By Gus Saltonstall
The race to replace longtime Rep. Jerrold Nadler in New York Congressional District 12 has sucked up much of the political-discourse oxygen on the Upper West Side.
That election is not the only one taking place this June in the neighborhood, though.
There is also a New York State Assembly contest — the race for Assembly District 69.
Assembly District 69 covers the area from around West 93rd to 125th streets, from Riverside Park to Central Park, including the stretch east of Amsterdam Avenue beginning at West 80th Street. The seat is up for grabs because incumbent Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who took the office in 2024, is running in the NY-12 Congressional race, thus giving up his seat in the Assembly at the start of the next term.
Before Lasher held the seat, Daniel O’Donnell had held the position for more than two decades.
So, who is running to represent a large chunk of the Upper West Side and the entirety of Morningside Heights?
Eli Northrup and Stephanie Ruskay.
West Side Rag readers will recognize Northrup, a public defender and policy advocate, from his second-place finish in the Democratic primary for the same Assembly District 69 race in 2024, where he lost to Lasher. Ruskay, a rabbi and community organizer, is a first-time candidate for political office.
Here’s a bit of a closer look at both candidates.
Eli Northrup
Northrup announced his candidacy for the Assembly District 69 race in October of 2025. “While I didn’t expect to be running again this quickly, I believe I’m uniquely prepared for what this moment requires,” he told West Side Rag at the time.
In interviews since, including with City & State, he’s emphasized that he feels less like a political outsider than when he ran for the seat in 2024.
While Northrup didn’t win in his first attempt at elected office, he garnered 34 percent of the vote and landed endorsements from a variety of people and organizations, including then-incumbent Assemblymember O’Donnell.
O’Donnell is now a member of the state’s parole board, and as such, he can not currently provide an official endorsement for any candidate in New York, but he spoke glowingly to West Side Rag about Northrup when he announced his second campaign last year.
In this campaign, Northrup has landed endorsements from former Upper West Side Councilmember Helen Rosenthal, the New York Working Families Party, Broadway Democrats, Three Parks Independent Democrats, and the labor union UAW Region 9A.
He’s also received endorsements from around a dozen current assemblymembers, albeit none of them local to the Upper West Side. You can check out his full list of endorsements — HERE.
In terms of professional background, Northrup is the Legal Director for the Criminal Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders. He is also on the Board of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and is a member of the Three Parks Democratic Club.
He has a 10-subject platform that includes advancing the affordability agenda; combating hate; supporting education, especially public schools; protecting workers; and more, which you can take a closer look at — HERE.
Northrup has received $153,000 in donations as of the most recent fundraising deadline, which puts him on track for $175,000 in matching funds, coming out to a total of $328,000 raised, according to his campaign. That amount came from 677 individual donors, 261 of them residents within Assembly District 69, and represents an average of $150 per person.
You can find out more about Northrup on his campaign website.
Stephanie Ruskay
Ruskay might be a first-time candidate, but she’s generated a significant amount of support in her inaugural run for political office.
She announced her campaign in November of 2025 and said at the time that she was “humbled that so many community leaders have urged me to step up and run for this seat.”
Ruskay has landed endorsements from Councilmember Shaun Abreu, who represents the majority of blocks within Assembly District 69 in the New York City Council, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, former Upper West Side elected officials Ruth Messinger and Scott Stringer, a trio of non-local assemblymembers, and the labor union 32BJ SEUI.
“Stephanie Ruskay is the real deal – a public school parent, tenant, and multi-faith organizer who personally understands the issues impacting Upper West Side and Morningside Heights families,” Levine said at the time of his endorsement.
Ruskay spent part of her childhood on the Upper West Side, specifically growing up in a Mitchell Lama building on West 97th Street. For the last 10 years, she has served at the associate dean of the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Morningside Heights, and also serves as the executive director of the Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice.
She lists seven central issues to her campaign platform: affordability, housing, immigration, public safety, education, labor, and health.
Ruskay has raised $354,699 so far in the campaign, $179,666 from individual donations and a projected matching funds amount of $175,000, according to her campaign. Of her donors, 196 of them were residents of Assembly District 69.
You can find out more about Ruskay on her campaign website — HERE.
West Side Rag will interview both candidates in the coming months about the race and their beliefs.
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Instead of coming up with bold new ideas both candidates have nearly identical tired and failed “progressive” platforms that pander to liberal voters.
The UWS needs candidates with truly fresh agendas.
This website needs fresh posters who don’t recycle the same tired nonsense over and over again.
“Truly fresh?” As in, even fresher than Mamdani’s victory last fall? Now that’s BAKERY fresh!
These two candidates feel unique and fresh. Unlike the other 3-4-5-7 public advocates and justice warriors, these are public advocates, civil rights protectors, and “tenants” – both with achievable (namely, ONLY seven to 10) clear priorities – name your favorite one-word aspect of daily life that may or may not impact families (preferably working class, but others occasionally allowed) – transport, education, healthcare, affordability, chicken over rice, safety, immigration, public bathrooms, labor, etc.
Murray,
Cite examples of these failed progressive policies?
Or an example of a “ truly fresh “ agenda.
Here’s a start: Billions spent on illegals, bike lanes, bail reform, Thrive, Homeless strategy, Renewal Schools, Housing, BQE connector, parking placard reform, a city in a $10 billion deficit, NY works, Amazon HQ2,
So you’re in favor of more homelessness. Those “illegals” bussed here by Texas and Florida entered the USA legally.
