SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
New York: The Kennedy dynasty won’t be returning to Congress next year.
Kennedy family scion and political novice Jack Schlossberg has lost to New York state Assembly Member Micah Lasher, in a closely watched and crowded Democratic primary for an open congressional seat in the heart of Manhattan.
Lasher will be well positioned for the November general election to succeed his former boss, Democrat Jerry Nadler, who is retiring. Democrats make up two-thirds of the district’s registered voters.
Before the results were clear, Schlossberg made an early appearance at his watch party at a Manhattan concert venue to thank campaign workers and reiterate his message that Democrats need to put forward more frank, responsive and inspiring candidates “who are willing to speak plainly about the cost of living, about corruption and fearlessly about the Constitution”.
“We don’t just need younger candidates. We need different people,” he said, adding that “unless Democrats learn from the signals that are being sent all across the country, we are going to keep on losing.”
About an hour later, deflated “ooohs” rippled through the room of largely young supporters as they got news of Lasher’s win.
‘They like me because of my experience, my ideas, and they trust me because they see what’s going on with their very own eyes.’
Kennedy family scion Jack Schlossberg
The campaign was colourful and hotly contested, partly because of Schlossberg’s star power as the social media-savvy grandson of US president John F. Kennedy, but also because the race became an expensive proxy fight among artificial intelligence interests.
Schlossberg got plenty of attention in the race as a member of a political dynasty who delivered his own “progressive and aggressive” message in dynamic and popular, if sometimes wacky, social media posts.
Supporters “don’t just like me because I’m a Kennedy”, Schlossberg told The Associated Press this northern spring. “They like me because of my experience, my ideas, and they trust me because they see what’s going on with their very own eyes.”
But he also faced questions about his limited professional CV and his seriousness as a candidate. The 33-year-old, who holds a joint law and business degree, worked briefly at the State Department’s environmental bureau and has written political opinion pieces for Vogue. He said that family money bought him independence from political fundraising.
Money cascaded into the race as some tech and AI companies lined up against candidate Alex Bores, a former tech company engineer and state Assembly member who wrote legislation that many in the industry opposed. But some other, more regulation-friendly AI heavyweights counterpunched by trying to help Bores.
Voters in the district were deluged with fliers and ads, particularly about Bores and Lasher.
Lasher emphasised his long experience working in government for Nadler and others. Bores positioned himself as a fresher face who stood up to powerful interests.
“I didn’t get in this race to make a point about AI, but some of the most powerful people on the planet, a handful of oligarchs hell-bent on preventing any regulation of their industry whatsoever … decided they wanted to make an example out of this race. This was a huge and unprecedented fight, and we did not back down,” Bores said in his concession speech.
Besides the AI backer battle, the race featured competing endorsements from Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, the fellow Congress member whom he defeated in a 2022 primary after their once-neighbouring districts were largely combined by redrawn maps.
AP
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