New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, 55, is on the campaign trail in this year’s crowded mayoral race against incumbent Eric Adams.
In his current role, Lander serves as the “city’s budget watchdog” and is primarily responsible for finances, investments, and public pension funds. Before being elected comptroller in 2021, he spent 12 years as a councilmember and co-founded the City Council’s Progressive Caucus.
Lander was among one of the first to announce their mayoral bid back in July 2024. He’s raised more than $1 million ($1,185,781) in private funds to date and over $3 million ($ 3,674,414) through the city’s public matching funds program, according to campaign finance latest filings.
As the countdown to the June primary begins, the Amsterdam News caught up with Lander over the phone. Here’s what he had to say about his campaign so far. (Questions and answers have been shortened or edited for space and clarity.)
AmNews: Since you are basically the money man for the city, I figured I’d start with the money questions. In terms of fundraising you, Eric Adams, Zohran Mamdani, and Scott Stringer are pretty much the top fundraisers in the race, and according to campaign finance, you have about 92% in-district donors and 81% small donors. Can you talk a little bit about how you manage that?
Lander: I love the New York City campaign finance system, and the incentive it gives to raise money from everyday New Yorkers, so I go all over the city for house parties. Last night, I had one in Sunnyside, Queens. Tonight, it’s in Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan. We’ve had house parties in all five boroughs and it’s just a great way to campaign. You’re raising money but you’re talking to dozens of New Yorkers, hearing about the things that frustrate them, about what they want from a mayor. So much better than dialing for dollars from wealthy people who want something.
AmNews: Candidates like Mayor Adams, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams have a similar base of working-class Black and Brown voters. How do you plan to appeal to this audience?
Lander: I’m proud of the work I’ve done alongside working-class Black and Latino New Yorkers over the last 30 years. Even before I was on the City Council, I spent 15 years working in affordable housing and community development. The Fifth Avenue Committee was founded by Black and Latino working-class New Yorkers. Folks like Barbara Bethel … people who taught me what it means to be a New Yorker because when their buildings were abandoned by their landlords, they fought to save them and turn them into affordable co-ops owned by the people who live there. That’s my whole career: fighting alongside folks who have been screwed by the city [and] landlords, [and for] economic equality.
In the council, I helped desegregate middle schools in District 15, and passed legislation that makes us the first city where Uber and Lyft drivers and deliveristas have a living wage.
In 2021, when I won for comptroller, there was an analysis that showed that I won most of the voters who voted for either Maya Wiley or Kathryn Garcia in the mayor’s race. I actually over-performed in outer-borough communities of color, and some of that was because I had great endorsements from [Public Advocate] Jumaane Williams, U.S. Rep. Nydia Velasquez, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and former Assemblymember Nick Perry.
I worked really hard to dramatically increase the amount of pension funds that are managed by Black and Latino and Asian women asset managers, and to fight for more Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE) contracts. We put out a great report on the racial wealth gap, and I’ve laid out plans for making the city more economically and racially inclusive.
AmNews: As comptroller, I think people expect you to be very fiscally responsible. How do you plan to avoid budget cuts and fights with the City Council as we’ve seen with Adams, who also considers himself fairly money-savvy?
Lander: But he has not been transparent or honest with New Yorkers in his budgeting, and this has been a big frustration of mine. Every year, the budget Mayor Adams has put out has included a lot of things everyone knew wasn’t true. We under-budget on shelters, police overtime, and the cost of special education by literally billions of dollars. Then he dressed up and overestimated dramatically what we were going to spend on sheltering services for asylum seekers, and then told people that was going to cause cuts at libraries, City University of New York (CUNY), and parks that we didn’t need to have.
I put out a set of commitments to ambitious proposals to modernize the city’s fiscal framework and practices, and that includes honest and transparent budgeting, where the preliminary and executive budget tell the truth about what we’re likely to spend so the council and the mayor can have a real conversation.
I have called over and over for, and am committed as mayor to, making investments in the city’s rainy day fund via a formula so it’s not the last thing that the council and the mayor get to and we’re saving for a rainy day automatically.
AmNews: One of the biggest concerns that people have is confronting the federal administration and President Trump about issues like immigration and congestion pricing. How would you approach it?
