NY’s Pension Chief Faces First Democratic Challengers Since 2007

Pro-Palestinian activists march as they take part in a protest on Nakba Day in New York City on May 15. Photo by Adam Gray /Photographer: Adam Gray/Getty Im

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(Bloomberg) — New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who oversees the state’s $300 billion pension fund, is facing his first primary challenge since taking office nearly two decades ago as two rival Democrats try to seize on the progressive energy that propelled Mayor Zohran Mamdani to victory in November.

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The election on Tuesday is pitting DiNapoli against Drew Warshaw, an executive at a non-profit that focuses on affordable housing, and Raj Goyle, a lawyer and former Kansas state lawmaker.

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The two have faulted DiNapoli for delivering lackluster returns despite shelling out billions of dollars in fees to Wall Street money managers over the years. And both have said he’s failed to adequately channel pension money into investments that would provide social benefits to New Yorkers, like affordable housing or hastening the adoption of green energy. 

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But they have also sought to tap into anger about Israel’s war in Gaza by promising to divest the state’s portfolio of about $360 million of Israeli bonds — which DiNapoli increased as a show of support in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attacks that precipitated the bombardment of the Palestinian territory. 

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“Explain to me how financing a war machine 6,000 miles away when one out of every seven New York City public school students is homeless makes any sense,” Warshaw, who is Jewish, said in an interview. “Eighty percent of all of his foreign sovereign government investments are in a single country. That is politics, and that is not the way we should be investing our pension fund.”

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Progressive Democrats have rallied behind the Palestinian cause as Israeli’s assault on Gaza has left more than 70,000 dead. The issue has been particularly prominent in New York City, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel.

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Mamdani has been a consistent critic of Israel and supported the movement to boycott the country and divest from its assets. He has also endorsed a congressional bid by former city Comptroller Brad Lander, a Jewish politician who halted city investments in Israeli bonds and has called the country’s military campaign in Gaza a genocide. 

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Powerful Post

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There’s been no major polling on the comptroller race, a financial post that typically draws relatively little interest, and DiNapoli’s two challengers are both trying to appeal to similar voting blocks. Yet it’s a powerful position since the comptroller has sole control of the state’s employee pension fund, unlike most other states, where that’s given to boards of political appointees and union representatives. 

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DiNapoli, a former member of the state assembly, has been in office since February 2007, when the legislature tapped him to replace Alan Hevesi. Hevesi resigned after pleading guilty to using state employees to chauffeur around his disabled wife and later pleaded guilty to participating in a pay-to-play scheme. DiNapoli has been endorsed by mainstream Democrats, like state Attorney General Letitia James, as well as major labor unions.