Moderate Dems, biz groups join primary fight against socialist state senators
It’s not just New York City Mayor Eric Adams — moderate Democrats and business groups alike say a trio of far-left state senators have gotta go.
“I don’t support ‘defund the police.’ He does,” Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx) said of his $10,000 donation to Miguelina Camilo, who is challenging Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) in next week’s Democratic primary.
It wasn’t always this way — a dozen years ago, Dinowitz chipped in $500 to help Rivera unseat then-state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr.
“It’s important for everybody, for the electeds, to work as a team,” Dinowitz said. “I’m not confident that would be the case with him [Rivera].”
Dinowitz isn’t alone. A who’s who of establishment Dems and business allies have dumped tens of thousands of their own dollars on the campaigns of Camilo, Angel Vasquez and Conrad Tillard, who are respectively opposing Rivera, Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan) and Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn).
“The existing regular political organizations have made common cause against the left with powerful interests,” political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told The Post. “It’s what you do to survive.”
Records show political action committees affiliated with Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) and the campaign of Assemblywoman Karines Reyes (D-Bronx) each sent $2,500 earlier this month to Vasquez, who is challenging Jackson for his Upper Manhattan seat.
Business groups have contributed around $25,000 more to Vasquez — with $7,500 coming from two PACs tied to real estate.
“Robert Jackson has taken on the special interests and fought his whole life to protect tenants from being pushed out or priced out, and will never back down in fighting for the people of the Bronx and Manhattan who call this district home,” Jackson campaign spokesman Richie Fife fired back in a statement to The Post.
Fife added that it was “shameful” that Vasquez was “selling out” to landlords against Jackson, who voted in favor of a 2019 law that made New York City’s tenant-friendly rent laws permanent.
The Torres group also contributed $2,500 to Camilo’s campaign, which got thousands more from groups like the Business Council of New York State.
“They are spending almost half a million dollars to unseat me when they could be defending and expanding our Senate majority or standing up for our values,” Rivera said in a statement. “They should be ashamed.”
The progressive firebrand has also aroused the ire of state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs, who contributed $7,500 to Camilo earlier this month.
Jacobs gave the same amount to Hillard, who also got a $250 boost from Hazel Dukes, the influential president of the NAACP New York State Conference, and $7,500 earlier this year from a PAC affiliated with Adams — who formally endorsed Tillard on Monday.
“I have nothing but love and respect for all the work she’s done,” Brisport told The Post of Dukes, a local civil rights icon. “I think it was a matter of he had her number and I didn’t even ask.”
Brisport was less kind about Jacobs, who has been blamed by political opponents like Brisport for failed ballot initiatives last year that set off a chain of events leading to a court-appointed special master drawing new district lines for the state Senate and Congress.
“Finding money to try and unseat a sitting Democratic senator is disgusting, to be honest,” he said of the state Democratic Party chair.
Brisport joined a growing cohort of Democratic socialists in Albany after winning his 2020 election over Assemblywoman Tremaine Wright, who was backed by the Democratic Party establishment.
But his support for bail reform — a stance shared by Jackson and Rivera — as well as defunding the police has made him a target of Adams as the city grapples with rising crime.
“The crime issue is a placeholder for a test on whether or not you’re a common-sense Democrat,” a source close to the mayor told The Post. “The people that are against changes to bail reform or are against a reasonable public safety agenda — it’s very likely they’re going to be for policies we consider radical or destructive … and doesn’t live in the reality we live in,” a source close to Adams told The Post.
The approach is not without risks for Adams, who was forced to defend Tillard this week after bigoted comments he made years ago resurfaced.
But victories by Camilo, Vasquez and Tillard would boost Hizzoner in his ongoing efforts to secure changes to bail reform laws that he blames for fueling the ongoing crime wave — a key reason why Adams has offered either formal or informal help to all three contenders.
