A veteran operative for former Chicago mayor and congressman Rahm Emanuel has established a new political action committee to fight New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America in the Big Apple — an effort that sources say could involve former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and aides to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The Next NYC PAC registered with the New York State Board of Elections on March 11, using the address of Gregory Goldner’s home in the Mid-North District of Chicago. Goldner, who helmed Cuomo’s mayoral campaign in the final weeks of the 2025 cycle and ran a PAC aimed at preventing the election of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson two years prior, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
However, sources — who spoke anonymously with Jewish Insider as Next NYC remains in its formative stages — said that it could fuse the political infrastructure of two candidates who failed to block Mamdani from City Hall last year: Cuomo and Stringer.
Stringer, once a powerful figure on Manhattan’s affluent Upper West Side, declined to confirm or deny his role in the new independent expenditure committee when reached for comment.
However, Stringer, one of the few candidates in the 2025 mayoral race to tout his pro-Israel credentials and specifically refer to himself as a Zionist, spoke to The New York Times in February about a need for a similar committee that would support moderate candidates for local office.
Multiple insiders who had participated in or been informed of meetings related to the new PAC asserted that Jen Bayer Michaels, a longtime Cuomo fundraiser, would also help acquire funds for Next NYC’s efforts, which will focus on protecting and electing centrist candidates for the state legislature over Mamdani- and DSA-backed contenders.
Bayer Michaels gained some prominence in December with a Wall Street Journal editorial that spoke out against growing antisemitism on the left, in which she called for a “Democratic Party that Believes Jewish Lives Matter.”