New York City Council 2025 primary races to watch

Here’s a good summary of the District 2 (Carlina Rivera) and District 4 (Keith Powers) races, from today.

https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2025/02/new-york-city-council-2025-primary-races-watch/403034/
New York City Council 2025 primary races to watch

Dozens of candidates, millions in matching funds, 51 seats on the ballot.
By Sahalie Donaldson, Annie McDonough and Holly Pretsky
February 21, 2025 
All 51 seats in the New York City Council are on the ballot this year. Due to term limits and vacancies, 10 of them are wide open. And multiple sitting members who aren’t term-limited are facing serious challenges. In deep blue New York City, there aren’t many swing districts, so most – but not all – of the action will happen in the Democratic primaries, which take place on June 24.
We’ve relied on maps from the CUNY Graduate Center’s indispensable Redistricting & You, which uses census and New York City Board of Elections data, for our district demographic and voter information. We haven’t included every City Council candidate in this round-up, just the ones we’ve determined to be viable due to a combination of fundraising, visible campaign presence and notable political support. We’ll update this feature continually throughout this election cycle. 

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District 2: Lower Manhattan, including Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, the East Village, Gramercy, and Murray Hill-Kips Bay

TLDR: This race is more than just Anthony Weiner versus Harvey Epstein.

Incumbent: Open seat. Carlina Rivera is term-limited. 

Candidates: Harvey Epstein (Democrat), Andrea Gordillo (Democrat), Sarah Batchu (Democrat), Anthony Weiner (Democrat), Allison Ryan (Democrat)

District demographics: 56% white, 18% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 6% Black, 5% other

Voter enrollment: 72% Democrat, 7% Republican, 10% unaffiliated

What’s the deal? The race to succeed term-limited City Council Member Carlina Rivera began picking up relatively early last year and has since only grown more competitive going into 2025. Two community board reps have had their hats in the ring since early last year, steadily working to build ground support and bolster their profiles. Sarah Batchu, a former de Blasio administration staffer and nonprofit leader who previously served as vice chair of Community Board 3, has been the race’s top fundraiser, raking in over $80,000 in private donations and $174,800 in public matching funds, according to the latest campaign finance filings. Andrea Gordillo, chair of Community Board 3 and a longtime arts nonprofit worker, is not far behind. Gordillo has received nearly $170,000 in public funds, and nearly $62,000 in private donations. Gordillo also snagged a first-choice endorsement from New Majority NYC, a group that promotes women in the City Council. The group endorsed Batchu as their second choice. Stuy Town and East Village Assembly Member Harvey Epstein announced his plans to run in May and has been endorsed by a long list of elected officials from Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Further bolstering his name recognition, Epstein was the subject of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch in November that, well, spoofed his name. Epstein is very well-positioned, with more than $60,000 in private donations and $190,000 in public matching funds. Anthony Weiner, the scandal-scarred former congressman, has been toying with another political comeback attempt and officially jumped into the race in the fall. With name recognition like his, he could stand a chance – even with his controversial history. Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2017 for sexting a minor. Prior City Council candidate Allison Ryan is also running for the seat again and has raised about $7,000. New Majority NYC endorsed her as their third choice in the race. – Sahalie Donaldson

Further reading: 

City Council candidate proposes WEINER Act to bar sex offenders from elected office
New Majority NYC drops slate of City Council 2025 endorsements
Anthony Weiner mulls a City Council run in lower Manhattan
The 2025 race for Carlina Rivera’s City Council seat is on
Epstein to declare run for council

District 4: Manhattan neighborhoods of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Murray Hill-Kips Bay, Midtown East, Upper East Side

TLDR: A marquee race with massive fundraising befitting the Upper East Side.

Incumbent: Open seat. Keith Powers is term-limited.

Candidates: Virginia Maloney (Democrat), Rachel Storch (Democrat), Vanessa Aronson (Democrat), Faith Bondy (Democrat), Ben Wetzler (Democrat), Lukas Florczak (Democrat) 

District demographics: 69% white, 16% Asian, 8% Hispanic, 3% Black, 1% other

Voter enrollment: 60% Democratic, 22% unaffiliated, 15% Republican

What’s the deal? In the race to replace City Council Member Keith Powers, nearly every candidate running is mounting a serious campaign, built on local civic experience, resources, name recognition or a little bit of each. Unfortunately for the candidates, that makes their competition steep. 

City Council District 4 stretches up from Stuy Town to the toniest parts of the Upper East Side, and candidates have the fundraising to prove it, with a collective half million dollars in private donations raised between them.

Responsible for the lion’s share of that is Rachel Storch, a former Missouri state legislator who moved to the district in 2010 and is now COO at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue. She has raised over a quarter of a million dollars and is opting out of the city’s public matching system. Also running is Virginia Maloney, daughter of longtime Rep. (and name recognition-booster) Carolyn Maloney. Virginia, who previously worked at Meta and the city’s economic development arm, has an impressive haul herself, outraising several other candidates with more local civic ties. That includes former district leader Ben Wetzler, a policy official at the state agency for affordable housing; Lexington Democratic Club President and former public school teacher Vanessa Aronson; and Samuel J. Tilden Democratic Club President and attorney Faith Bondy. Lucas Florczak, a veterans’ advocate and member of the Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats, is also running but hasn’t raised nearly as much as the other five candidates.

How much the six candidates will seek to establish daylight between each other on policy over the course of the campaign remains to be seen. Several name funding the NYPD and affordable housing as top priorities.

Powers – a mainstream liberal, like much of the field running to replace him – could also be influential if he chose to endorse in the race, but it doesn’t seem likely that he will. He’s got his own race for Manhattan borough president to focus on. – Annie McDonough