Ghost Runner Pod

Micah Lasher is the State Assemblyman for New York's 69th District and the Democratic nominee for New York's 12th Congressional District. If you liked this project and want to support us, you can buy me a coffee .

Alex Bronzini-Vender is a freelance political journalist who has written extensively about the future of the Democratic Party.

Michigan Law professor Nick Bagley is an expert in administrative law and has been called the Godfather of the Abundance movement (by me).

Adam Carlson is the cofounder of the political polling and strategy firm Zenith Research.

Michael Lange is a writer, researcher, strategist, and political organizer who writes The Narrative Wars.

Timmy Facciola writes the Judge Street Journal, a Substack about New York politics (and fishing), with a particular focus on Westchester County and the Hudson Valley. He is covering the NY-17 race as obsessively as we are in NY-12.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus is a staff writer at The New Yorker where he has written about Alex Bores, Anthropic, and the effective altruism movement, among many other things.

David Siffert is a civil rights lawyer, NYU law professor, and progressive policy advocate running for New York State Assembly in District 66.

Mason Williams is a Professor of Political Science and Leadership Studies at Williams College, focusing on the political history of New York City. He joined us last week for a wide-ranging conversation on how the complicated legacy of Mayor Michael Bloomberg might affect this race. His new book, City of Fortune: Inequality and the Making of Contemporary New York , will be released on June 23rd.

Scott Stringer was a State Assemblyman for the Upper West Side from 1993-2005, then Manhattan Borough President from 2006-2013, and then City Comptroller from 2014-2021.

Calder McHugh is a reporter for POLITICO, covering the intersection between tech and politics.

Eli Northrup is a public defender and policy advocate who is running for the New York State Assembly in District 69 (UWS and Morningside Heights).

Maeve Andersen is a political data consultant based in Kips Bay and writes the politics Substack The Hudson Line .

Nina Schwalbe is a public health practitioner and advocate who is running for Congress in New York’s Twelfth District.

Liam Elkind is a 26-year-old Rhodes Scholar and nonprofit CEO. In July of 2025, he became the first person to officially declare their candidacy for the 2026 primary of NY-12.

Cameron Kasky is an activist and podcaster who co-founded gun-control advocacy group March For Our Lives when he was in high school. He was a co-host of the Bulwark podcast FYPod, with Tim Miller, and was the youngest candidate in the NY-12 congressional race until he dropped out in January.

Sam Deutsch writes the Substack Better Cities, focused on urbanist policy reforms in NYC, and he’s an active volunteer with the YIMBY group Open New York. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com.

Grady Yuthok Short is a 1L at Yale Law School and a former research associate at the Brennan Center for Justice, where he worked on campaign finance reform. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com.

Chris Sosa is a NYC-based political strategist. He runs his own shop, Sosa Strategies, which provides campaign consulting to political candidates. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com.

Jaime Berman is an active member of the Four Freedoms Democratic Club, the main club of the 76th Assembly District, and is currently a State Committee Member for that district. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com.

Daniel Marks Cohen is a lifelong Upper West Sider and a leader within the Three Parks Independent Democrats Club, one of the biggest and most influential clubs on the Upper West Side.  A quick note: we recorded this conversation in January, so some things may now be a bit out of date, but I think most of it has aged very well. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com....

The West Side Rag's Gus Saltonstall covers Upper West Side politics obsessively. I was really excited to get a chance to talk to him about the state of the NY-12 congressional race.  A quick note: we recorded this conversation in January, so some things may now be a bit out of date, but I think most of it has aged very well. If you want to reach out to us, our email is ghostrunner@substack.com...