NEW YORK — State Sen. Jessica Ramos is entering the race for mayor of New York — the latest Democratic challenger to take on a weakened Eric Adams next year.

Ramos, a progressive Queens politician, has been among the most outspoken critics of the embattled mayor as his inner circle is embroiled in federal investigations.

But what she boasts in media and political skill she lacks in campaign advantage: She has low name recognition and no money in her city account. Other contenders — Comptroller Brad Lander and his predecessor, Scott Stringer — have already won citywide races and have been raising donations for months.

Ramos says her mayoralty would turn the page on Adams, a centrist Democrat at odds with the political left.

“You’re not going to find me at Zero Bond,” she said in an interview, referring to the mayor’s preferred private club. “You’re not going to find me doing any shenanigans. You’ll find me on the street, talking to New Yorkers. You’ll find me in City Hall in meetings with agencies. And making sure that I am recruiting and hiring the top talent of New York City and trusting them to do their job.”

She filed to open a campaign account Wednesday and will launch with a video Friday and a rally outside City Hall the following day.

Ramos said she began to consider running last year, and reached her decision as she watched “dysfunction at an all time level from City Hall.”

“The city overwhelmingly is in desperate need to feel faith in their institutions again,” she said. “All of the scandals aside, the basic functions of government need to be executed.”

Ramos would make history as the first woman, Latina and mother to become mayor. She was born to undocumented immigrants from Colombia. She would also be the first Queens-born mayor since the 19th century.

She is also the first progressive mayoral hopeful to openly feud with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose coveted endorsement could shape the mayoral primary.

Ramos sniped at Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter in 2022, saying the progressive icon was absent from their shared Western Queens district. In the surprising social media screed, Ramos said her fellow Democrat didn’t return calls and texts.

That was two years ago. Asked if they have a relationship now, Ramos replied, “I wouldn’t say so,” and noted Ocasio-Cortez still doesn’t have a district office in Queens. (Her staff, instead, take constituent appointments out of Tiffany Caban’s City Council office.)

Ramos’ relationship is famously tense with other New York progressives. Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, who shares a district with her, notably posted a photo on X Thursday night drinking with mayoral rival Zellnor Myrie, a state senator, ahead of Ramos’ launch.

“I feel like every politician is divisive by definition. Some people vote for you, and some people don’t,” she said in the interview. “I get that I’m an outspoken woman. I am aggressive in my legislative approach. I try to convey the urgency that my constituents feel in resolving issues.”

Once a communications aide for former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Ramos was elected to the state Senate in 2018, ousting incumbent José Peralta in a progressive wave that unseated a group of Albany Democrats who partnered with Republicans.

She chairs the influential Labor Committee, and has pushed to raise the minimum wage and passed bills extending pandemic-era government benefits to undocumented workers and banning employers’ anti-union “captive audience” meetings.

NEW YORK — Hakeem Jeffries is locked in an electoral battle with socialist activists in his home district, and he’s in danger of losing.

To the Democratic congressional leader, New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America are “virtue signalers on Twitter.” And to them, Jeffries is an “enemy” trying to take them down.

That animus is playing out in a legislative race in Jeffries’ backyard — one that threatens his power just as he is working to amass wins across the country in his bid to become the nation’s first Black speaker of the House.

Jeffries is deeply involved in a state Assembly race to stop DSA from increasing its foothold in the historically Black neighborhoods he represents in Brooklyn that he believes white gentrifiers are redefining politically. His preferred candidate, incumbent Stefani Zinerman, is facing opponent Eon Huntley, who has raised more money and won the support of the popular state senator in the district.

The battle is a familiar one: Jeffries has been at odds with Brooklyn socialists for years, with a roughly 50-50 record of electoral success — and that tension has been exacerbated by political divisions at home over the war in Gaza.

But this latest electoral skirmish is playing out at a critical time in Jeffries’ career: If Democrats reclaim the House in November, he is first in line to lead the chamber. And like another high-powered New Yorker — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — he must mind his left flank as he ascends. They protest outside his district office, target him on social media and throw up challenges to his favored city and state candidates.

