Kessler's record building the abundance movement and his developed platform on housing supply, homelessness, climate resilience, and government delivery make him the best choice in this race

Editor’s note: One of the candidates in this race, Ryder Kessler, is the co-founder and former Co-Executive Director of Abundance New York. He stepped down from his role prior to announcing his run, and he has not been involved in the process of evaluating candidates (in this race or any other). He was offered the same opportunities as other candidates to submit a questionnaire and participate in an interview. As with all candidates, we are assessing him on the strength of his responses, his campaign’s viability, and his prior leadership experience.

Kessler ran against Glick in 2022 on a platform of housing supply, pedestrian street reallocation, and clean energy deployment—and netted 30% of the vote against a 30-year incumbent, before "abundance" was part of the political vocabulary. Since then, he co-founded Abundance New York, helped build the intellectual and organizing infrastructure behind the movement, and released a more developed 2026 platform: upzoning paired with service delivery reforms, policies to lower the cost of building, and an energy strategy that combines fossil fuel regulation with building more clean energy. Kessler has outraised his opponents and netted a varied set of endorsements, including the WFP, several unions, Open New York, Stonewall Democratic Club, and Comptroller Mark Levine.

Both of these candidates embrace abundance ideas for this community and we are excited at each of their approaches

The two candidates running to replace him are Eli Northrup, a public defender and legal director at the Bronx Defenders who ran here in 2024, and Stephanie Ruskay, a rabbi and community organizer making her first run for office. Both support a vision of a New York that builds and delivers more—more housing, more transit capacity, more energy infrastructure, and more (and better) services for New York’s most vulnerable. While we cannot recommend one over the other at this time, we may revisit as the race continues.

Northrup, who has been endorsed by the WFP and a slew of left-leaning electeds and organizations, leads with a platform focused on increasing subsidies and services for New Yorkers, funded by taxing the rich. On transit, he plans to push for better reliability to reduce car dependence. On the housing front, Northrup has adopted a Mamdani-esque combination of tenant protection and pro-supply policies, emphasizing SEQRA reform, cutting red tape, and transit-oriented development. This latter set of policies has earned him an endorsement from Open New York, in addition to housing groups more focused on demand-side reforms.

Our one hesitation about Northrup is the risk that his instinct to pair every pro-housing policy with affordability requirements could, in practice, make projects harder to build. He is aware of this tension, and said that he doesn't want to let perfect be the enemy of the good.

We acknowledge she falls short relative to Northrup in depth and specificity, but we are excited about how she talks about these issues and believe that she will find an audience.