With additional help from Leah Clark and Gelila Negesse
IT’S WEDNESDAY. I’m Jason Beeferman, realizing that one week from today the primary season will be over. Today we’ve got news on 1) the increasingly manufactured online world that is shaping the attitudes of voters 2) the reason the city’s beleaguered public housing authority is struggling to get the funding it needs and 3) a poll that shows one Democratic candidate in a strong position despite a barrage of near-identical attacks from her opponent and her Republican rival. How uplifting! Let’s get into it.
Have news tips or just want to share what’s on your mind? Reach me at [email protected]
BOT TO GO: AI regulatin’ Assemblymember and NY-12 candidate Alex Bores is caught in the crossfire of a massive war between two of the nation’s leading artificial intelligence companies, which are spending millions through super PACs to shape his race.
If you live in the New York area and opened your eyes in front of your TV, mailbox, or local newspaper, you probably know all that already. But what you might not know is that the well-funded battle for New York’s 12th District in Congress is also playing out on a more insidious front: in the world of inauthentic social media accounts.
On Instagram, TikTok and X, a crop of new accounts are almost singularly focused on spreading positive messages about Alex Bores. The accounts all appear to have been created since Bores’ October campaign launch, have few followers and don’t post any photos or comments indicating they belong to everyday people.
“Taylor Swift Loves the Knicks. We Love Alex Bores,” one account, named big_apple_core said on Instagram and TikTok.
“Knicks in 5, Alex Bores in 12,” another account, named nycmoodboards, wrote on the two platforms.
Playbook reviewed at least eight other accounts that show similar characteristics, and politics influencer @kaitlyndoespolitics detailed the activity in a Friday Instagram video.
Bores’ campaign says it isn’t behind it. The Anthropic-powered super PAC Dream NYC, which has spent close to $2 million to boost Bores, also said it isn’t involved. And the Jobs and Democracy PAC, also backed by Anthropic, didn’t respond to our inquiry.
But “You Can Push Back,” a third massive super PAC backing Bores and funded by crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, declined to say whether or not it created the accounts.
Meanwhile, a person familiar with You Can Push Back’s operations told Playbook the group has contracted with media firms that are opening social media accounts to boost the congressional candidate.
But, the person said, the accounts aren’t bots — they’re run by humans paid to open up accounts that boost Bores without disclosing to anyone scrolling by that the content was created by a professional information dissemination campaign.
The bot-like, human-powered accounts aren’t the only way the crypto-backed PAC is getting out the pro-Bores message. Influencers are also creating pro-Bores content with the disclosure that they are a “#YouCanPushBackPartner,” as noted in the video’s captions.
“This is a classic case of the elite rigging our systems … Leading the Future PAC is targeting Alex Bores,” said @allie_202, who has over 400,000 Instagram followers and used the hashtag.
“We need representation in Congress to help hold the tech oligarchs responsible. NY12 has the opportunity to do just that,” said @brimotherhood, who boasts over 160,000 Instagram followers, and posted the pro-Bores content with the “#YouCanPushBackPartner” disclosure.
You Can Push Back declined to detail how the arrangements are reflected in its FEC filings.
ONLYFANS MODELS, FOR BORES?: This isn’t the first time inorganic activity around the race in NY-12 has popped up.
Last month, AI watchdog The Midas Project published a report through its subsidiary publication Model Republic that detailed how hordes of fake X accounts claiming to be 18-year-old OnlyFans models were reposting anti-Bores content, this time from the Think Big PAC, which is funded by leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic’s competitor.
“We do not use bots, we don’t pay for bots, none of these bots have anything to do with our campaign. Period,” said Josh Vlasto, a spokesperson for Think Big.
And in an upcoming episode of The Conversation with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, which will air here on Friday, Bores’ political opponent Jack Schlossberg accused Bores and Assemblymember Micah Lasher of paying for bots to attack Schlossberg online. Bores and Lasher denied any involvement in the bots.
Meanwhile, unsuccessful California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer got into hot water for using paid influencers to boost his campaign without having the influencers disclose they’re on his payroll. State regulators are currently investigating whether he violated a California law requiring disclosures on paid online content that promotes a candidate.
WHERE’S KATHY? In New York City highlighting her “Let Them Build” agenda; making a housing announcement; and discussing homeowner protections with Brooklyn families.
WHERE’S ZOHRAN? Appearing on 94.7 The Block and FOX 5 with Morgan McKay.
Here’s what we’re watching around New York:
1. There’s a lot on the line in New York City for the Democratic Socialists of America. Two members of the hard-left group’s local chapter are running for congressional seats in this month’s primaries, vying to topple more mainstream Democrats — including one incumbent. If the DSA’s candidates, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, prevail, it will prove the ascendant organization can capitalize on the momentum generated by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s once-improbable 2025 election win, our Chris Sommerfeldt reports in POLITICO this morning. If they lose, the DSA’s growth arc in New York would experience its first major dip in the Mamdani era.