The problem is keeping Jeffries from maintaining a wholly unified Democratic front.

“We need a cohesive group of individuals who are committed and all on the same page,” state Attorney General Tish James, who is backing Zinerman from her perch as a fellow power player in Black Brooklyn politics, said in an interview. “And not individuals who are throwing rocks and stones and are trying to disrupt the progress that we’ve made in Central Brooklyn.”

Jeffries declined to be interviewed for this article, but one of his most prominent House colleagues posited DSA’s messaging is catching on.

“I think a lot of the alarmist rhetoric about socialism and all of that, it hasn’t been particularly effective in New York,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told POLITICO when asked to respond to Jeffries’ critiques of the political movement. “I think New Yorkers are ready to actually be able to afford where we live.”

Despite backing other DSA candidates this cycle, Ocasio-Cortez is not actually endorsing Huntley — presumably a gesture of respect to Jeffries, her oft-uneasy ally.

Huntley is a political novice — he’s never even stepped foot in the state capitol — but he’s in a strong position. He has quintuple Zinerman’s donors, and left-leaning candidates have won in the district with similar messaging.

“To be clear. DSA has been delivering wins,” Huntley said in an interview. “And the reason why there is this fervor is because we have a winning message that truly speaks to what people are demanding.”

Jeffries and Zinerman see this as not just an Assembly primary, but a fight for the soul of Central Brooklyn: Democratic Party loyalists versus the disruptive forces to their left. Zinerman is painting Huntley as an outsider thoroughly beholden to DSA.

“The virtue signaling crowd and the carpetbaggers who work for them have tried to undermine Attorney General Tish James, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and other leaders who are authentically connected to the community for years. They have repeatedly failed,” André Richardson, a senior adviser to Jeffries who is also advising Zinerman’s campaign, said in a statement. “Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman is a proven, hardworking and authentic champion of the people of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. Leader Jeffries is strongly committed to making sure that she is reelected this year.”

Huntley is a 39-year-old Black man of Guyanese heritage, raised in public housing in the low-income Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. He has lived in the neighborhood of Bed-Stuy since 2009.

Despite his longstanding ties to the area, critics aligned with Jeffries say Huntley represents a younger population gentrifying the historically Black area in Brooklyn.

Huntley looks that part. He’s a former fashion designer, dressing with the purposefully distressed look of an Instagram model, rather than the bland uniform of a politician. When he met POLITICO for an interview, he wore a black zip-up hoodie over loose acid wash jeans with snakeskin creepers on his feet, a beat up MoMA-branded Yankees cap and a nose ring.

Huntley calls himself a “proletariat in bourgeoisie clothing” because his day job is selling clothing from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s ultra-chic brand The Row at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue — just a block from Trump Tower.

Zinerman and her allies are quick to point out that, while Huntley is Black, his campaign staff and volunteers are overwhelmingly white — in a district that’s 50 percent Black and 20 percent Hispanic. When POLITICO visited his office in May, 18 volunteers had just returned from knocking on doors. Every single one of them appeared to be white, and almost all were under 40.

“How can you represent us when we know that you are a puppet for others?” Zinerman supporter Henry Butler said at a recent Democratic club meeting, attended by 33 people — almost all of them elderly and Black.

That’s a winning message, explained L. Joy Williams, a Democratic consultant who is Black and is based in Central Brooklyn.

“There is a feeling of Black communities in Central Brooklyn that their communities and political voice are being taken away from them,” she said. “Hakeem and others are responding to voices in the local community that don’t want what they’ve been working for for decades to be overrun and taken away by an entity that doesn’t have longstanding roots in that community.”

Zinerman is a 59-year-old Black woman, also born and raised in Brooklyn, who moved to the neighborhood in 2012. She worked as an aide for local Democratic elected officials before winning her seat in 2020.

Huntley argues Zinerman is the one captured by outsiders — not gentrifiers in coffee shops, but Manhattanites in suits. So instead of fighting for tenant protections, climate progress, public schools and Palestine, she’s for homeowners, fossil fuels, charter schools and Israel, he says.

