
NYC Councilman Chris Marte caught on video in suspected removal of opponent campaign flyer
Manhattan Councilman Chris Marte was caught on video earlier this month removing a palm-sized card from a Lower East Side apartment complex — and a resident as well as a political consultant believe the piece of paper Marte picked up was a campaign pamphlet advertising one of his primary challengers.
The Ring camera video, provided to the Daily News by a resident of the 265-275 Cherry St. complex, is from the evening of May 7.
It shows Marte walking in a hallway in the building holding a stack of his campaign mailers in one hand before kneeling down and using his other hand to pick up a card left by the front door of an apartment.
He can then be seen stuffing that card into a bag slung over his shoulder before continuing into a stairwell.
Christian Gil, the resident whose Ring camera captured Marte in front of her neighbor's door, told The News the card he picked up was likely a pamphlet for Elizabeth Lewinsohn, one of the candidates challenging him in the June 24 Democratic primary for his Council seat.
Gil said she saw the Lewinsohn pamphlet at her neighbor's door just a couple hours before Marte showed up. She also said she reviewed the relevant two hours of footage before Marte showed up and told The News no one else appeared in that span.
After reviewing the footage, political consultant and Lewinsohn campaign manager David Quesada said he also believed the card Marte removed was a Lewinsohn mailer headed with the phrase 'Leadership That Gets Result.'
Quesada said he recognized the font on the card displayed in the video as being the same printed on the campaign's mailers. Lewinsohn's campaign had distributed those mailers in that building earlier in the day on May 7.
'If he's going around doing shady s–t like this, he does not have my support,' said Gil, who voted for Marte during his first Council campaign in 2021.
The News tried multiple times this month to reach Marte and his campaign for comment, but they didn't respond to calls and texts.
Quesada called Marte's actions 'disheartening.'
'But it's not surprising,' he added. 'A growing number of his former endorsers, such as the teachers' union, are now supporting Lizzie's surging campaign. We all cope differently.'
Marte's facing several other challengers besides Lewinsohn in June's primary, including Jess Coleman, a Manhattan attorney and community board member. Marte's district includes Chinatown and parts of the Lower East Side.
During his time as a Council member, Marte has faced some pushback internally for opposing affordable housing construction, including by aligning himself with a group of celebrities seeking to block the long-delayed redevelopment of Manhattan's Elizabeth St. Garden.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


New York Times
25 minutes ago
- New York Times
Even Offstage, Trump Is Everywhere in New Jersey's Governor's Race
President Trump has played a starring role throughout the race for governor of New Jersey, thanks to his stronger-than-expected showing last November in the Democrat-led state. But his influence on the Republican and Democratic primaries, set for Tuesday, was impossible to miss this week. On Monday night, just hours before the start of early voting, Trump held a dial-in telephone rally for the candidate he endorsed last month, a Republican former assemblyman named Jack Ciattarelli, who is making his third run for governor. Ciattarelli was at the front of a five-candidate G.O.P. pack long before he earned Trump's backing. Still, if Ciattarelli wins Tuesday's primary and beats the Democratic nominee in November, the president will rightly be able to claim some credit. Only New Jersey and Virginia are holding races for governor this year, and the contests will offer an early gauge of voter attitudes toward Trump, five months into his second term as president. He seemed to allude to that looming scorecard on the call, reminding listeners that the race was 'being watched, actually, all over the world.' 'New Jersey's ready to pop out of that blue horror show,' he said, making clear his ultimate goal: turning the blue state red. The six Democrats running for governor have also placed Trump at the center of their campaigns, emphasizing how they would fight him from the Statehouse as voters have grown hungry for a more forceful response to his divisive policies. Representative Mikie Sherrill, the front-runner, has used her platform in the House to decry Trump's policy moves. One candidate, Representative Josh Gottheimer, went so far as to step shirtless into a boxing ring and throw punches at Trump in a TV ad his campaign said it had created using artificial intelligence. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Dem senate candidate hurls accusations at FDP regarding speaking opportunity at upcoming event
Photo taken from Tamika Lyles campaign website A Democratic candidate who wants to challenge U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody next year is ripping into the state party, accusing it of unfairly excluding her from the party's upcoming annual fundraiser while at the same time opening the door to another potential Senate candidate. The Florida Democratic Party strongly disputes the assertion made by Tamika Lyles that the party is violating its bylaws as well as 'the basic principles of democracy.' Here's what we know: Lyles filed to run for the U.S. Senate on April 1. Josh Weil is a Democrat who raised a large amount of money in his unsuccessful bid to beat Republican Randy Fine in the special congressional election in District 6 in April. He too, is expected to announce his candidacy in the 2026 Senate race later this month. The Lyles' campaign raised objections when it learned that Weil would be given an opportunity to speak at the party's Leadership Blue Weekend event, which includes a gala, being held at the Hard Rock in Hollywood June 20-22, believing it to be a slight since Weil has yet to announce his candidacy. Lyles' campaign on Tuesday issued a lengthy statement expressing its anger. