A Kennedy grandson faces defections, donor doubts and staffing shifts as he seeks a congressional nomination. Can his famous name translate into enough votes?<\/p>\n
Jack Schlossberg, JFK\u2019s grandson, is running for a seat in the U.S. Congress from Manhattan\u2019s 12th district in the Democratic primary to be held on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old candidate had hoped to leverage his famous lineage and broad reach on social media to engage voters who are indifferent to politics.<\/p>\n
However, the campaign is facing problems: departures of some campaign staff, shifts in positions, and doubts about his political qualifications among colleagues and donors.<\/p>\n
Our party simply doesn\u2019t know how to sell our message \u2013 and that\u2019s not the whole story, but it\u2019s a significant part of the problem. And everyone says it\u2019s time for a new generation\u2026 The Democratic Party needs to learn to operate differently \u2013 until someone actually tries, and then they won\u2019t want it.<\/p>\n
\u2013 CNN<\/p>\n
Key Campaign Challenges and Voter Expectations<\/p>\n
The central concept of his campaign is that in an era of rapid transformation of family history into a massive online audience, a candidate with a well-known lineage can connect with voters who consider politics to be useless.<\/p>\n
At the same time, signs of risk are emerging: several polls and the caution of friends who help may confirm that he faces not only rejection but also a risk of letting down the Kennedy name and the people who still believe in the legacy.<\/p>\n
Although he may have a chance to advance from among eight candidates in the 12th district, victory requires a majority. The campaign focuses on online activity topics and responses to aggressive comments, as well as on using posters with the warning SELLOUTS BEWARE around opponents\u2019 posters.<\/p>\n
Never use my family name to demean me as a person or who I am.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jack Schlossberg<\/p>\n
CNN spoke with Schlossberg and several of his friends and donors, as well as opponents who claim that he did not fully understand that ranked voting in New York does not apply to the congressional district, and that he sometimes faltered \u2013 both on X and in person \u2013 in response to criticism and rivals\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n
Nadler, 79, endorses Micah Lasher, as well as other local politicians and unions backing his candidacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people say: \u201cI am voting for you,\u201d what they really mean is: \u201cI trust you to make the right decision based on incomplete information,\u201d said Lasher in one of the debates. \u201cThat is a very responsible and at the same time moving burden.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another figure is Alex Bores, a former Palantir engineer, who has become the focus of substantial spending by PACs both in support of and against him. He noted: \u201cThis campaign remains very local; housing issues and other local concerns are real, but the winner will have an impact on the message for the entire chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can preserve respect for your family\u2019s heritage, Jack, but at the same time I demand that you not diminish me as a candidate,\u201d said one of the rivals. He also stressed that heritage should not be the sole argument in the campaign but should be paired with effectiveness and concrete actions.<\/p>\n
According to people close to the campaign, Schlossberg often receives interview requests, but invitations are routed to his personal assistant, as he declines some traditional staff roles after the first weeks of the campaign.<\/p>\n
In the closing days he repeats: \u201cThe time is now,\u201d and expresses the belief that his positions could help bridge party divisions and find common ground with different generations, especially in light of recent events in the Middle East and in relations with Israel.<\/p>\n
The candidate believes that his response to criticism and willingness to pursue an open approach to politics will help him endure the tests in the highly competitive Manhattan district, where every vote can matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kennedy grandson faces defections, donor doubts and staffing shifts as he seeks a congressional nomination. Can his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[105347,4866,21558,105346,105348,75,84,83,105349,9,24,12,63],"class_list":["post-273726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-campaign-struggles","tag-democratic-primary","tag-jack-schlossberg","tag-jack-schlossberg-manhattan-primary-kennedy-family-campaign-struggles-democratic-primary","tag-kennedy-family","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-manhattan-primary","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}