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Will Lindsey Boylan Be New York’s Newest Sewer Socialist?

The first woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment is running for City Council. Her progressive campaign has been backed by Zohran Mamdani.

Only a few years ago, Lindsey Boylan, former deputy secretary for economic development and special adviser to the governor of New York, became known as the first woman to speak out against former Governor Andrew Cuomo for sexual harassment. Yet Boylan has refused to let her abuser define her even after she helped ensure his defeat in the New York City mayor’s race. On her New York City Council campaign, she wants the voices of survivors—and more broadly, the voices of marginalized communities—to come first.

Now Boylan is running a sewer socialist–style campaign that has resonated beyond the Lower West Side of Manhattan, which she is running to represent. From Trump-proofing New York to supporting myriad progressive policies, including pledges to establish a $20 million City fund for gender-affirming care and pass a vacancy tax on landlords who keep rent-stabilized and affordable units empty, her campaign feels designed to serve a diverse and inequality–riddled city.

She has also made her intent to follow in Zohran Mamdani’s footsteps clear. Like the incumbent mayor—from whom she recently earned an endorsement—Boylan self-identifies as a democratic socialist, is running with the backing of the Working Families Party, and is embracing big, bold ideas to make city life more affordable. She says that all of her campaign staff and field leads are former Mamdani volunteers and that, so far, she has personally knocked on over 2,500 doors. District 3 is, on average, whiter and wealthier than the city as a whole, but as Boylan’s campaign has emphasized, the locale has pockets of deep poverty and is home to massive public housing developments that have fallen into major disrepair.

On Tuesday, April 28, Boylan faces off against Democratic Assembly District 75 leader Layla Law-Gisikio, Community Board 4 chair Leslie Boghosian Murphy, and Carl Wilson, former chief of staff to the district’s former Council member. Early voting in the district is already underway.

This interview took place on April 20 and has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

Ilana Cohen: If you had to explain to a voter in between subway stops what the most important reason you’re running to represent District 3 is and why you’re the best candidate, what would you say?

Lindsey Boylan: We just elected a progressive direction for the city with the mayor’s election. To accomplish all of these incredibly important things we just fought for—universal childcare, fast and free buses, taxing the rich—we need a City Council to support the mayor’s and New Yorkers’ agenda…and we need that seat to get things done. [Mamdani’s] already had an amazing win on universal childcare, with the pilot program and the governor announcing it. Now we need to make sure all of the relevant implementation pieces around each of his agenda items can happen.

IC: You were the first woman to expose former Governor Andrew Cuomo for sexual harassment. Today, women continue speaking out against abusers, including those in elected office. What would it mean to you as a survivor to join the City Council, and how would you seek to shape the Council into a force for ending sexual violence and advancing justice for survivors?

LB: Survivors writ large, not just women, are being penalized for speaking up and silenced. So I am going to use every single moment, every single opportunity, to support change on that front. I think it’s powerful. You know, people ask me often, “Is #MeToo dead?” And I think that’s wish-casting that accountability is over, and it’s not…. The way this used to work is you would have something horrible happen to you. You would tell no one else until you were maybe in your 80s or 90s—after your career was over [and] the abuser was most times out of power and gone. So, it was telling your truth, but the impact would be limited, because........

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