I watched and live-posted last night’s NYC Democratic primary comptroller’s debate because I guess I’m some kind of sicko. But the questions were great and I learned a lot about the two candidates, Justin Brannan and Mark Levine – and now I know who I’m voting for. Below is a slightly edited version of my Bluesky thread.
These guys are VERY similar so far, honestly.
Disappointed to see Brannan uncritical about “A.i.” Levine is also talking about using it, but mentions more of the problems.
Both say they would NOT divest from Israel. Brannan says he has family in Israel and does not support BDS. Levine says NYC should invest in Israel bonds.
Brannan mentions his push to divest from Tesla.
Both do a good job saying no to crypto.
Given a softball about how good they are in the kitchen, both of these men find jokey ways to say they cannot cook. Booooo learn to cook, boys! 👎
Levine took a pretty gentle dig at Brannan earlier about Brannan not supporting congestion pricing. Asked about it directly, Brannan says it’s working great now. Both support it now.
Great question asking where you and your opponent actually disagree. Brannan doesn’t wanna take the bait. Levine mentions congestion pricing and whether the city should own Israel bonds as his differences with Brannan. So Levine wants the city to actively buy into Israel bonds, but Brannan doesn’t?
But Brannan interjects and says no, he DOESN’T disagree with Levine on Israel bonds. They’re both for them, apparently. (The moderator apparently had the same question about that that I did and asked for clarification.)
Asked about Lander’s proposal to make city agencies like the NYPD pay for legal settlements out of their own budgets. Brannan says yeah, the NYPD blows past overtime estimates and they should pay for it. Levine says well we gotta be careful about not impacting garbage services, for example.
I’ll note that neither of them address that Lander’s proposal seems directed at NYPD abuses that lead to expensive settlements. Neither Brannan nor Levine seemed interested in saying yeah, let’s curb the NYPD for abuse/violence/etc. in their answers.
They’re asked if they’ll support a WFP candidate against Cuomo. Levine says he’ll support the Democratic ticket – which means Cuomo, if Cuomo wins. Brannan says he’s a Democrat but he wants a strong WFP and will decide if it comes to that.
There were good questions in there! Appreciated that, moderators!
Seriously, the candidates are VERY similar in terms of what they say they’re gonna do.
So who am I voting for?
The @nywfp.bsky.social and @jfrejnyc.bsky.social have endorsed Brannan, which carries weight with me. I also saw (and photographed!) him fighting against library cuts last summer, which I appreciated.
But I hugely appreciate Levine for being one of the few politicians to really do everything he could to help people during the early COVID years. He constantly was putting out good, helpful info about masks and vaccines and all that online. Seriously think he saved lives.
Neither candidate wanted to say anything controversial about the NYPD and both supported Israel bonds. So however you feel about those issues, this debate didn’t show much of a difference between them. But @jfrejnyc.bsky.social says Levine “supported political repression of student activists, including calling on Columbia University to ‘remove’ student protestors” (link), which seems to put him to the right of Brannan on those issues.
Brannan did NOT initially support congestion pricing, which is a ding, but he supports it now and was genuine in making fun of himself a bit as a typical outer borough guy knocking it who now sees it works.
Not a TON of daylight between them in terms of actual comptroller-related policies. Although Brannan said he supports divesting from Tesla, which is good for the city and good for democracy.
A deciding factor may be the last question for me – without exactly saying it, Levine said he’ll support Cuomo if Cuomo wins the Democratic primary. That’s bad. Cuomo’s functionally a Republican, in my opinion. I’ll be supporting Mamdani if he runs on the WFP line if Cuomo wins the primary.
I’m gonna vote for Brannan.
