Gloves Come Off in CD4 Race, Jabs Fly Among Six Candidates
NYS Senator Liz Krueger has not formally made an endorsement in the six-way race, but held a press conference that saw candidates Ben Wetzler and Vanessa Aronson co-endorse each other. The trio condemned super PACs backing their rivals, which include funding from Trump donors and DoorDash.
| 23 Jun 2025 | 11:08
Ben Wetzler & Vanessa Aronson have co-endorsed each other in City Council’s District 4 race, after being targeted by the super PAC mailer that told voters to leave them off their ballot. (
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This mailer, created by a super PAC funded by two prominent Trump donors, has caused a firestorm in City Council’s District 4 primary. The two candidates left off of it have now co-endorsed each other. (
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NY State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents a district on the Upper East Side, pointedly held a press conference on the super PAC mailer with Aronson and Wetzler–calling it “disturbing.” (
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Rachel Storch, who served in the Missouri State Legislature fron 2005 to 2011, moved back to NYC around a dozen years ago. She’s facing criticism for taking money from a PAC funded by Bill Ackman, and her campaign said she is the subject of a “desperate and weird attack ad.” (
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It probably was inevitable, with all of the money flooding into the City Council District 4 primary for term-limited Keith Powers’s vacated seat, that the race would get increasingly contentious.
Two of the candidates in the six-fperson race for City Council’s have united against their opponents by denouncing their super PAC funders, and are now getting support on that end from local State Senator Liz Krueger.
The district encompasses a large swath of Manhattan’s East Side, including the neighborhoods of: Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, Murray Hill, Kips Bay, Turtle Bay, Times Square, part of Midtown, and Koreatown.
Krueger has yet to make a formal endorsement in the race, with election day coming up on June 24. She has, however, issued a pointed suggestion on who not to rank on one’s ballot in the race: Rachel Storch.
In what may have been a foreshadowing of the current fracas, Storch–who also served as a state representative in Missouri for multiple years–caused controversy earlier in the race by opting out of the city’s public matching funds system, which imposes spending limits on candidates.
Specifically, Krueger hosted a virtual press conference with Vanessa Aronson and Ben Wetzler on June 18, where she joined the two candidates in denouncing a nearly $30,000 mailer targeting them by the “New Yorkers For A Better Future 2025” PAC.
It told voters to rank “ONLY these three incredible candidates”: Faith Bondy, Rachel Storch, and Virginia Maloney. “Leave the remaining spots blank to keep your vote strong and undiluted,” the mailer added. In other words, don’t rank Aronson and Wetzler.
Aronson and Wetzler went on to announce their co-endorsement of each other at Krueger’s presser. Meanwhile, Krueger called the “targeted” mailer “disturbing,” and said that people should find it so “whether they live in this district or not.”
Aronson and Wetzler made hay of the fact that the PAC, and hence the pricey mailer, is funded by two Trump-aligned billionaires & donors: hedge funder Bill Ackman and Vornado Realty founder Steven Roth. They also called out a PAC funded by DoorDash–called “Local Economies Forward NY”–that has given a whopping $161,393.70 to Maloney’s campaign.
Maloney is the daughter of former U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who previously held a seat in Manhattan that was redistricted away, leading her to run and lose against Jerry Nadler for the current redrawn congressional district.
Maloney, who picked up an endorsement from the influential United Federation of Teachers has not made any cross endorsements. Neither has Luke Flourczak, a USMC veteran who is hoping to become the only military veteran on the city council, but who has run a low key campaign.
“Virginia Maloney is building a broad-based, grassroots campaign with strong support in every corner of the East Side—from Stuy Town to Sutton Place. While other candidates quibble over cross-endorsements, she is focused on an agenda for our future--making the East Side more livable, affordable, and safer.” said Matthew Rey, spokesperson for the campaign.
Wetzler confirmed his co-endorsement of Aronson, which means that he is essentially encouraging his supporters to rank her second on theirs ballot, in a social media post linked to a Patch article: “Republican billionaires and corporate interests are dumping $$$ into this race on behalf of every candidate... except 2. Us honest public servants gotta stick together.”
“Our campaigns remain uniquely uncompromised by MAGA billionaires & corporate interests like DoorDash. We’re both public servants who answer only to the voters,” Aronson wrote in a mirroring post of her own.
Storch’s campaign sent out a “robotext” to potential supporters on June 18, claiming that “a desperate and weird attack ad on Rachel just launched and thousands have already seen it.” She asked her supporters for funds. Before moving back to New York City, Storch had served as an elected official in Missouri from 2005 to 2011 before moving back to the UES more than a dozen years ago. “This is Rachel’s Storch’s campaign team and this should be clear, Rachel was born in New York and she chose to settle down here and raise her family,” the robotext added.
Powers, who held the seat for eight years and can’t seek reelection, is running for Manhattan Borough President this cycle against West Side NY State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal. Powers recently announced his co-endorsement of his competitor Calvin Sun in that race.
A spokesperson for Powers told Our Town that he believed Powers and Sun were the true “pro-housing” candidates in the race, a clear reference to the city’s housing crisis. Hoylman-Sigal has also said that building affordable housing will be his number-one priority if elected.