BoroPark24 Offers a Voters’ Guide to District 10 Congressional Primary

By Yehudit Garmaise

While Early Voting is currently underway, on Aug. 23, voters will cast their final ballots to choose the best Democratic candidate who will likely represent them in the US House of Representatives.

The eight candidates running to represent Boro Park’s 10th District, however, may leave some voters feeling unsure as to whom to pick.

To simplify the dizzying array of candidates vying to represent the much-coveted seat to represent District 10, which stretches from Lower Manhattan down to Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn, Boro Park 24 provides a few basic facts on each contender.

• Dan Goldman: is a Jewish candidate endorsed by both leaders of the Bobov Chassidus and the New York Times. Goldman is a former federal prosecutor who led the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. 

Goldman has a personal net worth of $235 million which allows him to largely bankroll his own campaign. He inherited the bulk of his fortune from family ownership of both the Levi-Strauss company and Smart and Final grocery stores. 

• City Councilmember Carlina Rivera: has represented the 2nd district, where she was born and raised by a single mother who emigrated from Puerto Rico, in the City Council since 2018.

While speaking with Boro Parkers at the home at Masbia Executive Director Alexander Rapaport on Aug. 2, Rivera impressed the participants as she listened carefully to the concerns of Boro Parkers and showed her deep knowledge of the issues important to people who live in the Brooklyn part of District 10.

During the Aug. 11 candidates’ debate, Rivera, who is self-made, famously critiqued Goldman’s extensive use of his personal wealth to regularly fund his campaign by telling the former prosecutor, “You’re a walking campaign-finance loophole.” 

• US Rep. Mondaire Jones (17th): recently moved from Rockland County, which he currently represents in Congress, to Lower Manhattan when he decided to run to represent the 10th District after districts were redrawn.

Rep. Jones has said, “I’m one of the more progressive members of the entire Congress,” and he also has said he can work across the aisle with Republicans. 

For instance, last year, when the House faced conflicts as it tried to pass the Build Back Better bill and the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs bipartisan infrastructure law, Jones said he worked to resolve disagreements.

• Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (52): is a progressive candidate who represents eastern Brooklyn neighborhoods, such as Park Slope and Gowanus.

When the candidates debated on WNBC radio on Aug. 11, and they were asked whether bail reform needed further changes, Simon dismissed Mayor Eric Adams’ repeated pleas for judges to have more discretion as to when to post bail.

Simon said bail reform has not caused the spike in crime that start just as the bail reform law was enacted in January 2020, and that Adams critiques of the controversial merely “parrot the right wing.”

• Liz Holtzman, an attorney, represented NY’s 16th District in the US House of Representatives from 1973 to 1981. From 1982 to 1989, Holtzman was elected as the first woman to serve as the district attorney of Kings County. From 1990 to 1993, Holtzman was elected to serve as NYC’s comptroller.  

In last week’s debate when she was asked whether more changes were needed for bail reform, Holtzman acknowledged, “We can’t have a revolving door [of criminals getting arrested and immediately returning to the streets to commit more crimes.

“It is dangerous, but we can’t have the old system either.”

• Brian Robinson: is a Jewish candidate, who formerly owned a consumer advocacy company in lower Manhattan, where he lives. A moderate Democrat, who says he “rejects radicalism,” Robinson says he focused on public safety by supporting the police, Shomrim, and Shmira.

Robinson, who supports Jewish causes, took the time months ago to speak with Boro Parkers at the Rapaport’s home.

Robinson seeks to lower federal taxes for small businesses, and he is endorsed by the Jewish Press, New Yorkers for Safer Streets, Downtown New Yorkers for Safer Streets, and Enforce NYC.

• Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou: represents NY’s 65th district, which includes the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

On July 17, when Niou visited Rapaport’s home to meet Boro Parkers, she appeared the understand Boro Parkers’ concerns that her support for BDS signaled her alliance with anti-Semitic parties, in later days and weeks, when speaking to other Progressives, Niou continued to announce her support for the anti-Israel movement.

Niou blamed crime on “poverty,” not bail laws, for which she does not support more changes.

Election Day polling sites, which can be found at https://findmypollsite.vote.nyc, can differ from Boro Parkers’ usual polling places.

While New Yorkers are currently only voting in a primary, in the heavily Democratic blue-state, the winning Democratic candidates in primaries usually go on to win general elections.