2. Speaking of Avila Chevalier, she’s sorry. The left-leaning challenger squared off against Rep. Adriano Espaillat in last night’s debate on NY1, where Espaillat asked her if she would apologize for tweeting “Fuck Kamala Harris” in 2021. “I sincerely apologize,” Avila Chevalier said. She’s also previously said the old posts don’t represent her views. Avila Chevalier in turn asked Espaillat what he would say to the wife of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by ICE last year. Espaillat told Chevalier, “I want to congratulate you for assisting them.” Espaillat did not meet with Khalil’s family or work to free him while he was detained, a point Avila Chevalier has highlighted on the trail.
3. Trump’s Justice Department is suing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration over its handling of the state’s Medicaid home care program, known as CDPAP, which Hochul changed in a cost-cutting measure that replaced hundreds of financial middlemen with a single company, POLITICO’s Maya Kaufman and Katelyn Cordero report. The civil lawsuit accuses the state of conducting a “sham bid process” to award the company, PPL, with a massive state contract.
NYCHA NEEDS: New York City’s beleaguered public housing authority needs all the money it can get to address a massive capital repairs backlog — but dozens of Manhattan politicians say NYCHA is making it needlessly difficult for them to allocate such funding, Chris Sommerfeldt reports.
In a Monday letter to New York City Housing Authority CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and 26 other state and city elected officials representing Manhattan wrote that the authority isn’t providing enough information to them about which housing complexes have the biggest capital funding needs.
As a result, the politicians wrote they often find themselves earmarking discretionary funds for NYCHA complexes that turn out to be ineligible for such allocations due to complex rules around how repairs can be bankrolled.
“This leads to dollars committed but never spent, projects stalling for years or never starting, and wasted city and state resources,” they wrote in the letter shared with Playbook.
To fix that, the electeds wrote that at least once a year the authority should provide all local elected officials in the city with reports that spell out the highest-priority capital needs at complexes in their districts. The reports, developed in consultation with NYCHA residents, should also detail what sort of funding streams the complexes are and aren’t eligible for to ensure local politicians aren’t setting aside money that can’t be used, the letter says.
In response, NYCHA spokesperson Andrew Sklar said the authority already has “an established method of tracking resident priorities and urgent needs and regularly updates elected officials and Tenant Association leaders,” including via its Capital Projects & Needs Tracker.
“To better facilitate funding for high priority, unfunded projects such as playground upgrades and CCTV installations, we provide councilmembers with a menu of eligible capital projects with cost estimates,” Sklar said. “NYCHA welcomes the continued partnership and investment in these critical projects across elected officials’ districts.”
NYCHA’s developments, which are home to more than 500,000 New Yorkers, need $78 billion in capital funding over two decades to reach a state of good repair system-wide, according to a 2023 assessment. The needs include everything from repairing broken facades to installing new apartment doors, boilers, elevators and security cameras.
In his executive budget released last month, Mamdani committed $5.6 billion over five years to improve conditions at NYCHA developments. His office called that commitment “the largest City capital investment in NYCHA in recent history.”
CASH CRUNCH: The city is facing a potential cash shortfall later this year that has budget watchers concerned, Joe Anuta reports.
The story, as NBC New York has been chronicling, started when administration officials floated a proposal to delay a large lump sum payment to nonprofits contracting with the city for fear it would uncomfortably reduce the city’s cash on hand.
The mayor abruptly reversed course, solving the immediate political problem. But that leaves the underlying fiscal one unresolved.
The question now is how Mamdani’s budget department will shore up its liquidity, which fluctuates throughout the year as taxes come in and payments go out. Would it try to give nonprofits a smaller amount in July and stagger the rest out? (Nonprofits would have something to say about that). Might it delay other large payments, like obligations to a benefit trust for retired city workers or to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority? Will the administration take out short-term loans to make ends meet? Make cuts to the budget proposal? Or are municipal bean counters working out some other way to shuffle their obligations?
The problem for Mamdani is that none of the options exactly paint a picture of fiscal health.
“Let’s not lose sight of what’s happening here: in recent years, New York City has developed a growing structural imbalance in its budget, with recurring expenses exceeding recurring revenues by increasing amounts,” city Comptroller Mark Levine posted to X. “The City has repeatedly been able to paper over these gaps with one-shot measures. But that has not prevented a gradual decline in our average cash balances over the past several years.”
Indeed, an analysis from the Citizens Budget Commission shared with Playbook shows the city is projected to have, compared to the last two decades, below average reserves through September even as the budget has grown tremendously since 2005.
“These are the types of things that indicate a budget that is unaffordable, even in a high-revenue time,” CBC President Andrew Rein said.
The administration said it is committed to ensuring nonprofits get paid, but declined to discuss what other measures it would be taking regarding its bank account.
