Unlike the other 2021 municipal races, this office is not term-limited and rank choice voting will not be used. Most of the debate between the candidates has focused on criminal justice reform with some candidates offering more progressive agendas than others. Another big issue for this office is how it will take over the Trump investigation currently underway by the incumbent Cyrus Vance, who is not seeking re-election.
Democratic candidates
Tahanie Aboushi
Aboushi was born and raised Brooklyn. When she was 14 years old her father was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison. She earned an undergraduate degree from St. Johns University and a law degree Syracuse University, and is a partner at a law firm with two of her siblings.
Alvin Bragg
A son of Central Harlem and a husband raising two children there, Bragg earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Harvard University. He’s spent nearly 2 decades in federal and state government, including as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as Chief Deputy Attorney General in New York State.
Elizabeth (Liz) Crotty
Born and raised in Manhattan in Stuyvesant town, Crotty grew up in the 70s and 80s and graduated from Fordham Law School. She began a six-year career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, then worked in civil law handling state and federal matters. She started her own criminal law firm 12 years ago.
Tali Farhadian Weinstein
Emigrating at age 4 when her family fled the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Ms. Weinstein grew up in Queens and Englewood Cliffs, NJ, earning degrees from Yale and Oxford University. She clerked for Judges Merrick Garland and Sandra Day O’Connor and recently worked in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. She is married with three daughters.
Diana Florence
Born in Manhattan, Ms. Florence earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked as a prosecutor for 25 years ago in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and is a long-time resident of Kips Bay where she lives with her husband and two children.
Lucy Lang
Granddaughter of businessman and philanthropist Eugene Lang, Lucy is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia Law School. She worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and later became the Director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP) at John Jay College. She lives in Harlem with her partner and their children.
Eliza Orlins
Ms. Orlins is a graduate of Syracuse University and Fordham Law School. She works as a public defender with The Legal Aid Society and litigates in both New York State Supreme Court and Criminal Court. She is a union member with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, and in 2004 competed on CBS’s Survivor.
Dan Quart www.danquart.com
Mr. Quart grew up in subsidized housing with parents who worked in the New York public school system. He graduated from SUNY Binghamton and St. John’s School of Law, and was elected to the NY State assembly in 2011. He lives on the upper east side with his wife and 2 children.
Republican candidate
Thomas Kenniff
Mr. Kenniff is a former prosecutor and Army officer who served in Iraq. He later established a New York criminal defense practice and continues to serve as a Major in the Army National Guard. He currently serves as legal officer at the Javits Center vaccine site, and is married with four daughters.
