The biggest winner of Tuesday night's NY-12 congressional debate was Nina Schwalbe, a public health expert who wasn't even invited to the first televised debate in the race to fill retiring incumbent Jerry Nadler's seat in Manhattan.
Much ink has been spilled about the four other congressional candidates on the stage—Michael Bloomberg "protégé" Assemblymember Micah Lasher, Upper East Side Assemblymember Alex Bores, former Republican turned anti-Trump Democrat George Conway, and social media influencer and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg. But Schwalbe's straight-talking and bold zingers made the men look like a bunch of bloodless herbs.
"I'm not a celebrity, I'm not a billionaire, and I'm not backed by the party," said Schwalbe, 60, while introducing herself as a public health expert who has spent her career fixing broken public systems, and touting her experience designing a World Bank program for women's healthcare, being tapped by the Biden administration to lead USAID's global distribution of millions of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, and successfully sparring with Big Pharma to bring prices down on the cervical cancer vaccine. "I'm very pleased to be here tonight with you all, with the boys, with the guys—and I guess somebody decided there should be a mom in the room," Schwalbe quipped.
With the primary just weeks away, and Schwalbe cracking just three percent in the most recent poll (Lasher and Bores are hovering in the early 20s, Schlossberg 11, Conway 9), she is unlikely to win. Though 30 percent of the district is still undecided, the latest FEC filings show she'd only raised about $400,000 compared to the men's millions, and is not benefiting from super PAC spending.
Despite this, Schwalbe threw into sharp relief an element the NY-12 congressional race is sorely missing—rizz, swag, personability, and pure cojones—in a way perhaps only an outsider with nothing to lose can.