Jack Schlossberg Ran as a Mamdani, Not a Kennedy — and Lost

That Jack Schlossberg finished third in the race to represent New York’s 12th Congressional District — a seat that boasts some of the city’s wealthiest precincts, including the Fifth Avenue building where Jackie Kennedy Onassis raised her children — is already being read as evidence that Camelot has lost its political luster. Yet Mr. Schlossberg’s Kennedy ties are what vaulted him ahead of every candidate in the first place in a crowded field in early polling.With little political experience, the 35-year-old social media provocateur entered the race as the candidate to beat. He launched with a splashy profile in the New York Times, a stylish campaign site that played up his resemblance to his uncle, John Kennedy Jr., and an endorsement from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. His bid coincided with the release of a television series about John Jr. and his glamorous wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.Mr. Schlossberg denounced that scoop, but it ignited a resurgence of fascination with Camelot and buoyed his campaign. Young women showed up to his events dressed as Bessette, with her signature black turtleneck and tortoiseshell headband. A survey conducted at the end of February put him as the top choice of 25 percent of likely voters — double the 11 percent secured by the candidates who would become the eventual frontrunners.That includes Assemblyman Micah Lasher, who won the 12th district primary, and Assemblyman Alex Bores, the runner-up. Mr. Schlossberg held his lead through March, when another poll showed him at 22 percent. Messrs. Bores and Lasher had begun to close the gap, polling at 19 and 14 percent, respectively. By May, surveys showed Mr. Schlossberg trailing in third.Mr. Lasher built institutional credibility, securing endorsements from the outgoing incumbent — and Mr. Lasher’s mentor — Jerry Nadler, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Kathy Hochul. He relied on his decades of political experience and cast himself as a policy “nerd.” Mr. Bores, a former Palantir employee who resigned in 2019 over moral objections to the company’s work, emerged as the champion of artificial intelligence regulation. Mr. Schlossberg, lacking that kind of record, pursued a campaign that loosely paralleled Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent mayoral bid. He billed himself as an anti-establishment outsider, vowed to reject corporate and super PAC money, and leaned heavily on social media. He also tried to palm off on voters the idea that he was the only candidate willing to condition military aid to Israel. His presidential grandfather would have been appalled. Yet Mr. Schlossberg’s attendance at swanky A-list fêtes like the Met Gala, not to mention his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his J.D. and M.B.A. from Harvard University, made his “I’m one of the people” pitch a tough sell. Also, his positions weren’t far left enough to convince anyone he was genuinely part of Mr. Mamdani’s orbit — Hizzoner himself declined to endorse him, despite Mr. Schlossberg’s apparent angling. Reports of erratic campaign behavior and high staff turnover didn’t help. Yet the deeper problem was that Mr. Schlossberg seemed to have misread his electorate. The 12th District is not Mamdani country. In November’s mayoral election, the district was one of just four citywide that the former governor, Andrew Cuomo, carried. The Upper East Side, part of the 12th, favored Mr. Cuomo by nearly 25 percentage points. So the question that hangs over the race is what would have happened had Mr. Schlossberg had, instead of cosplaying as an outsider, fully leveraged the advantages he was served on a silver platter. That would have meant embracing his family’s record and network, including, in JFK’s best years, distancing the family from the antisemitism and hostility to Israel that obtains among Mr. Mamdani’s camarilla. It’s possible, but far from certain, that his thin resume and social media antics would have been a nonstarter to many of the district’s voters. To his credit, his unfiltered persona, even if it at times tips into the chaotic, is refreshing, and even a little charming. In any case, this race is likely not the last we’ll see of Mr. Schlossberg. As a first step he could read Ira Stoll’s biography, “JFK, Conservative.”

Jack Schlossberg Ran as a Mamdani, Not a Kennedy — and Lost

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