Announcing Our First Candidate Recommendations!
Highlighting abundance champions up and down the ballot
Today we’re making our support official for a first set of abundance champions in city races up and down the ballot—and telling you how to get involved in electing them.
We all know that who holds the mayoralty matters to setting a path for the city and determining whether the gears of municipal government run smoothly down it, but the action isn’t all at the top of the ticket:
The 51-person City Council decides whether to legalize new housing, require people-first changes to the streetscape, and mandate decarbonization.
Borough presidents weigh in on land use decisions, appoint Community Boards members, and use their bully pulpits to shape the path forward for the city.
The Comptroller serves as the most powerful individual check on the mayor’s power while auditing agencies and investing city funds.
All these races matter, and—especially down-ballot—we all have tremendous power to dictate who wins them. Read all about our first set of recommended candidates and how to support them below!
City Council
Jess Coleman in District 1 (Lower Manhattan): Jess, a lower Manhattan native and community leader, has a proven record of standing up to the status quo. Jess stands in sharp contrast to an incumbent who voted against legalizing desperately needed housing—the only Manhattanite to do so—and defends car hegemony. Winning this race would be the most significant step toward better governance that we can hope for this year.
Crystal Hudson in District 35 (North Brooklyn): Crystal has been an extremely effective legislator in her first term, leading her Brooklyn district and her colleagues towards more openness to housing density, people-first streets, and transit investments. She is facing a challenge from a NIMBY opponent; her leadership in the council must be retained.
Pierina Sanchez in District 14 (West Bronx): Pierina, a native Bronxite, leads the housing committee in the council, where she was instrumental in securing support for the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity. She’s being challenged by her predecessor, who is anti-choice and anti-gay in addition to being anti-abundance.
Ben Wetzler in District 4 (Manhattan’s East Side): Ben is a housing policy expert with deep roots in District 4 and the only candidate in the race who has represented New Yorkers in elected office. He’s running on a platform of data-based policy solutions in a six-person field to replace term-limited abundance champion Keith Powers, and we can’t afford to downgrade our representation on the east side of Manhattan.
Building a bloc of abundance legislators in the city council is within our grasp; if we do it, we can unlock orders of magnitude more progress towards a future that’s affordable, vibrant, safe, and sustainable for all of us.
Borough and Citywide
Keith Powers for Manhattan Borough President: Keith is one of the City Council’s premier abundance champions even when it’s challenging in his district—fighting to build more housing, to shelter unhoused neighbors, to create dedicated busways, to make quality of life improvements to the streetscape, and more. We will be lucky to have him continue current Borough President Mark Levine’s work to lead Manhattan into a more vibrant, affordable future.
Mark Levine for Comptroller: Mark Levine has brought vision and passion to the office of Manhattan Borough President. He’s ensured that Community Boards are more reflective of the communities they are meant to represent, and he’s used his role to identify opportunities for more housing growth. As Comptroller, Mark will be able to bring his forward-thinking energy to citywide planning and play more of a role in ensuring city government delivers.
Zellnor Myrie for Mayor: State Senator Zellnor Myrie is infusing a much-needed abundance mindset into the mayor’s race. His plan to create and preserve one million units of housing truly meets the moment of our citywide housing shortage and affordability crisis, and he’s bringing a similar vision to childcare and economic opportunity. Zellnor is proactively redefining our politics away from outdated left vs. center paradigms towards a clear choice between small-bore, incremental change and big picture progress like the kind New York used to be capable of—a generational shift in ideas we are eager to uplift.
Brad Lander for Mayor: If the current mayoralty has been defined by chaos and corruption, a Brad Lander administration would likely be a paradigm of competence and integrity. As Comptroller, Brad has spotlighted mismanagement that undermines delivery of city services. When congestion pricing was put on pause, Brad spearheaded the litigation to get the cameras turned on. His new plan to build 500,000 new homes aggressively identifies the scale of the problem. He should be ranked on any abundance-minded New Yorker’s mayoral ballot.
These races are competitive, and the contrast between candidates on our issues is clear. The intervention of our community—thousands of New Yorkers who want to leave behind decades of broken promises and broken politics—can be the difference between wins and losses.
How can you help?
You can volunteer (knocking doors, making calls, collecting petition signatures), organize your networks (tell your friends and neighbors about the candidates, host a meet and greet in your living room), and more.
Fill out our interest form to indicate that you want to volunteer on a campaign, and we’ll point you in the right direction!
Over the coming months, look out for more announcements of recommended abundance candidates, for specific ranking-order recommendations, and for chances to hear from the candidates directly.