Five candidates are vying to replace term-limited Council Member Carlina Rivera in the Democratic primary for Manhattan’s District 2 on June 24.
Prominent contenders aiming to fill the City Council seat, which covers Gramercy, the Lower East Side, East Village, Greenwich Village, Midtown South–Flatiron–Union Square, and Murray Hill–Kips Bay, include a sitting Assembly Member, the chair of Manhattan Community Board 3, and a disgraced former pol seeking a comeback.
Whoever wins in the June primary will face off against the one registered Republican candidate, Jason Murillo, also known as DJ Loudmouth.
Here’s a look at the candidates and the platforms they hope will help them clinch the democratic nomination in one of the borough’s more competitive races.
Harvey Epstein
An Assembly Member for Manhattan’s East Side since 2018, Harvey Epstein resides in the East Village with his wife and two children. He is now eying the City Council seat because “we must act locally to tackle the urgent challenges affecting our daily lives.”
“I’m running for City Council because our community needs bold leadership and a future-focused vision,” said Epstein in a statement. “During my time in Albany, we made tangible progress on protecting tenants, reforming our criminal justice system, and championing LGBT+ rights. Now, it’s time to bring that drive and know-how directly to City Hall, where each decision impacts our neighborhoods in real and immediate ways.”
In Albany, he pushed progressive legislation on housing, criminal justice reform, LGBTQIA rights, disability access, and environmental sustainability. Prior to becoming an Assembly Member, he served on Community Board 3, led public school parent organizations, and helped secure rent freezes as a tenant member of the Rent Guidelines Board. More recently, he took an SNL spoof of his City Council candidacy on the chin.
If elected locally, he wants to tackle the issue of housing by building modern middle-class housing, fully funding public housing, and converting underused commercial space into homes, according to his platform. His mental health plan, meanwhile, includes expanding crisis response teams and supportive housing, revolutionizing mental health services for dual diagnoses, holding public institutions accountable for release plans, and scaling up mobile outreach programs.
Anthony Weiner
When Anthony Weiner announced his return to politics last year, he said he wasn’t asking for support despite his controversial past—but because of it. His political reentry comes more than a decade after his mayoral bid collapsed amid a second sexting scandal that ended his career and led to an 18-month prison sentence for sending explicit messages to a minor.
The former U.S. Representative for Brooklyn and Queens, who served from 1998 to 2011, acknowledged his journey to this moment “hasn’t been easy.”
“I struggled with addiction and lost the chance to serve. But after rehab, full acceptance of responsibility, time in prison, and years since making amends, including by mentoring and hiring the formerly incarcerated, I consider my debt paid. Now, I want to return to the thing I do best. Fighting for my city and my neighbors,” Weiner said in a statement.
Running on a platform, 25 Ideas for ’25, Weiner lays out a series of proposals aimed at addressing a broad range of issues for constituents, including recruiting more cops to pound the pavement, banning casinos from Manhattan, ending sales tax for pet food, and introducing an oligarchy tax.
“For years, as a Council Member and a Congressman I have always been proud to represent what I call the “fighting wing” of the Democratic party. I have always believed in standing up for what’s right and tackling tough problems with real ideas – not just slogans and banners. And when people ask why I’m coming back now, I say this is an “all hands on deck” moment for our country and our city,” said Weiner. “I am asking you to re-elect me because with Trump in charge in DC and seemingly no one minding the store in NYC, this is a moment for grit and smarts. With 30 years in public life, maybe no one in the history of the city has run with more experience.”
Sarah Batchu
Leader of a Lower East Side non-profit focused on wellbeing and former vice chair of Community Board 3, Sarah Batchu began her career in city government at City Hall, where she worked on housing issues, pandemic response efforts, and social service delivery under the de Blasio administration.
After her time in government, Sarah joined the Lower East Side Girls Club as Chief of Staff, where she helped establish the Center for Wellbeing & Happiness – a nonprofit community space that now serves over 1,000 members.
“I’m running to bring a new generation of leadership to our community—grounded in service, equity, and care. I was raised by two doctors who taught me that care is more about people than medicine. As a nonprofit leader and public health professional, I’ve carried that same ethic into my work—fighting for housing justice, community wellness, and accessible healthcare,” Batchu said in a statement. “I know the challenges our neighbors face because I’ve lived them, and I’ve rolled up my sleeves to work alongside community members to create real solutions.”
As a survivor of campus sexual assault while student at Barnard College, she said she was emboldened by the experience to become a fierce advocate for safety and justice. If elected, she intends to introduce the Withholding Eligibility In NYC Elections for Restricted Individuals Act (WEINER Act) which would prohibit registered sex offenders and individuals convicted of sexual harassment, abuse, or rape from holding public office in the city. And yes, the act’s name is a direct jab at race opponent, Anthony Weiner.
Andrea Gordillo
Andrea Gordillo is the chair of Community Board 3 and Director of a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts cultural institution on the Lower East Side. She’s running to represent the district where she resides as a “fresh voice with real experience who knows how to bring bold, community-driven leadership to City Hall.”
“Our communities are struggling. Too many of us feel abandoned by City Hall and Albany. Politics as usual has failed us,” Gordillo said. “I am a proud daughter of Peruvian immigrants. My parents came here with nothing but the hope for a better life. They achieved the American Dream, but that dream feels further out of reach because of the rising cost of living. I’m running to make sure that the dream my parents fought for is still alive for the next generation – whether you’ve been here for generations or you just arrived.”
With nearly a decade of leadership across local cultural institutions and grass roots organizations —including The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, Fourth Arts Block and the Coalition for a District Alternative – Gordillo has championed racial and economic equity in the arts and beyond. Her background in social policy has also shaped her involvement in organizing, including her work on initiatives like the This Land is Ours Community Land Trust.
As Chair of Community Board 3, Andrea helped guide the neighborhood through several challenges, including the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital closure and community responses to immigration policy shifts. The platform she’s running on centers on tackling the city’s housing crisis by expanding senior housing and affordable and public housing, fighting for a rent freeze and creating a registry of vacant units to hold landlords accountable. She also wants to advances the district’s climate resilience, expanding access to arts and culture, and reimagining public safety through community-driven solutions.
Allie Ryan
Allie Ryan is a long-time East Village resident, community activist, and documentary film producer. She previously ran for the same council seat in the 2023 primary, earning 38% of the vote against outgoing Council Member Rivera. She says she’s back again “with real solutions.”
Over the past two decades, she has organized with local coalitions to oppose rezonings, advocate for parkland preservation, promote public safety, and protect small businesses.
“We, New Yorkers, have been told crime is not happening, that current policy experiments are working. That the affordability crisis, declining public schools, mental illness, homelessness, subway crime, storefronts shuttering and addiction epidemics, are being addressed to the best of our NYC and NYS elected officials’ abilities. We know that they are not,” Ryan said in a statement. “My husband and I are raising our daughters in the historic arts, music and environmental communities of the East Village. Our family is representative of the working-class Union families that are being driven out of the city.”
Among her platform policies, Ryan’s focus on public safety centers around promoting safer streets with Priscilla’s Law to regulate e-bikes, supports beat cops, and seeks to limit cannabis licenses by district. Her affordability priorities include opposing congestion pricing, supporting small businesses, and expanding affordable homeownership through Mitchell-Lama-style models. She is also pushing for climate-resilient infrastructure like flood walls at East River Park, banning artificial turf, and zoning community gardens as land trusts.
