An uptown political insider unaffiliated with the Charlie Rangel/Clyde Williams/Adriano Espaillat race says that Mr. Williams is stealing votes from Mr. Espaillat, not from Mr. Rangel:

Conventional wisdom says that although Clyde Williams lacks the money and organization to win, his entry into the race and his ability to win gain some traction is detrimental to Charlie Rangel’s re-election chances because Williams will split the African-American and Harlem vote, and allow Rangel’s main opponent, Adriano Espaillat, to lock up the Hispanic vote. Read More

Another reader, who only wishes to describe himself as “an operative with working knowledge of the area” is going to be watching to see how well Rory Lancman does among Jewish voters in NY6, and wonders if his labor support ends up backfiring:

• Here is a little take on NY-6:  The demographic that Rory Lancman is counting on, specifically the white, upper-middle, upwardly mobile, Jewish Community, (orthodox, modern orthodox, Bucharin et al) are not the kinds of voters (even the liberal voters among them) who get turned out by WFP and his Labor unions.  In fact, those operations may keep them FROM turning out.

• While Rory Lancman certainly can lead on Israel issues, the other candidates will become quick reads and learn on the issue and therefore people won’t get as fired up on it with regards to Israel as say in the Jeffries-Barron race. – in other words, the City Council aid you just blogged about is entirely CORRECT in his/her analysis. 
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A City Council aide has an interesting take on how the Jeffries/Barron race and the Meng/Lancman/Crowley race are intertwined around the issue of Israel

The beginning of the NY-6 race [between Grace Meng, Rory Lancman and Liz Crowley] was framed as an Israel race, following the script of the previous race in NY-9 with Turner and Weprin. Look at the role of [former Mayor Ed] Koch and others. Lancman framed himself as the Israel candidate and put a lot of his stock in Jewish turnout. That was the focus of the Jewish electeds and media in this city, that is until [Charles] Barron became a threat. Now [Jewish] attention has been refocused to try to deny Barron a seat in Congress rather than work for Rory in the media and on the ground. Defeating Barron is a greater priority it seems. It could be damaging to Lancman, who has little room for error in a tight three-way race where labor is split as well. Read More