility of the public. service, and Jerry is certainly a paradigm for this concept.
Lasher’s mother has no problem admitting that so n son is a nerd – and she says that’s a good thing. “It surfaced when he was a child,” she told me. “When he got interested in something, he dove deep. When he was in preschool, he was really interested in Sherlock Holmes. I mean, you had to get him the outfit, the cap.”
Lasher resists identifying a signature problem. He touts his role in the New York Legislature that passed the first new FAIR Trade Practices Act in 45 years, during his first term in the Assembly, and his successful fight to more than double income eligibility for child care subsidies. When I ask him what his “first” major issue in the House would be, he refuses to choose just one. “I mean, it’s housing, child care and employment in general,” he tells me, and he has a program to help Americans get started on their first job, their first home and parenthood: “I’ve been talking about a program where the federal government says: We’re going to guarantee that you can get your first job, through a paid national service program organized as a federal job guarantee. We’re going to make sure that you can get your first house or your first apartment through a program Significantly expanded down payment assistance and matching for renters We should ensure you can get through your first year of parenthood without being crushed by costs, and we should have a federal paid family leave program.
According to Lasher, a guaranteed year of this type of federal support – jobs, housing, family support – would be transformative for the next generation of Americans trying to get a foothold on the American dream. (It would also be incredibly expensive, but hey, we have money for wars, cruel and draconian border patrols, and a White House ballroom.)
Lasher lays out even broader priorities on his website, where he touts what he calls his “book,” Project 2026. It’s a broad and inspiring agenda for fighting Trump while he’s still in office and recovering from the Trump era. He explains how Democrats can “throw sand in Trump’s wheels” even if they don’t take back the Senate. “Democrats can use even minority power to slow or block what Trump and [House Speaker Mike] Johnson does. The second part is an inventory of oversight and investigative efforts “that they can and should launch as a majority in the House,” and a third section examines in detail “a whole bunch of laws that I think Democrats need to fix, to prevent a repeat of this under a future president.”
He pauses and smiles. “I think these are good examples of why being a nerd is not a useless attribute in the fight against fascism.”
The conflict between Lasher’s deliberateness and Schlossberg’s instinct to work with a crowd came to the fore at a recent forum at the 92nd Street Y, where new York The magazine reported that Schlossberg attacked Lasher for insisting that Senate Republicans would never vote to impeach Trump, so he could not be removed from office before his term was up. “Not with that attitude, at least,” Schlossberg scoffed. According to new York”the audience applauded.” This is how the article ended.
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But Lasher insists he supports an impeachment of Trump in the House. “I have a pretty clear vision of it, which I expressed during this forum, but it was not really reflected in the magazine article. to have to impeach Trump, because no president in the history of the Republic has committed crimes and misdemeanors as serious as those we saw during Trump’s second presidency. And if we were not to impeach Trump, we would normalize this conduct and declare the power of impeachment a dead letter.
“What I want to say to Jack Schossberg and George Conway is that I think they are misunderstanding the Republican Party of 2026 if they are pinning their hopes on the fact that 17 Senate Republicans will find their conscience,” Lasher says. While the House can impeach by a simple majority, a two-thirds majority of the Senate must convict. And while he would vote to impeach Trump in the House, he admits he is talking with voters who fear the crusade could worry a new Democratic majority in the House. “I firmly believe that the party must show the American people that we have a substantial agenda that will improve their lives. Quickly.”
Whichever candidate wins this primary will occupy the Democratic seat in November, given the party’s 57-point registration advantage against the district’s Republicans. The four main contenders are all some version of liberal, with none of them openly courting the left wing. Yet Lasher’s supporters argue, with some evidence, that he is the most seasoned and that his political abilities will make him the district’s most effective representative.
But we live in a time when the imprimatur of the Democratic establishment is being challenged. And that’s not a bad thing. Although Lasher has a good relationship with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, his former fellow MP, Mamdani unlikely to support race. Lasher nevertheless registered Mamdani advisor Morris Katz as media strategista sign that he understands that experience, political choices and support are not a path to victory in this era of resistance, not only to Trump, but also to lapsed Democratic leaders.
The day after Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti was killed by a Customs and Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis, Lasher took an early flight to the city, to see for himself what she was up against. The decision to leave was spontaneous and unexpected. “The day when [Pretti] was murdered, I went with my son Ben to a march in Union Square,” he recalls. “It was a very, very cold day. But I didn’t really want to leave. This is what we can do. We can take to the streets and clearly express how we feel about what this gang of thugs is doing to our country in Minneapolis. And when I got home, I thought: let me go. Sometimes what you can do is show up.
“I didn’t have a particularly detailed plan. I worked with Minnesota legislators on legislation in response to Trump. So I went there and spent two days going to protests there, meeting with legislators. I visited aid organizations. It was to show solidarity with the people there, and it was also to see with my own eyes what it would be like to have a city actually occupied by ICE.”
I didn’t talk about it much in the press, I told him – I didn’t discover it myself until late in my reporting. Why hadn’t he courted more? “It was a good opportunity to shake up your brand a little,” I suggested.
He laughed, then became serious. “At the time, I was pretty conscious of trying to find a balance between reporting what I saw, trying to be constructive, trying to draw attention to the right things without doing it in a cheap way, you know?
“I say ‘my brand is nerdy,’” he continues. “But I think what it obscures is the tenacity and the relentlessness that I bring to fights. It’s not flashy. But it’s a big part of who I am.”
Jeanne Walsh Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The nationis co-producer of The sit-in: Harry Belafonte hosts the Tonight Show and the author of What’s wrong with white people? Finding our way in the next America. His most recent book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the lies and half-truths that protect profit, power and wealth in America.