ThriveNYC, despite what the NY Post tells you, was not a fraud. (Now, the homeless industrial complex is fraud ridden.)
You don’t think money for house [for anyone but the well off, eg tax breaks for Hudson Yards] is a good idea?
Amazon wanted NYC to pay for it’s “HQ2”. So you favor waste and corporate welfare that doesn’t help.
Bill- do you really live here? Maybe move to a district where you have a chance of being represented by someone w your priorities?
These are the priorities of normal, moderate democrats who live here and not in ivory towers.
On Northrup’s website: “Eli has seen firsthand the deep inequities baked into our system—and the human cost of policies that rely too heavily on incarceration”
Haven’t we had enough of people not being jailed and released ovee and ovee again?
Meanwhile Ruskay’s primary concern isnt actually the voters, it is illegals as evidenced by her very light policy statements in most areas other than this. As she says: “One of the chief reasons I’m running for Assembly is because I can’t stand by while our neighbors are disappeared”
People are not being disappeared. They are being legally arrested and then deported. It is also not unreasonable to attribute some of the drop in violent crime in NYC to deportations.
Perhaps we can leave the seat vacant.
Just to be clear, this is the upper west side of Manhattan, not Birmingham, Alabammy. “Illegals” and “people are not being disappeared” is a major tell that your views don’t align with our majority.
Just to be clear. I was born and raised on the UWS and feel no need to be a lemming following the “majority” that has led to the mess this city is in. Imagine where we would be if the BILLIONS spent on illegals had been spent on infrastructure or on actual citizens, our actual neighbors in need!
Why don’t you run as a Republican, Bill, or even Conservative or Right to Life?
Snarkiness aside, you did see the many issues Ruskay talks about on her website? It’s a big exaggeration to say that Ruskay’s “primary concern isn’t actually the voters, it is illegals…”
What I saw was the most bare bones outline on issues. The issue she wrote most about was education followed closely by immigration and that was my point.
So you’re good with disappering people some of whom are citizens. Not a question.
This is just silly. No one is being “disappeared”. I am fine with people being deported and I am fine with citizens being arrested for interfering with police just as they would be if they interfered with any arrest.
Maybe the former mayor should tell the current mayor!
https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/us-news/bill-de-blasio-finally-admits-defund-the-police-lax-borders-were-bad-ideas-made-no-sense/
Makes for a pithy quip but Mamdani isn’t defunding the cops or arguing in favor of lax borders. That said, how’s the weather in Tottenville?
In the first place, Assembly District 69 does *not* cover all of “the area from around West 80th to 125th streets, from Riverside Park to Central Park”. Much of that area is covered by AD 67, long represented by Linda Rosenthal. I’m very happy to have that representation and was momentarily frightened to read your expanded description of AD 69 as covering my home. I’m relieved that it doesn’t.
So my assessment of the two AD69 candidates is somewhat gratuitous, but I agree with other commenters that both seem to be espousing the same reflexive progressive politics that have endangered the Democratic Party across the country. That is confirmed for me by the fact that Mr. Northrup was endorsed by Helen (“Where’s the camera?”) Rosenthal, one of the most worthless electeds we’ve had around here, while Ms Ruskay was endorsed by Mark Levine, who is vying for that title.
I’m glad I’ll be able to vote for Linda Rosenthal. Again. She gets things done.
She also has a reputation of not having the best staff as there are people who have had bad experiences with her office. I will say this, Mamdani got as far as he did because he had the best constituent services out of all the elected officials in Astoria in the early to mid 2020s.
I should have said “unproductive” rather than “worthless”. Too late for me to edit, though.
To judge from what’s on the public safety parts of their websites, Ruskay seems to put more emphasis on catching and stopping criminals than does Northrup. Northrup’s text content re public safety boils down to a big emphasis against incarceration. I am not voting for someone who appears more concerned about criminals than about the generality of citizens.
I’ll vote for anyone who can get Little RSD from 97th to 108th paved. It hasn’t been resurfaced in 20 years and I have emails going back 10 years of every politician and DOT promising it will happen next year.
Maybe Al D’Amato coulda got it done.
I’ll be voting for Stephanie Ruskay. The comments here are so negative as usual, but I see something else. Two decent people are running for this office. Neither is a some type of monster. I prefer Stephanie since I have great respect for her work bringing diverse people together. Something we need at this time. She is an accomplished person. Also, something we need at this time.
I am a long time Upper West-Sider, and voter, in the district.
What ever happened to Liam Elkind, the young man who bravely started all of this? We need a follow-up story.
He was running for US Congress, a different office. I believe he dropped out but you can check that.
I commented on Northrup below, but adding: his website, as I said, puts a big emphasis on reducing levels of incarceration. A linked position piece talks about how NYS enacted “draconian” sentencing laws in the 1990s. A thought: we have seen decreasing crime levels since the 1990s. Now crime levels are reported to be much lower, almost historically so. Why change a system that seems to be reducing crime and replacing it with systems that haven’t been tested in the state at any recent time?
We know what happened when mental health facilties were closed, and patients were sent back to receive treatment “in the community.” Systems that rely on complicated networks of community agencies allow many to fall through the cracks.
I remain skeptical about Northrup.
Ruskay: how many of those donors from the 69th AD?