Lander: Let me take the example of this $80 million that they took out of our bank account. I think that’s the most direct hostility that the Trump administration has had for New York. Elon Musk ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to withdraw $80 million from New York City’s bank account. That was my team that discovered it and raised the alarm. Unfortunately, that was right at the moment when Eric Adams was being compromised by the Justice Department’s effort to drop the lawsuit against him, and his administration did not speak up and tell people about it and fight to get it back. I pressured the law department [and] said if you don’t go to court to get that money back, then I’m gonna find a way to do it.
I’m pleased to say that last Friday, the law department filed papers that I believe will get our $80 million back. People have seen me fight for the city on their behalf against the Trump administration when they come to harm us.
I will stand up for our sanctuary laws. When someone has been convicted of a serious or violent offense, our laws facilitate cooperation, but not to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into our schools or shelters or public hospitals. I will be a mayor who fights like hell for New Yorkers.
AmNews: Speaking to your critics, people have described you as de Blasio 2.0 or ultra progressive and — more harshly — “soft on Hamas” and anti-Jewish. How would you respond to people like that?
Lander: Let me separate those out. One, I work hard every day to make the government deliver for the people of this city. It’s job one of the mayor, it’s job one of the comptroller, it’s what I did as a council member. I don’t think this is a time for ideological lanes. This is a time for honest, effective government that actually delivers a safer, more affordable, and better-run city. That’s the campaign I’m running. That’s the work I’ve done over the past few years and that’s what I’ll do as mayor.
On questions about antisemitism and Judaism, I’ll say this: I am a proud Jewish New Yorker and the highest-ranking Jew in the New York City government. It is a deep part of my identity. Since I was a kid, I have loved what New York City has been for my people. It has been a haven when we were facing oppression and war and pogroms all around the world. It’s made it possible for us to thrive here in a way that’s extraordinary. Not us alone … that’s why we have to build a city that is safe for everyone.
I support Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. For it to be a place of safety and democracy where Jewish people can flourish and thrive, it has to come to mutual recognition and peace with its Palestinian neighbors.
AmNews: To throw a hypothetical curveball at you, let’s say the mayor stepped down or was removed and the public advocate was interim mayor. If he decided to run for reelection as mayor, do you think your friendship would or could survive if he entered the race?
Lander: I’m lucky to have a deep personal and political friendship with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. It goes back to before we were on the City Council. I know it’s hard to predict every hypothetical, but yeah, I’m very confident our friendship would survive.
AmNews: In that sense, is there anyone that you could see yourself cross-endorsing, since we have ranked-choice voting?
Lander: Yes, this is important. If one month out in the [2021] election, Maya Wiley or Kathryn Garcia had endorsed each other, one of them would be the mayor now and we wouldn’t have a mayor that we have to worry about working for Donald Trump and not for us. I am committed to not making that mistake again, so I’m building the broadest coalition. It is critical that we do not have either Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo — neither of those two corrupt chaos agents — as our next mayor. So I will approach your ranked-choice voting strategically as we see how the race and the field evolves.
AmNews: Is there anything else about your proposals or platform that you want to highlight?
Lander: My three big proposals in the race are to end street homelessness for people with serious mental illness, which we can do and will make this a safer city; a laser focus on affordable housing, which I worked on my whole career; and expanding universal childcare, meeting the promise we made to have a seat for every three-year-old.
That’s protecting tenants from eviction, that’s building more affordable housing, and it includes a real focus on getting back to affordable homeownership, especially multifamily co-ops like the old Mitchell-lama program, which we used to build and basically stopped doing 50 years ago. Most of what passes for affordable housing is rental housing owned by private developers, [which] doesn’t create homeownership opportunities for working-class and middle-class families. Those have largely evaporated. It’s especially an issue for younger Black families who would like to put down roots and stay here.
In 1996, my wife and I were able to buy a co-op in Brooklyn for $125,000. That’s why we were able to build a family here. That was possible 30 years ago, and we need to make it possible again. Those are the big proposals I’m making that I think really speak to people’s utter frustration with the cost of living and with safety in the neighborhoods.