There are many local elections in New York and beyond where community concerns are overshadowed by national political issues. City Council races and even school board elections can become proxy battles over Israel or President Trump.
In New York City, the Democratic primary for comptroller is a rare instance when reckoning with the actions of the Trump administration is not just political virtue-signaling but part of the job description.
The two leading candidates, Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Justin Brannan, a Brooklyn city councilman, have placed Mr. Trump at the center of their campaigns for a job focused on overseeing the city’s pension funds and auditing its agencies.
With the Trump administration clawing back federal funds from New York City and threatening to cut other funding streams, Mr. Levine is calling for a billion-dollar increase to the reserves, while Mr. Brannan says he would push the city to aggressively challenge federal funding cuts in court, if necessary.
“I’m not conjuring up Trump to evoke emotion,” said Mr. Brannan, who added that his experience as the chairman of the Council Finance Committee makes him uniquely qualified for the job.
“He actually has got his nose in our business,” Mr. Brannan said of the president. “And I think anyone that is running for citywide office should be talking about what are you going to do to stand up to this guy.”
Similarly, voters regularly tell Mr. Levine that they fear the next news alert on their phone “because it is Trump coming after us in some new way.”
“This is going to be part of the job of the next comptroller — how to defend our budget, how to defend our economy and how to flex our muscle as shareholders,” he said.
The focus on Mr. Trump, who mostly remains a politically toxic figure in his hometown, still reflects the nationalization of local politics and how distant the duties of the comptroller are from the minds of voters.
Public and private polling show Mr. Levine leading Mr. Brannan, with the rest of the field far behind. The surveys also indicate that large swaths of the electorate are either undecided or unaware of the contest. Both candidates said many voters they encounter know very little about the race and even less about them.
Recently in a farmers market, Mr. Brannan met a man who name-dropped Zohran Mamdani, a rising mayoral candidate. Mr. Brannan said the man apologized and told him he was voting for Mr. Mamdani. “I said: ‘That’s great. I’m not running for mayor,’” he said.
The current comptroller, Brad Lander, is running for mayor, forgoing a bid for a second term. (Mr. Levine and Mr. Brannan said they were not interested in following Mr. Lander’s lead on this.)
The race to replace him has drawn six candidates, but Mr. Levine and Mr. Brannan are the only two who qualified for public financing, as well as the race’s first debate, held in late May. Mr. Levine has raised about $1.25 million and now, with matching funds has about $3.6 million — about a million dollars more than Mr. Brannan.
Little separates them ideologically, and in interviews, they were reluctant to attack each other, focusing instead on how their experience has prepared them for the job.
Mr. Levine, who was elected as borough president in 2021 after seven years on the City Council, pointed to his efforts to pass right-to-counsel laws for tenants and his vocal support for City of Yes, a broad effort to change the city’s zoning code to facilitate building more housing. These were examples of him taking on tough fights, he said.
Mr. Brannan also backed the major zoning reforms, though parts of his district were exempted from needing to allow accessory dwelling units, which is a major part of the plan.
A lack of affordable housing is New York’s most pressing crisis, they both said. The Trump administration has revealed plans to drastically cut federal housing funding for the city, but New York’s $280 billion in pension funds offers the comptroller a prominent perch to champion an anti-Trump agenda to a wide audience. Both candidates want to use the city’s pension funds in slightly different ways to build affordable housing for lower-income New Yorkers.
“I have so many families in my schools who are doubling and tripling up,” said Tammy Rose Scott, who owns a network of early childhood educational institutions and was recently out campaigning with Mr. Levine in Jackson Heights, Queens. “So I’m really glad to see him focusing on the issue and showing he has a plan to address the problem.”
In 2021, the comptroller’s race drew little attention even though the field included eight candidates who each spent more than a million dollars. But in addition to the money Mr. Brannan has raised in this race, he is getting support from a super PAC that is partially run by a lobbyist working on a $3 billion Coney Island casino project bid in his district. Nearly all the $32,500 that the committee raised so far comes from Thor Equities ESP — the project’s developer. Mr. Brannan had previously opposed a casino, but last month told Politico he wants “to let the process play out,” allowing that he may still ultimately move to block it.
A representative of Thor Equities ESP declined to comment, but a person familiar with the committee’s plans said it figured on raising about $100,000.
The two candidates have split the endorsements of the city’s largest unions, while Mr. Levine is backed by a slew of elected officials including the city’s three other Democratic borough presidents. Representatives Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman, Jerry Nadler and Ritchie Torres have endorsed him as well.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and the Working Families Party have endorsed Mr. Brannan, who hopes more progressive voters will flock to him. The stance is a departure of sorts because during recent elections Mr. Brannan has called himself a “moderate Democrat” and a “fiscal conservative.”
“The pendulum just swings so much,” he said. “I think as long as you’re delivering for working people you can’t go wrong.”
Mr. Brannan has spoken extensively, and quite colorfully, about his many years touring in punk bands, and has the tattoos to show for it. His unconventional path into public office has been part of his appeal, but it has led to the resurrection of old statements. He has apologized for anti-gay rhetoric and comments he posted on message boards related to the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999 — which resulted in the deaths of 13 students and a teacher.
Despite the missteps, Mr. Brannan’s allies say New York City would benefit from having a comptroller who hails from outside the city’s more traditional power hubs. State Senator Andrew Gounardes founded a political club with Mr. Brannan when he said “Bay Ridge Democrats was an oxymoron.” He said Mr. Brannan owes his success to his reputation “as the guy who untangles knots.”
“I think of the comptroller’s office — and particularly their audit power — as a big knot-untying operation,” he added.
With early voting for the June 24 primary only a week away, both candidates are preparing a final onslaught of advertising. In the first of two televised debates last week, each candidate stressed that they would prioritize stable and predictable returns for the pension system.
Both candidates have said they would continue to responsibly push the pension funds toward investments that reflect the city’s values. Avoiding investments in fossil fuels is the most urgent example, they said.
At the debate, both criticized Mayor Eric Adams’s proposed Bitcoin-backed bonds and said they wanted the pension funds to divest from investments in Tesla, run by Elon Musk. The sharpest barbs in the debate related to Mr. Adams, who became the first mayor in the city’s modern history to be federally indicted.
Mr. Brannan was once close to Mr. Adams and endorsed him in the 2021 mayoral election. During the debate, he called on the mayor to resign and criticized Mr. Levine for not doing the same.
“I will continue to stand up to this mayor and to whoever the next mayor is as well,” Mr. Levine said, falling short of asking for Mr. Adams’s resignation.
Days after the debate, voters in Queens seemed more preoccupied about more proximate financial concerns. One woman complained about the expense of seeing a dentist. Another lamented the cost of child care.
Naveen Sherchan, 60, a Nepalese immigrant to Jackson Heights, said his main concern was the neighborhood’s safety and “ensuring the future of the next generation.” After speaking with Mr. Levine briefly, he asked: “The comptroller signs the checks, right?”
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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