Finally—The Primary Is Over

After weeks—well, more like months—of campaigning, New York's primary elections have finally come to an end. Just to recap, in a city as democratic as New York, the general election is more often than not merely a formality. Take former Representative Jerry Nadler, who represented NY-12 for 17 terms and rarely faced a serious challenge. This year's race, with an open seat and eight Democratic candidates competing for it, was therefore an anomaly.

By the end of the campaign, one thing was abundantly clear: there is no recent congressional primary quite like the one NY-12 had. Tens of millions of dollars flowed into the district, making it one of the most expensive House primaries in the country. Voters had campaign literature delivered to their mailboxes on the daily. Phones buzzed endlessly with text messages and volunteer calls. YouTube advertisements became nearly impossible to escape. For months, voters were surrounded by politics. Many very quickly got tired of it.

Throughout the race, one of the defining issues became artificial intelligence. Although AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and so much more have become so normalized now, if you take a minute to sit and think about it, it’s really quite an unbelievable change. Just five years ago, it was impossible for the average human to sit down at their computer and generate a whole paragraph, essay, or research paper. Now, it’s become… common? Instead of typing up a google search and looking through the links that came up, you can either look at the automatic ai overview or just ask AI directly. There’s no need for properly phrased questions—AI can understand what you’re looking for off some wordy, conversational jumble. It even corrects you—and corrects itself.

That shift made the debate surrounding AI regulation particularly interesting. NY-12 unexpectedly became a national battleground over the future of artificial intelligence policy, with outside groups spending millions of dollars both supporting and opposing candidates based largely on their views of regulation.

If AI represented the district's future, Israel and Palestine remained one of its most politically delicate present-day issues. Many people might assume that candidates would adopt uniformly progressive positions, further assuming they would lean in a certain way. In reality, the district is also home to one of the nation's largest Jewish populations, making the issue considerably more complicated than one might assume. The leading candidates, Micah Lasher and Alex Bores, largely adopted very moderate positions, simply because there was no position capable of satisfying every voter. Even neutrality invited criticism from both directions as too “soft.”

By Election Day, the two leading contenders were the two most similar: both Alex Bores and Micah Lasher were Democratic assembly members with similar positions on the vast majority of issues. Bores emphasized his background in computer science and artificial intelligence, while Lasher highlighted his longstanding experience in New York politics and his extensive list of endorsements. George Conway, the former Republican turned Democrat (due to his overwhelming opposition to Trump) couldn’t gain traction: perhaps New Yorkers aren’t ready to vote for a former Republican. Nina Schwalbe ended the race fourth, a respectable finish from the candidate who joined the race late and was often overlooked, but brought a more progressive view to the race. And despite carrying one of America's most recognizable political names, Jack Schlossberg discovered that a famous surname alone does not win elections.

The primary season felt endless while it was happening, not just for the voters but also for the volunteers behind each and every campaign. Shiny flyers competed for attention in every shop window, every phonebank call was sent just as dinner was being served, and every advertisement promised to be the final one. Now, after one day, it’s over: the signs will be peeled down, the volunteers thanked and sent home, the flyers (hopefully) recycled. We’ll see you in November! Enjoy the break.