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX But FDP officials say Lyles isn't telling the whole story, and that the party isn't supporting anybody in next year's Senate primary. FDP says that Weil is only getting an opportunity to speak at Leadership Blue Weekend because he paid $50,000 to become a 'title sponsor' for the event. It's the highest price point among the four different sponsorships that attendees can donate (the three other sponsorships range between $5,000 to $25,000.) The $50,000 donation comes with perks, including four reception tickets, two seats at the head table for the event and a 'speaking opportunity,' as listed in an FDP document. The event is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Democratic Party, with individual tickets going for $300. Lyles said that she was informed by an FDP official that she too, could get a speaking slot similar to Weil's if she would pay the $50,000 required to become a title sponsor. The Lyles campaign claims the party's decision to not initially reach out to her highlights 'a serious issue of unequal treatment and exclusion,' adding that 'it is an act of discrimination, one that mirrors the ongoing marginalization of women, particularly Black women and grassroots candidates nationwide.' Lyles is Black. The FDP says that's not what happened here. 'Title sponsorships for our annual Leadership Blue Weekend are available to all candidates, and no title sponsorship opportunities have been 'extended' to any candidates,' said FDP spokesperson Matt Dailey. 'However, as the information on how to sign up for a title sponsorship has been publicly available on our website for months, some candidates have reached out to us to sponsor the event. ' Lyles is a U.S. Air Force veteran based in Osceola County who is making her third run for public office. She briefly entered the Democratic primary for Senate in 2018 before withdrawing. In 2020 she finished third in a five-person Democratic primary for a Central Florida House seat. 'This is what voter suppression looks like inside the party,' she said in a written statement to the Florida Phoenix. 'I have served this country in uniform, earned multiple degrees, led legal and advocacy efforts for over a decade, and built a campaign powered by people, not political insiders. Yet it still isn't enough to be treated fairly or be given the same access as a man who hasn't even entered the race.' FDP officials say that the only people speaking at the Leadership Blue Gala on Saturday night, June 21, the signature event of the weekend, will be New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Chair Nikki Fried and sitting members of Congress. Weil will be given a speaking slot at some other time during the weekend event, which includes lots of panel discussions. This isn't the first time that there's been an issue in regard to who gets to speak among Senate Democratic candidates at the Leadership Blue Weekend. At last year's event held in Orlando, the eventual nominee, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, did speak during the evening event (an FDP official tells the Phoenix that they 'believed' that both of those candidates paid to get the chance to address party members at last year's event). Her main opponent in the primary election last August, Black tech entrepreneur Stanley Campbell, said he was only invited to speak during a morning session in front of a much smaller group of people. When asked if it wasn't a bad look that only candidates who could offer to pay $50,000 could get a speaking slot sometime during the weekend, the FDP's Matt Dailey said that raising money for the party is what the event is essentially all about. 'Above all, Leadership Blue is a fundraising event – our largest and most important of the year,' he said. 'The practice of offering a spot in the weekend schedule to incentivize title sponsorship is a long-time and well-advertised practice of the party.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mass. Sen. Warren has a few questions — OK, 66 of them — for Trump's Ed. Department boss
You could forgive U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren for flashing back to her Harvard Law School days proctoring exams for her students next week as she sits down for a meeting with U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. That's because, ahead of that June 10 session, the Cambridge Democrat sent the senior Trump administration official a sprawling list of 66 questions about the Republican White House's efforts to dismantle the Carter-era agency that McMahon was tapped to run. And no, they're not multiple choice. But some do have multiple sections, requiring those essay-style answers that you dreaded when you were taking the SATs. So how'd all this happen? Last month, Warren invited McMahon to a public forum on higher education affordability — she took a pass, instead asking Warren for a one-on-one meeting. In a statement, Warren said she 'rebutted' eight false and misleading statements that McMahon included in that May 12 letter asking for a sitdown. Those rebuttals were included in the Wednesday letter Warren sent to McMahon. Upping the ante, in the same letter, the Democratic lawmaker also hit McMahon with her list of 66 questions — roughly eight times the number of statements that Warren said she had to rebut. Those questions range from queries about access to debt relief and student aid to the impact of mass layoffs at the Education Department. 'Instead of continuing to avoid accountability for your policies, I urge you to listen to the voices of students, borrowers, and families around the country and stop giving DOGE and Donald Trump a blank check to destroy American public education,' Warren wrote. If nothing else, McMahon will come in prepared. On Tuesday, she played defense as Democrats and Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel peppered her with questions about her tenure and her role in the administration's crackdown on Harvard University, ostensibly in the name of combating antisemitism. "These were civil rights violations. That is why we filed a case and stopped the funding for Harvard as well as Columbia,' McMahon told U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., at one point, according to Inside Higher Ed. 'And in conversations with [the universities], we talked about different things that they should do coming back to the table.' Markey, advocates call out ban on states' AI oversight in Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' Super PAC coordination allegations heat up Boston's mayoral showdown Late-night comics hope Trump, Musk can make up 'False narratives': Mass. US attorney blasts Boston Mayor Wu over remarks on ICE Math is hard. Midterm math is harder. The lessons Mass. needs to learn for 2026 | John L. Micek Read the original article on MassLive.