This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The former Long Island member of Congress wants to show you can go home again. Just a year after leaving Congress for an ill-fated run for governor, Tom Suozzi is now running to reclaim his old seat after the expulsion of Republican George Santos. Suozzi did  need to grovel a bit before his old foe, Gov. Kathy Hochul, in order to give Hochul a face-saving way to back Suozzi after their bitter gubernatorial faceoff in 2022.

New York City’s food delivery workers – many of them immigrants, many of them members of the grassroots Los Deliveristas Unidos – have fought for years for fair pay and protections in a job that has only gotten more difficult under the rise of app-based companies like Doordash and Uber Eats. This week, the city’s new minimum wage went into effect – a real cause for celebration for Los Deliveristas co-founder Sergio Ajche and other workers. Still, reporting from The City on new tipping practices suddenly underway on the apps suggests that the workers’ fight isn’t over yet.

More than 200 firearm-peddlers have been arrested under a new gun trafficking law put forward by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, per a new report touting the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act’s success.  Add in a widely circulated speech before the United Nations and a poll that said she’d trounce former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a theoretical Democratic primary, we’d say it's been a pretty good week for New York’s junior senator.

Federally-indicted former Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress, but one of his potential replacements has legal problems of his own. Philip Grillo, a former Republican district leader in Queens who’s now running in the crowded GOP primary for Santos’ seat, was found guilty of participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Evidence against him included videos he filmed inside the U.S. Capitol building that showed him smoking marijuana and yelling, “We fucking did it, you understand? We stormed the Capitol!”

Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman is officially facing a primary challenge from Westchester County Executive George Latimer after months of rumors and taking flack for, among other things, his outspoken views on the Israeli government and calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Bowman hasn’t thrown in the towel by any means but Latimer is backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is expected to spend $100 million in 2024 to unseat progressives with Bowman tabbed as their main target. To make matters worse, Congress censured Bowman last night after he pulled a fire alarm to stop a vote on a spending bill, an incident he has plead guilty for. A rough week indeed.

It’s the kind of history no one wants to be making: Eric Adams’ approval rating hit a record low at 28%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, the lowest for any mayor since Quinnipiac started polling New York City voters in 1997. More than half of voters, 58%, disapprove of the mayor. Respondents, polled between Nov. 30 and Dec. 4, said they are particularly concerned about recent budget cuts, crime and the cost of housing. And an FBI investigation into Adams’ 2021 campaign (the mayor denies wrongdoing) surely isn’t helping either. But at least he finally made it to D.C. to share in some holiday cheer.