“In a fiscal year, there are times when expenditures do not align with revenue collection and it is routine practice to evaluate cash flow projections to ensure sufficient liquidity,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement.
PAC ATTACK: A day after state Assemblymember Claire Valdez suggested a super PAC boosting Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso was funded by AIPAC, at least one of the donors has come to light, Madison Fernandez writes.
A spokesperson for the American Federation of Teachers told Playbook it put less than $200,000 into the PAC, Real Fight NYC, and that it would “never work with” AIPAC. Drop Site first reported the union’s involvement. It’s still unclear who the other donors are. Real Fight NYC did not respond to a request for comment.
Because the PAC filed with the FEC last week, it does not have to disclose its donors ahead of the primary. The group has placed a little over $250,000 on a cable and connected television buy, according to the ad tracker AdImpact.
The Valdez campaign pointed the finger at AIPAC, citing its strategy of funding shell PACs, as well as a recent Judge Street Journal report that some Reynoso supporters have also donated to AIPAC. Reynoso said in response to that story that he doesn’t take AIPAC money, and his campaign told Playbook it returned the money referenced in the story. His supporters came rushing to his side, including outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez, after Valdez’s comments Monday.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s main super PAC, United Democracy Project, denied any involvement in Real Fight NYC on Sunday.
On Monday, Valdez also floated “major real estate players” as a possible source of the funding.
In a statement, Reynoso campaign manager Annabel Lassally said it is “disappointing to see this kind of deception in the closing days of a campaign.”
Valdez spokesperson Andrew Bard Epstein replied in a statement: “Antonio Reynoso was silent on the genocide in Gaza for over two years and AIPAC donors have clearly chosen their candidate in this race. Last-minute dark money PACs structured to hide their funding until after voters go to the polls are a well-documented AIPAC tactic. We now know where $200,000 of a potential $1 million spend comes from. We won’t know the full picture until after Tuesday.”
Both Reynoso and Valdez have referred to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide,” though Valdez has repeatedly criticized him throughout the campaign for why it took him so long to do so.
A flurry of super PACs are spending in the race, including a new PAC that reported spending $174,000 on digital ads in support of Reynoso.
CAIT CONLEY SURGES: A new poll suggests NY-17 Democratic primary candidate and Army vet Cait Conley has only increased her lead over rival Beth Davidson, even as Davidson and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler have lobbed similar attacks on Conley in recent weeks, Jason reports.
A poll of 574 likely Democratic primary voters conducted by Tavern Research this week found Conley leading Davidson 34 percent to 23 percent, with 28 percent of voters still undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
It was conducted following mounting attacks from Davidson accusing Conley of working for private sector defense tech firms that are “helping Trump’s DHS & ICE.” Lawler has also been keen to broadcast the same line of attack in press releases and on social media.
Conley has denounced the attacks as an effort to smear work she did to develop tech that protects the public from terrorist attacks.
A previous poll in late May from a pro-Conley group found her up 7 points.
AIR JORDAN: Republican House candidate Anthony Constantino is getting a last-minute visit from a national GOP figure: Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, our Nick Reisman writes in.
Jordan is set to tour a medical device manufacturer in Johnstown with Constantino, his campaign said.
The Thursday visit from Jordan comes as Constantino’s primary opponent, Assemblymember Robert Smullen, has drawn the backing of the New York House Republican delegation and the state GOP committee.
Constantino, though, is running with the endorsement of President Donald Trump — a nod that often serves as the seal of approval for Republican primary voters.
Smullen and Constantino are running for the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has not yet officially endorsed a successor.
ENDORSEMENT CORNER: Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday night urged his listeners to vote for Air Force veteran Greg Hach in the GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, Madison writes.
Giuliani is an eye-catching supporter for Hach, who’s running against former Assemblymember Mike LiPetri, Suozzi’s 2024 opponent who lost by less than 4 points.
Hach is largely self-funding his bid and is seen as the underdog in the primary. He doesn’t have local and national party support like LiPetri, nor the seemingly most important endorsement of all: Trump’s. The president endorsed LiPetri back in February. Despite that, Hach touts himself as the “pro-Trump candidate” in the race.
“I haven’t found anybody else to do this with until you. You are a very good candidate. You’re what we need in the United States Congress,” said Giuliani, a close friend of Trump.
He went on to call Hach a “very loyal supporter of the president” who won’t do what the “party boss” tells him to do.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis recently stumped with LiPetri, who also has the support of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 138 announced its endorsement of LiPetri as well.
Republicans are bullish on flipping NY-03 — Vice President JD Vance is stopping in the district for an event today — and are hopeful that Blakeman being the GOP gubernatorial nominee can boost down-ballot candidates.
MAKING MOVES: Claudine Cho is now a senior adviser for strategic initiatives at the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
WHAT YOU MISSED: In Tuesday’s New York Playbook PM, we reported on the proxy battle unfolding in House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ district in Central Brooklyn. Read it and subscribe here.
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