Sept. 4, 2025
They describe him as a one-time wunderkind turned whip-smart West Side political guru — and an overall mensch who’s helped just about everyone worth their salt in New York politics from behind the scenes.
Now Assemblymember Micah Lasher, 43, wants to step into the limelight in Washington.
“He has been the advisor, consigliere, trusted confidant of so many government officials throughout his relatively young life,” Manhattan Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal said of Lasher, the kid who ran his spirited 2001 City Council campaign at 19 and now wants to replace New York’s congressional dean. “I’m one of dozens of elected and government officials who consider him my closest political ally.”
In the wake of Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler’s retirement announcement, throngs of savvy Manhattanites are looking to replace him, including Assemblymembers Alex Bores and Tony Simone, City Council members Erik Bottcher and Keith Powers, investor Whitney Tilson and many others, our colleague Jeff Coltin reported Wednesday.
But Lasher — who started working closely with Nadler over two decades ago — was first to file for his former boss’s seat in the wee hours on Thursday. And he’s bringing the heft of Nadler’s world with him as he stakes out his path to Capitol Hill.
“He’s going to have the support of myself and a lot of other former Nadler staffers and people that are close to the congressman who believe in his brand of progressive politics,” said Rob Gottheim, Nadler’s current chief of staff who is serving as treasurer of Lasher’s campaign.
Gottheim made clear Nadler has not made an endorsement in the race.
Lasher — who declined to comment for this story — will have to contend with Liam Elkind, a passionate 26-year-old whose July campaign launch video leaned heavily on the need to oust an aging Nadler, who’s set to finish his term at 79.
Elkind told Playbook that “anybody who wants to get in should come on in — the water’s warm.”
“Our message is resonating with Democrats across the country and in the district, and it’s a message that rejects establishment politics and politics as usual,” he added. “I think primary voters are looking for something different from our politics.”
Lasher, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate in 2016, enters the race as the man who has fought in the trenches of New York politics since he signed up for Nadler’s political club while a student at Stuyvesant High School in 1996. He quickly rose to create the firm that morphed into the present-day political advising juggernaut SKDK.
He’s worked with and for the likes of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and many, many others as a key political strategist and governmental affairs master who could call the shots and work his magic from Albany.
“If you’ve got a difficult problem of any kind — policy, political, personal — you’re among the lucky if you can go to Micah, because he will both give among the best advice on earth, do it happily, and actually care about how it goes for you,” said former state Sen. Daniel Squadron, who has known Lasher as a friend and colleague for over 20 years.
In his seven months in the Assembly, following his time serving as Hochul’s top policy aide, Lasher played a brief but key role in helping her respond to Texas gerrymandering. He also put forward public safety legislation that worked to speed up evidence sharing and help DAs avoid case dismissals.
And he has lived his whole life in the same 20-block radius of his Upper West Side home base — save for six regrettable childhood years in New Jersey — and now raises three kids there.
Outside of politics, Lasher is into theater, literature and food (Squadron says he fights with Lasher over the superiority of Russ & Daughters lox).
He also, of course, was a teen magician, authoring an out-of-print book on magic tricks.
“There was a lot we had to do in Jerry Nadler’s office and hard races we had to win, and he often had pulled — let’s just say — a rabbit out of a hat,” said Amy Rutkin, Nadler’s former longtime chief of staff. “His precise magic is what he did to help the whole cast of good-government reform liberal and progressive elected officials around much of Manhattan win their races.”
“I don’t speak on behalf of Jerry at this point,” she added. “But he is very much quintessential Team Nadler.”