To that end, his campaign held a “Know your Enemies” meeting in April, which an invitation said would “focus on why Eon's race is a critical battle ground for socialist politics in New York by discussing the enemies we face in the race — from our primary opponent to Hakeem Jeffries to AIPAC.”

That line earned them a counterprotest from Zinerman supporters — “when someone calls you their enemy, you’ve got to believe them,” said a local operative Marlon Rice — but when Huntley defended it on X, he didn’t mention Jeffries. The enemies are the real estate, charter school and Israel lobbies, he said.

Pressed further for an explanation, Huntley described a moneyed class that has gentrified Bed-Stuy and caused runaway rents.

“These are all provable things. Literal receipts. You can look into donors,” he said.

Among Zinerman’s contributors are billionaire scions Emma Bloomberg — former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s daughter — and Lizzie Tisch. Huntley has raised more money from more donors, but Zinerman has closed the gap in recent weeks. In addition, she’s being buoyed by super PACs funded by Mike Bloomberg himself and Walmart heir Jim Walton, among others.

“There’s a lot of people who have given me money that I don’t know. And they’ve done that because they don’t like you guys,” Zinerman said about DSA. “Everyone is spending money on the district, so as far as I’m concerned it’s reparations.”

A DSA candidate won a neighboring state Senate seat in 2018. Two years later, the movement notched two state legislative wins agianst Jeffries' allies. And in 2021, the young progressive Black Lives Matter activist Chi Ossé, who is aligned with DSA but isn’t a member, won a competitive open seat for the City Council.

This year the district is shaped by pro-Palestinian energy: 34 percent of voters cast a blank ballot in the April presidential primary, in a statement against Biden’s support for Israel. It’s not uncommon to see pro-Palestinian flags and posters in apartment windows.

That includes Huntley’s campaign office, where he has hung a Palestinian flag. Huntley is openly running in opposition to Israel, in a way that’s still remarkable in modern politics. “Palestine is on the ballot this June,” a mailer of his reads. “Tell the establishment that you support a ceasefire now” by voting for Huntley.

Jeffries has been pushing back, with some success.

There was interest from his camp in going on offense, trying to unseat two socialist incumbent state legislators, POLITICO reported last year. Jeffries was feeling emboldened by taking out Council Member Charles Barron last year, a longtime foe with DSA leanings. Jeffries-backed candidates also defeated those endorsed by DSA in three Brooklyn races in 2021 and 2022.

But no challengers emerged this year. Instead, Jeffries and his allies found themselves playing only defense, trying to hold off Huntley.

As Jeffries’ star rises, it’s clear that this is bigger than just a neighborhood scuffle.

“If you can’t get anything done at the state (level), it doesn't speak well to what you can present to the country,” said Basil Smikle, a political scientist and former executive director of the state Democratic Party. “You want to minimize opportunities for the right to be able to cast all Democrats in the same lot as individual members who may be making individual policies who may not be aligned with where Hakeem is” — like Huntley, and other DSA allies. “He can’t have that in his own backyard.”

NEW YORK — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg won more than just the case when a jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts.

The Harlem Democrat, who at times seemed like a reluctant participant in a trial he launched, secured a place in history as the first prosecutor to land the conviction of an American president.

It’s easily one of the most dazzling feats of jurisprudence the nation has seen — and the sort of accomplishment that could launch him on a political rocket ship to Washington. Indeed, the conviction Thursday drew immediate praise and gratitude from Democrats, who see the former president as a unique threat to democracy — while also intensifying attacks from his supporters and the freshly convicted candidate himself, who has called the case a “witch hunt” and a “sham trial” organized by President Joe Biden.

Yet there were no Champagne baths in Bragg’s office after the verdict. When the jury’s decision was announced in Manhattan Criminal Court, Bragg stuck to the apolitical tone he has adopted throughout the prosecution. In public, he described the case as standard practice. In private, he acknowledged to his staff the enormity of what they’d taken on — and said it was time to get back to business as usual.

