Justin Brannan is backing his chief counsel for his City Council seat

The Justin Brannan mini machine is backing a Bay Ridge Democrat to run for the term-limited lawmaker’s City Council seat next year. On Monday, Kayla Santosuosso, currently chief counsel in Brannan’s office, is launching her campaign for southern Brooklyn’s 47th City Council district, which combines Bay Ridge and Coney Island, and which Brannan has represented – in varying configurations – since 2018. Brannan and state Sen. Andrew Gounardes are both endorsing her.

Santosuosso, an Ohio native who has lived in Bay Ridge since 2013, worked for the Arab American Association of New York before joining the City Council campaign of Palestinian pastor Khader El-Yateem, who ran against Brannan in the 2017 primary. She later joined Brannan as his deputy chief of staff, before working as an attorney for the city’s Law Department and then returning to Brannan’s office. She was recently made president of Bay Ridge Democrats, the club Brannan and Gounardes co-founded.

“I’m running because I can basically be ready on day one,” Santosuosso told City & State, noting she’s lived “a couple of different lives” in the neighborhood. A year before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the city, she and her now-husband bought Lock Yard, a Bay Ridge bar. “I know what it means to struggle to run a small business here. I know what it means to be a renter here. I know what nonprofits go through, because I’ve managed a nonprofit here. And I’ve organized here, and I’ve worked in the council.” 

The 47th district saw one of the biggest shakeups of the 2022 City Council redistricting process, combining major parts of Brannan’s Bay Ridge domain with then-Council Member Ari Kagan’s Coney Island turf. With the two areas lumped together in a single district, Kagan and Brannan faced off in a contentious incumbent versus incumbent election in 2023.

Though Brannan won the race comfortably, Kagan, who ran as a Republican, garnered just shy of 42% of the vote. Brannan, a moderate Democrat prone to flashes of progressivism – he backed Bernie Sanders in 2020 but is not a socialist himself – has consistently faced competitive Republican opponents despite a strong Democratic voter enrollment advantage in the district. While Democrats all over the city are grappling with the growing GOP foothold, including in immigrant communities, it’s somewhat old news in southern Brooklyn. But Democrats are still struggling with how to confront it. Chris McCreight, Brannan’s chief of staff, failed to flip an Assembly district that overlaps with the 47th council district this year, leaving Republican Alec Brook-Krasny in the office.

The Kings County Republican Party hasn’t made any announcements about putting up a candidate in the race. So far, the only other candidate who has filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board is Anthony Batista, who previously worked in Democratic Assembly Member Mathylde Frontus’ office.

Though Santosuosso is not Arab American, she sees the neighborhood’s sizable community as important to her work so far and the work she’d do in office. She stumbled into Middle Eastern studies as a college student. She started out at Bay Ridge’s Arab American Association as a volunteer in college. “My path to the neighborhood and my way of getting involved in all of this started with the Arab community,” she said, adding that while El-Yateem lost in 2017, Brannan has done a good job of building relationships and working with the community. 

In the year since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s war in Gaza, Santosuosso said the message she has heard from Bay Ridge’s Palestinian and Arab American communities is “horrified and angry.” “I look forward to just being somebody that can empathize with the community, make sure that their right to protest is protected, make sure that they’re protected from discrimination, hate crimes, anything like that,” she said.

Though Brannan and Santosuosso’s respective paths to politics diverge, she said she hopes to emulate the focus Brannan has put on responsiveness to constituent issues while in office, while also taking on big legislative fights. While she had a hard time outlining major differences between her approach and Brannan’s, one stands out. “I’m terrible at Twitter,” she said.