Editor’s Note: The fight for the future of the Democratic Party is in Brooklyn

Central Brooklyn is at the center of a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. For years now, Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, has tried to fend off the New Kings Democrats, a progressive reform club that is trying to take over the leadership of the county party. Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams faces a primary challenge from state Sen. Zellnor Myrie – a young, charismatic and relatively progressive state lawmaker who represents the same neighborhoods that Adams represented a decade and a half ago. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress, is locked in an ongoing proxy war with state Sen. Jabari Brisport, who is working with the Democratic Socialists of America to try to get socialist candidates elected in Jeffries’ own backyard.

Wait, scratch that last one. “@CityAndStateNY, you can now stop mentioning this make believe proxy war with Rep. Jeffries and this mediocre nobody who’s done little to nothing,” top Jeffries adviser André Richardson wrote on X last week. “Jeffries lives in this political scammer’s head and he’s obsessed with us.” Richardson also posted a scorecard listing all the incumbents that Jeffries has successfully defended from socialist insurgents – this week, Assembly Member Stefani Zinerman defeated DSA-backed challenger Eon Huntley by six points – and suggested that Brisport himself would lose reelection in 2026.

Just don’t call it a proxy war.