“I know that the trial that has just concluded disrupted the ability of our staff, our witnesses and victims, and our law enforcement partners to navigate the Office and courthouse,” Bragg wrote in an emailed memo obtained by POLITICO, thanking his team for working with a global spotlight on their backs.

“As we close this chapter,” he added, “I want to assure you that we will do everything in our power to restore normal operations as quickly as possible, while prioritizing your safety first and foremost.”

For Bragg personally, a sense of “normal” is unlikely to come any time soon.

The partisan debate over whether prosecuting Trump was the right thing to do politically will only continue until Election Day. And the case itself will continue until Trump’s sentencing, scheduled for July 11, where he faces up to four years in prison. Months of appeals will almost certainly follow.

Bragg, as much as he’s sought to avoid seeming like a politician, will be forced to reckon with his future. He’ll have to run for reelection next year on a platform that is sure to include his conviction of Trump as its centerpiece. Aides, allies and New York Democratic leaders say they expect the Manhattan Democrats who elected him to know and appreciate the case he won, even if he himself does not want to — pardon the pun — brag about it.

“Alvin Bragg is going to run on a history-making, career-making prosecution,” said Maya Wiley, a progressive legal commentator who ran for mayor in 2021. “The first ever of a former U.S. president. Period. That’s a hell of a record to run on on its own.”

Even if Bragg himself shies away from using the case politically, out of fear of inflaming partisan backlash, other members of this party will be eager to, said Basil Smikle, a political scientist and former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party. “For Democrats, this is an opportunity to unite behind him and talk about how this is a man who does care about accountability,” he said.

That’s a clear message for a prosecutor who had a rough start, politically. He has been assailed by tough-on-crime conservatives, after laying out his agenda of declining to prosecute certain lower-level offenses. Crime rates in Manhattan have trended down over his time in office, but are still above pre-pandemic levels, making Bragg an easy target.

Bragg was also criticized by many Democrats for not quickly bringing a criminal conspiracy case against Trump that assistants in the office had been building. Prosecutors on that case publicly resigned, and it took Bragg another year to bring this separate Trump indictment about hiding hush money payments to benefit his campaign.

The case earned detractors, even from some Trump critics, who argued it was weak, in part for relying on federal laws to escalate misdemeanor charges to felonies.

The conviction, Bragg political adviser Richie Fife told POLITICO, proves it was the right case.

“Alvin doesn't spend time worrying about the Twitter lawyers or the outside noise,” he said.

Bragg has focused on reducing gun violence and making Manhattan safer and fairer, he said, and is now in an even stronger political position than he was before, Fife said. “He focuses on doing the right thing, the right way, and for the right reasons — speaking in the courtroom, with the politics taking care of itself."

The politics, of course, includes the escalated ire of Trump loyalists who have threatened Bragg’s life.

Trump himself has called Bragg a “Soros-backed prosecutor” — seizing on the fact that Bragg’s campaign was boosted by a PAC funded by liberal donor and Republican bogeyman George Soros — and argued he was pressured into taking the case.

It will be overturned on appeal, argued New York State Republican Chairman Ed Cox. But in the meantime, “it raises President Trump’s stature as a candidate. He is now in a special category as a martyr to injustices that have embarrassed us around the world that make us look like a banana republic,” he said in an interview. This is what (Russian President) Putin does. This is what (Chinese President) Xi does. And we are now doing the same.”

Democrats, by and large, are less confident about the case’s impact on the election.

“For those of us amazed with how this guy gets away with murder, figuratively, it’s a moment of joy when justice finally catches up with you,” said Luis Miranda, a New York-based Democratic consultant. “But that’s not what is going to elect (Trump) or reelect Biden.”

After all, “There’s no playbook for this,” said Yvette Buckner, another New York Democratic consultant. “After people get over the initial shock and awe of the first president being convicted on 34 counts, people are going to have to sit and think — do they really want to have a convicted felon running our country?”

Asked for his response Thursday night to criticism of the case, Bragg allowed himself a pat on the back, talking about training in the law, coming up through the state Attorney General’s office, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to lead the esteemed Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

“My response, again,” he said, “is I did my job.”