Brewer Beats Goldberg for Third Term on City Council

Democrat Gale Brewer sailed to victory on Tuesday night in the race for the 6th City Council district, which includes most of the Upper West Side. Republican Joshua Goldberg, who lost with about 20% of the vote to Brewer’s 80%, vowed to run again in four years.

The race, between one of the most popular city council members in the city and a Republican who comes from a notorious conservative family, was never very suspenseful. This is the Upper West Side, for God’s sake. That said, Goldberg did apparently get a higher percentage of the vote than Brewer’s previous two opponents (she beat them with 82 and 86% of the vote respectively) and he did so during a very short campaign.

Brewer has actually been elected to the council four times, but her first two terms were two years each, making them the equivalent of one term under current council rules. Goldberg criticized her for voting against overturning term limits and yet running for another term.

Brewer, who was at an election night party at the George Keeley Bar on Amsterdam Avenue and 83rd Street, wasn’t available for comment Tuesday night. On the eve of the election she vowed in an email to supporters to “reduce overcrowded schools, make our neighborhood and our city greener, build and preserve affordable housing and continue our fight for a better quality of life.”

In an interview on election night, Goldberg said he was disappointed, but would likely run again.

“I’m not surprised. I’m happy that I’m above 20%,” said Goldberg, who was asked to run  by the Republican Party late in the race. “Literally they asked me to run 24 hours before they had to print the petitions.”

He said he spent most of October out on street corners handing out 15,000 flyers. “I didn’t have a chance to do it right. Next time around the City Council race will be wide open and it will be a whole different race.”

Goldberg has worked as a journalist, a fishmonger and a tour guide, and now runs his mother’s website lucianne.com, but he had never before run for political office. Even if his brother Jonah had never written a book  called “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change,” he would have had a tough time winning on the Upper West Side. But his family’s history undoubtedly earned him some extra notoriety.

After we wrote about his entry into the race, snarky Washington DC website Wonkette had a field day with his candidacy. Goldberg made light of all of the attention on his website and on twitter, where he boldly predicted “Goldberg will make the best showing of any Republican candidate for NYC Council in the past 20 years.” It wasn’t to be.