Carl Wilson (D-District 3) <\/a>\u2014 who took office earlier this year during a special election for the open seat.<\/p>\nNew Yorkers are perplexed by a voting mailer highlighting a City Council candidate who \u201cprayed to be Taylor Swift\u2019s husband.\u201d X\/@therapykiss777<\/p>\n
The voting guide mailed out to city dwellers features the two candidates in the November 3 race for District 3 on Manhattan\u2019s West Side and their self-written political bios \u2014 including a bizarre aside from Bhatti about his favorite pop star.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a jealous Swiftie who prayed to be Taylor Swift\u2019s husband,\u201d the last line of Bhatti\u2019s blurb reads. <\/p>\n
One shocked mailer recipient took to X to see if the unexpected shout-out to the \u201cBad Blood\u201d singer was actually real.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeed everyone in New York to wake up and look at who they used as an example for the city council voting guide for the upcoming election because it\u2019s insane,\u201d one X user\u00a0wrote with a photograph of Bhatti\u2019s campaign bio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bhatti didn\u2019t shy away from his Swiftie-dom in an interview with The Post \u2013 claiming the pop superstar inspired him to run in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst I was trying to get the attention of a female celebrity I admire. Second, there are issues I want to make more main stream,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Haris Bhatti branded himself a \u201cjealous Swiftie.\u201d YouTube\/Kawish NY TV<\/p>\n
Bhatti\u2019s other policy points range from banning smoking, vaping, and gambling to touting 9\/11 conspiracy theories and \u201cfixing the student debt crisis,\u201d according to his website. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But it was his apparently dream of marrying Swift, who is famously married to Kansas City Chief Travis Kelce, that got voters talking. <\/p>\n
\u201cYes, the Swiftie thing is hilarious, but banning tobacco?? Who is this person???? this must be a joke bc I literally think this collection of political preferences does not exist in a single person in the country,\u201d another X user quipped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bhatti \u2013 a Cornell University graduate who also ran for Congress in 2016 \u2013 told The Post in an email that he initially tried to run against Wilson in April\u2019s special election, but was unsuccessful in collecting the required 450 signatures.<\/p>\n
He later got enough signatures to get on the ballot in the general election under an independent line.<\/p>\n
Bhatti is the only council candidate challenging an incumbent in the 2026 general election \u2013 making it the only race some voters saw when they opened their mailers, which are part of the nonpartisan initiative NYC Votes created by the New York City Campaign Finance Board.<\/p>\n
Bhatti \u2014 who has raised over $15,000 for his campaign \u2014 didn\u2019t shy away from his Swiftie-dom in an interview with The Post. FilmMagic<\/p>\n
\u201cReceived an NYC Voter Guide for the General Election. Because this is an off-year for City Council elections, these are the only 2 candidates in my packet,\u201d one X user noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSeems like a pretty easy choice,\u201d another user quipped back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aaron Ghitelman, a press secretary for the CFB confirmed city, state, and federal races appear on its websites digital voter guide. <\/a><\/p>\n\u201cAll candidates who appear on the ballot, regardless of how much money they raise, are eligible to participate in the Voter Guide and share their platform with New York City voters. The City Charter specifically requires a print guide to include all candidates who appear on the ballot for City races and Citywide Ballot Proposals,\u201d Ghitelman said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Bhatti has raised over $15,000 for his campaign \u2013 for which he has a website with 26 platform points, and a campaign manager <\/p>\n
When asked why he would run against an incumbent who recently won the special election he said he was testing the waters and trying to gain political experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s a longshot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fate of Ophelia is on this year\u2019s ballot. New Yorkers are puzzled over a City Council candidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[301,416,75,57,46937,9,24,55,54,56,58,4727],"class_list":["post-375037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city-council","tag-elections","tag-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-us-news","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375037","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=375037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}