Micah Lasher, a state lawmaker and former aide to many of New York’s top officials, won a Democratic primary for a coveted open House seat in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Lasher, 44, gambled by running a staid, old-fashioned campaign based on his résumé and government expertise at a moment when Democrats across the country are furious at the party establishment and hungry for pugnacious new stars.
But Tuesday’s results suggested that voters in one of the oldest, best-educated and wealthiest districts in the United States may still be an exception, continuing a long tradition of looking past flash and fame to elect liberal policy heavyweights.
Along the way, Mr. Lasher benefited from the support of Representative Jerrold Nadler, the district’s beloved retiring congressman and one of his former bosses. Another, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, plowed $10 million into a super PAC supporting the candidate, helping make the race one of the most expensive in House history.
The victory makes Mr. Lasher, a liberal Democrat from the Upper West Side, the odds-on favorite in November’s election to represent the district. It encompasses most of central Manhattan and is home to Broadway, the Empire State Building and more Fortune 500 companies than any other in the country.
With 85 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Lasher was winning 39 percent of the vote, besting Alex Bores, a fellow assemblyman who had become the focus of an extraordinary $27 million proxy fight between competing factions of the artificial intelligence industry.
Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy whose entrance into the race drew international attention, was running in a distant third place with 11 percent of the vote. He was ahead of Nina Schwalbe, a public health expert, and George T. Conway III, who was once married to President Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and is now a harsh critic of the White House.
The race was among a handful of closely watched House primaries taking place across the city and state on Tuesday. But where others became ideological fights, the contest in New York’s 12th District was more idiosyncratic.
All of the candidates said they supported abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and would vote to impeach Mr. Trump. In the nation’s most Jewish district, most of the candidates, including Mr. Lasher, took nuanced positions on the United States’ relationship with Israel; he told voters that he would not support legislation banning all weapons sales to the country, despite concerns about its wartime conduct.
Mr. Lasher lacked many of the things that have characterized successful campaigns of late. He has just a few thousand social media followers and never really had a viral moment. He is not a celebrity like Mr. Schlossberg or Mr. Conway. And while Mr. Bores harnessed a single, pressing issue to become a front-runner in the race, Mr. Lasher did not.
What he did bring was a level of experience and expertise his rivals lacked and that voters in the district have long prized. In addition to working for Mr. Nadler and Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Lasher was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s policy director, the founder of a major political consulting firm (which he started in college) and an accomplished childhood magician.
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