2026 NYC Democratic Primary Election Assessments: The Case for Ramos

The dark money and the sliminess of the campaign supporting González-Rojas

This is the thing that is most making me rethink my endorsement..

In my opinion, little of the scumminess in either the Metropolitan Park campaign or the electoral campaign is about things that González-Rojas individually did/is doing. Some of it came from the zillion lobbyists (including former local elected officials), consultants, and other similar entities associated with the Metropolitan Park project, which as early as 2022 was laying the groundwork for manipulating the neighborhood into consent.

And a lot of it comes from super PACs (not just “Progress for New York” but at least one other, “Working Families Party PAC-NYS IE”) – and the rules say that campaigns can’t coordinate with independent expenditures, but the government’s always playing catch-up to enforce those rules. Examples abound. A quick search just now turns up City Council races in 2013 and a DC mayoral race this month, in addition to Cuomo’s run for mayor last year, where campaign finance boards fined the relevant entities for illegally coordinating. The damage gets done in those sensitive moments, voters absorbing those advertising messages, and the independent expenditure laws are only a partial deterrent.

(Side note: City & State’s list of super PACs in these primary elections, and NYC’s “Independent Expenditure Portal” for citywide elections, remind me of how ridiculously generic those entity names are. Don’t forget to donate to my super PAC: United, Sensible, Independent, Common-Sense New York Workers and Families and Retirees Fighting Forward for Community Progress to Fix New York and Build a Better, More Accountable, Affordable, Abundant, Stronger, Future New York Today For New Yorkers 2026 PAC.)

Another example: Mamdani has not endorsed JGR (it seems he’s avoided endorsing challengers to incumbents in the state legislature this time, to reduce conflict with Albany). But he ostentatiously marched with her at Queens Pride and put his arm around her and juuuuust skirted endorsing her in a video her campaign promoted on her social media feed, and then that and similar images are showing up in all these Super PAC ads, like the one on the video truck roaming around the other day, and the zillion texts and paper mailers that people in the district are getting. That is gross. It's scummy.

This week we got news of a new super PAC, “Progress for New York”, funded by a mystery donor, with $850,000 to attack Ramos and bolster JGR – the largest single independent expenditure ever made in a NY legislative primary. Most people I know suspect this money comes from Steve Cohen, one of the people behind Metropolitan Park. This is all in keeping with the scumminess of finding out that certain people or groups got donations from Cohen to support Metropolitan Park. Thanks to a neighbor for pointing out a revealing moment in an FAQ NYC podcast episode from March 31st, 2025. The City Reporter's Katie Honan said (starting about 6min30sec in):

What Steve Cohen's been doing, obviously, the lobbying records are out, he gives millions of dollars to lobbyists. But I've also been told that there's plenty of other people working on this casino bid who are not registered lobbyists, who are just in the communities making hundreds of thousands of dollars to talk about how great it is. Reporting this, I've had to be very careful because some people have texted me--you know I used to cover Jackson Heights, Corona, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, so I know people. And they're like 'I actually think the casino project is, like, a really great project, and it's just a parking lot now', so then I'd ask. 'Hey, I just have to ask, like, are you being paid in any capacity by Steve Cohen?' And then usually I wouldn't hear back, and then 'Well, yes, I ha-.' So there's that kind of stuff.

This all rhymes with the sliminess of the mega-funded (but by a mysterious donor) super PAC opposing Ramos, and the fact that all the local electeds but her lined up to support the casino and have lined up to oppose her campaign. And if you can talk with me in person or on the phone I can talk with you about an odd maybe-slimy thing that came up privately this week that’s also all of a piece with the sliminess around the anti-Ramos campaign and Metropolitan Park.

The argument that to vote for JGR is to support the casino has been a contentious one, as I discussed in my previous post and in the section above on “Fighting the casino going forward”. We do know of a single vote, that Parkland Alienation bill, where JGR voted a way that Cohen would like her to vote, and if she’d voted no, it likely wouldn’t have made a material difference because the vote would then have been 133 to 12 instead of 134 to 11. There’s no proof that Cohen would affect how she votes on other legislation. But that 850k super PAC expenditure indicates they sure would prefer JGR over Ramos in that seat. Rich people don't do this for free or for no reason. What will they want next?

Ramos does have some big money and establishment support behind her! Several well-off unions are supporting her (endorsement logos at the bottom of her campaign’s main webpage, unfortunately not listed in text or any other accessibility-friendly way as far as I can tell). Some of her more powerful Senate and Assembly colleagues, such as the Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader, endorse her. It's not like she's one person all alone, with zero institutional support. Her opponents raise questions about whether rival casinos were behind any donations to her re-election campaign. But: even if Ramos is beholden to any others, at least she is not beholden to Cohen, and she thus provides a bulwark against the wealthy jerk (Cohen) and the associated machine whose influence pervades the region. It’s sort of an anti-monopoly argument. (Hey Lina Khan, we could use your advice here.)