By Gus Saltonstall
The day has finally come. After months of campaigning, mailers, and television advertisements, Election Day has arrived for New York City’s 2026 primary races.
Polls opened on Tuesday at 6 a.m. and will remain open until 9 p.m. You can find your polling site — HERE.
The Upper West Side has two central contests. The first is the race for the New York-12 Congressional District, as Alex Bores, George Conway, Christopher Diep, Laura Dunn, Micah Lasher, Jack Schlossberg, Nina Schwalbe, and Patrick Timmins are all vying to succeed longtime Rep. Jerrold Nadler.
And then there is the race for Assembly District 69 between Eli Northrup and Stephanie Ruskay. There is no Republican primary in either of the races.
West Side Rag traveled around the Upper West Side on a rainy Tuesday morning to different polling sites and found more volunteers than voters at most stops.
Ruskay was greeting voters near the corner of West 85th Street and Columbus Avenue.
“Please vote! It’s going to be a close election; we need people to participate in democracy,” Ruskay told the Rag. “So, please don’t wake up tomorrow and wish you had done something different. It means the world to be here today. I feel very proud of all of us for having run robust and friendly campaigns. I can’t believe we’re at this moment, but I feel so grateful to everyone who has helped.”
Bores was also speaking to voters around 2:15 p.m. at the same Upper West Side voting site.
“Final message is that together we can beat the machines, both literal and political,” Bores said. “That the old ways aren’t working. That this is a chance for us to actually take control of our future, and we can have more than what the Trump megadoners have offered us in trying to buy this race.”
Northrup was also in attendance at the West 85th Street corner on Tuesday afternoon, along with actor Ben McKenzie, who has supported Northrup’s campaign.
“It’s like the end of a marathon. We started seven months ago, and I’m really proud of the race that we’ve won,” Northrup told the Rag. “We’ve run a race based on joy and integrity. I feel like there’s been outside spending that’s muddled some of the spending, which is unfortunate, but I think people are ready to choose a new direction in the Democratic party.”
The corner of West 85th Street and Columbus, the Frank McCourt High School voting site, was a popular location for elected officials, volunteers, and a life-size cutout of Bores.
Bores, Lasher, and Schlossberg had the largest volunteer and sign presence among of the Congressional candidates on the Upper West Side.
Fresh off her feature in the New York Times, Stephanie Lasher, Micah’s mother, was also at the site campaigning for her son.
“I’m proud that he wants to serve in this way. I’m proud because I believe he is the best equipped of all the candidates to serve us well in Washington, not only as our representative, but as a leader,” Stephanie said when asked how proud she would be if her son were elected to Congress. “He is a terrific coalition builder. If he were to win, I’d just be very happy to know that my congressman is someone I think is terrific.”
The Rag spoke to five voters on Tuesday morning, all of whom wished to remain anonymous.
- Voter 1: Lasher + Ruskay
- Voter 2: Lasher + Northrup
- Voter 3: Bores + Northrup
- Voter 4: Schlossberg + Ruskay
- Voter 5: Schwalbe + Ruskay
“It feels like the right decision to keep the Congressional seat with a west side candidate [Lasher],” one of the voters told the Rag.
Farther uptown, the polling site on Tuesday morning on Amsterdam between West 101st and 102nd streets was quiet, while we also bumped into Councilmember Shaun Abreu on West 96th Street.
“Voting is an important, fundamental right that we must continue to exercise,” Abreu, who is supporting Ruskay in the Assembly race, said on the importance of voting. “I know the Upper West Side has been getting battered with a lot of mail, folks campaigning on the streets, and it’s the time of the year where it’s important the best ideas win and you exercise your vote for the person that is going to represent you the best.”
State Senator Erik Bottcher, who was supporting Lasher on Tuesday morning on West 85th Street, also spoke on the importance of voting, especially in the off-cycle elections.
“These are the elections where every vote truly counts,” Bottcher said. “We see really big turnouts during presidential elections. Obviously, we don’t decide the presidency in New York City. When we struggle to get turnout, it’s during the more local elections, and that’s when every vote truly decides the outcomes. So, we’re encouraging everyone to come out, make their voices heard, and pick who will represent them in the halls of government.”
More than anything on the Upper West Side, there are campaign signs and brochures—lots and lots of signs and brochures.
The Rag will update this story though out Tuesday.
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I just saw Mayor Mamdani at the Amsterdam site. He was already walking away, so I’m not sure if he was there to support a candidate, or just as a general mayor thing. He called out to two young women to ask if they’d voted, and they shouted back “we’re just 16,” and everyone laughed.
Vote for Laura Dunn!
Judging by the sheer volume of campaign mailers we’ve all been receiving, along with the campaign posters seemingly posted on every available surface, it feels like an extraordinary amount of money has been spent on this election. Far more than I would have expected for a race like this.
The spending has been so overwhelming that the whole election starts to feel a little suspect. I’m not suggesting anything improper, but when all the campaigns are able to flood voters with mail and blanket the neighborhood with signs, it’s reasonable to ask who is paying for it all and whether voters are getting the full story — especially for a rank and file assembly seat that is generally considered a relatively low-profile legislative race.
At the very least, will they remove the posters tommorw , or in a timely manner?