Special Election Assembly Race Downtown Draws Big Field of Candidates

The dust has not settled on the 2025 election and already at least eight candidates have declared, or are on brink of declaring, that they are seeking the NYS Assembly seat that Harvey Epstein vacated with a year to go so he could run for City Council.

The district includes the East Village, parts of the Lower East Side to the northern edge of Chinatown, Midtown East, Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, parts of the Flatiron District, Tudor City, and the United Nations.

Keith Powers, the term-limited City Council member from CD4, is the latest to officially declare for the seat, which covers some of the same territory that he represented on the Council.

He joins Kevin O’Keefe, the founder and president of the St. Vartan Park Conservancy, who kicked off his campaign at a launch event at Hill and Bay restaurant in Murray Hill/Kips Bay on Sept. 17 and was on the scene for Epstein’s watch party on election night.

Keith Powers also did a fly at the Epstein event, before heading uptown to join Virginia Maloney’s watch party at Stout.

Also interested on the Democratic side are Josh Arnon, a self-described “Jewish Democratic Socialist,” and Gabriel Turzon, a treasurer of Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats and, since 2017, a member of Community Board 6.

Sarah Batchu, a community activist who ran second to Epstein with a strong grassroots organization in the CD2 Democratic primary in June, is also said to be mulling a run. She had endorsed Epstein in the general election and was at the Epstein watch party on election night.

Angela Aquino, a Filipino-American who was formerly a conservative Republican but who switched to Democrat and ran unsuccessfully in the primary for public advocate earlier this year, is also expected to formally enter the race, sources said.

Marquis Jenkins, district leader for the 74th Assembly District Part A who is the director of advocacy for the non-profit Housing Works, is also said to be on the brink of entering the race.

There is also a candidate forum scheduled for the Democratic candidates on Nov. 18 at the Nathan Straus Houses sponsored by the district’s three leading Democratic Clubs—the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, the Samuel Tilden Democratic, and the Coalition for District Alternative.

So far, Powers and O’Keefe have accepted invites to appear. Sarah Batchu said she also accepted the invite. Josh Arnon was invited, but a spokesperson said he turned it down because he is not planning to run in the special election to fill the final year of Epstein’s term. But he is planning to run in the regularly scheduled Democratic primary in June when a full two-year term is up for grabs.

Jason Murillo, who grew up in NYCHA projects on the Lower East Side, is believed to be the only candidate on the Republican side. Epstein ran unopposed in the 2024 race. In 2022, a Republican opponent, Bryan Cooper, ran against Epstein and pulled in 16.9 percent of the vote.

Murillo, with backing from the Republican and Conservative parties, ran for the City Council seat won by Epstein. Murillo pulled 16.4 percent of the vote this year. When Epstein was projected as the winner, Murillo immediately declared for the soon-to-be-vacated Assembly seat.

Epstein has not announced who is his preferred Assembly successor. “That’s a story for another day,” he told OT Downtown during his watch party.

Once the election results are certified, because the CD2 seat is vacant, Epstein can be immediately sworn in ahead of the other winning candidates, who must wait until Jan. 1. To fill the seats opening up post-election, Governor Kathy Hochul has to set new dates for a primary and a special election.

Whoever wins the primary and special election will have a quick turnaround before they have to run again. The Democratic primary date for 2026 has already been set as June 23, and the general election is Nov. 6.