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{"id":6436,"date":"2025-02-21T21:03:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T21:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/molly-jong-fast-is-thinking-about-challenging-jerry-nadler\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T21:03:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T21:03:46","slug":"molly-jong-fast-is-thinking-about-challenging-jerry-nadler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/molly-jong-fast-is-thinking-about-challenging-jerry-nadler\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Jong-Fast is thinking about challenging Jerry Nadler"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>NEW YORK \u2014 Novelist turned political journalist Molly Jong-Fast wants somebody \u201cserious\u201d to run against Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51541\" data-person-id=\"51541\">Jerry Nadler<\/a> in 2026 \u2014 so she doesn\u2019t have to do it herself.<\/p>\n<p>The Vanity Fair correspondent and podcast host has been talking to political consultants about a run against the 77-year-old Manhattan Democrat. But Jong-Fast told Blue Light News she\u2019s \u201cstill really on the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf someone who is a good communicator and a serious Democrat will run for that seat,\u201d Jong-Fast said in a phone call Friday, \u201cthen I absolutely will not. If there\u2019s someone who\u2019s an AOC or a <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/411928\" data-person-id=\"411928\">Maxwell Frost <\/a>\u2014 if there\u2019s someone like that who will run \u2014 then I will just be delighted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nadler\u2019s profile could hardly be more different than Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/304452\" data-person-id=\"304452\">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a> or Frost, the 28-year-old Florida Democrat. The dean of New York\u2019s congressional delegation, Nadler has held the office for 32 years, since 1992. But in December he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2024\/12\/04\/congress\/nadler-out-in-judiciary-dem-race-00192607\" target=\"_blank\">pushed out<\/a> of his role as the top Democrat on the powerful Judiciary Committee by Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/192069\" data-person-id=\"192069\">Jamie Raskin<\/a> of Maryland, who another member told Punchbowl has <a href=\"https:\/\/punchbowl.news\/article\/house\/raskin-nadler-tensions-persist\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201creenergized\u201d the committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s not about their age, it&#8217;s about their ability,\u201d Jong-Fast said. \u201cAnd clearly the fact that Jerry has been removed from his committee means that leadership does not have faith in him. If leadership does not have faith in him, then the voters should not have faith in him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nadler has already filed to run for reelection. In fact, he told New York magazine last year he could <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/jerry-nadler-congress-2024-election-age.html\" target=\"_blank\">run for another <i>five<\/i> terms<\/a>. His chief of staff, Robert Gottheim, noted that Nadler easily beat veteran Rep. Carolyn Maloney in a competitive primary in 2022 and didn\u2019t even <i>face <\/i>a primary in 2024 before getting reelected in November with 80 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019ll put his over 30-year record of accomplishments against anyone,\u201d Gottheim said. \u201cThe district seems pretty happy with his representation and work in Congress. He takes every election at a time and he intends to run for reelection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Time will tell if the first midterm election of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term results in the same fed-up-with-the-old-guard energy that helped Ocasio-Cortez topple longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018 \u2014 and if so, whether a 46-year-old Upper East Sider who\u2019s about to release a book about being the daughter of feminist author Erica Jong, is the one to seize it.<\/p>\n<p>Jong-Fast understands that and put the odds of a campaign at 80 percent not running, 20 percent running \u2014 down from 50-50 at the start of the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Nadler may already have a well-known challenger in Trump\u2019s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has become an unlikely \u201cresistance\u201d hero for testifying against the president. Cohen decided against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/08\/11\/michael-cohen-trump-lawyer-new-york-house-seat-00110832\" target=\"_blank\">taking on Nadler<\/a> last cycle, but then told New York mag he\u2019d announce a 2026 run <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/michael-cohen-donald-trump-conviction-hush-money-trial.html\" target=\"_blank\">the day after Election Day<\/a>. That day has come and gone with no announcement, but Cohen told Blue Light News Friday he is still planning to run. <\/p>\n<p>There are also a handful of Manhattan elected officials who would be eager to jump in the minute Nadler gets out of the race. Among the names in the mix are Assemblymembers Micah Lasher, Alex Bores and Rebecca Seawright, City Council Members Erik Bottcher and Julie Menin and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJerry has godlike status in the district,\u201d Lasher said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK \u2014 Novelist turned political journalist Molly Jong-Fast wants somebody \u201cserious\u201d to run against Rep. Jerry Nadler in 2026 \u2014 so she doesn\u2019t have to do it herself. The Vanity Fair correspondent and podcast host has been talking to political consultants about a run against the 77-year-old Manhattan Democrat. But Jong-Fast told Blue Light [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}