This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

It’s not just denizens of the People’s Republic of Astoria that kicked in money for socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. In the last three months of fundraising, Mamdani hauled in the most money of any candidate – including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams – with $642,000 from a whopping 6,500 donors in parts of all five boroughs. Not just that, Mamdani also tied with Adams in a recent mayoral poll. They both polled at just 6%, but that’s a double victory for Mamdani; being viewed as a contender and, in all likelihood, pissing off the mayor.

Nothing quite like a collab among Kathys. Gov. Kathy Hochul promised $400 million for downtown Albany redevelopment in her State of the State address, a boon for Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. For all its importance in state politics, Albany is plagued by an underdeveloped downtown area and a grotesque interstate junction, which casts a shadow over what could otherwise be a bustling district for the state capital. Can Kathy’s benevolence to Kathy undo some of the reputational damage incurred in last year’s Final Four? No. But it’s a start for sure.

The former one-term Republican member of Congress from Syracuse is now in charge of the nation’s nukes. President-elect Donald Trump nominated Williams to serve as undersecretary for nuclear security for the U.S. Department of Energy and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. In his new job, Williams will oversee the production, testing and safeguarding of nuclear weapons, international arms control and U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion. He will also serve on the Nuclear Weapons Council.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia found himself out of a job last week in a shake-up that came as quite a surprise to practically everyone involved. Buffalo Mayor Chris Scanlon said he asked for Gramaglia’s resignation over a disagreement over policing philosophies, but little else is known beyond that. Maybe Gramaglia can spend some of his now-copious free time discussing what might have gone wrong with fellow former top cop Eddie Caban.

As Gov. Kathy Hochul (and Michael Scott and Wayne Gretzky) is fond of saying, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” While state Sen. James Skoufis dropped his long shot bid for Democratic National Committee chair, he did get some national TV appearances and perhaps a boost in name recognition out of the run. While it was a loss this week, it might help him in his next chapter, whether that’s a run for the House or something else.

If Assembly Member Anna Kelles was disappointed when the DEC and NYSERDA released its pre-proposal outline for cap and invest in December, it must have been even worse when the governor hit the brakes on implementing the ambitious climate program this year. Kelles started off the year by introducing legislation to create even more stringent guardrails for cap and invest than what the pre-proposal had recommended. She can still push to get that passed, but who knows when it would actually go into effect?