John Kennedy

There’s a plaque on 79th street between Columbus and Amsterdam, just a few minutes’ walk from the American Museum of Natural History, marking the address of the apartment formerly owned by the late Philip Roth, who for decades was the most celebrated resident on the block. “The writer was as fierce as the man was generous; an enemy of cant, an advocate of freedom in all its guises, personal and political” reads the Historic Landmarks dedication.

It’s a sedate section of a city in constant reinvention and many or Roth’s haunts and evocations of the city as neighbourhood – Nice Matin, the brasserie on the corner; Zabar’s, the deli and delicatessen on the corner of 80th and Broadway that has been a neighbourhood fixture for 90 years, and the benches by the Natural History Museum where Roth himself sat – are unchanged. The Upper West Side is a key catchment for the crowded field competing for the congressional Democratic primary election for the city’s 12th district – and maintaining the sense of neighbourhood so vital in Roth’s work is an underlying theme in the race.

It’s a high-profile election, partly because the 12th covers a large swathe from the bouji upper east and west sides and down as far as Hudson Yards. But it has also caught the national eye because 33-year-old Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of the late Democratic president John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is running an unorthodox and decidedly 21st-century campaign that has him vying for the lead.

Congressional elections are different in that visitors and tourists crowd the streets entirely oblivious to the fact that Manhattan is on the threshold of a primary. There are no posters or paraphernalia, with the struggle for voter-loyalty playing out through digital media campaigns and time-honoured boots-on-ground mileage: an old-new hybrid that Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign used to spur a groundswell of support.

But wandering up Amsterdam on Wednesday, I come across Grace Peacore distributing leaflets for Micah Lasher, who often places nose-for-nose with Schlossberg in the fluctuating polls. Other leading contenders include Alex Bores, also a state assembly member, who is pushing a tax on second homes. The contrast between Lasher and Schlossberg frames the range of choices for New Yorkers: a proven state politician with two decades of experience or a fresh voice preaching radical change and with a bloodline connection to the mythical era of Democratic Washington.

“This is a very engaged district,” Peacore, who is the communications director for Lasher, says of the Upper West Side.

“Voters here are highly educated, know a lot about what is going on and what they want in a Congress member. The West Side is voter rich, meaning there is a high turnout. People here really do want someone who will fight against Trump and restore our democracy in Washington. I also think that even though it is a high-income district, people are really focused on affordability in this city and making sure the next generation can stay here and raise families here. So, first jobs, first homes are important.”

Lasher’s knowledge of the locality is without peer. He was born in this area and still lives within 10 blocks of his childhood home and can point to everything from gun-safety measures to his involvement in the Riverside Park Conservancy as evidence of his commitment to the area.

“I think a lot of us got involved in the campaign because of Micah’s experience and his vision for the 12th,” Peacore says.

“He leads with a lot of integrity and that drew a lot of us in. Micah Lasher’s been in public service for the better part of the last two decades. He really knows how to use the legislative process to make change for New Yorkers, most recently in the state assembly leading the fight against Trump and the fascism we see in Washington. So, I think he is the best equipped to go to Washington to fight back.”

The foyer of the Natural History Museum, on 79th, has been deployed as one of the early voting centres for the 12th. Campaign staff stand outside handing out manifesto brochures. Schlossberg’s people, although friendly, prefer not to talk about their candidate’s campaign. But Marian Rivman, who has lived on 65th for 58 years, explains what compelled her to volunteer for Schlossberg when she stops to talk while on her way home from a “Silver Sneakers” fitness class. A friend had mentioned Schlossberg, telling her: “He is saying the kinds of things you are always saying.”

Rivman decided to attend one of the “pizza parties" the campaign arranged in its early days. The Kennedy era was hard-wired into her subconscious from her school years when, sitting at home in the Bronx, she was mesmerised by JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” declaration in his inaugural address in 1961. She credits that moment with inspiring her to join the Peace Corps, with whom she spent two years in the Philippines, the beginning of “an opportunity to have a much bigger life than my family could ever have dreamed for me”.

So she wanted to see what the grandson was made of.

“I wanted to see: who is he? Who is around him? And I got to have a conversation with Caroline [Kennedy, JFK’s daughter and Schlossberg’s mother] for the gift that her father had given me. And I said after watching what was going on there: I’m getting on that bus. And so this 80-year-old woman has been running up and down brownstone steps to put leaflets on the floor,” she says with a laugh.

She is convinced Schlossberg has the substance and charisma to flesh out what is a skilful and attention-grabbing if elusive social media presence. A May profile in the New York Times depicted the Schlossberg campaign as “chaotic” while emphasising the perceived dilettante life of a gilded son, with a brief stint as a political staffer in Washington and a patchy resume. Schlossberg strongly rejected the portrait in high-profile interviews, countering that his political appointment in Washington ended when the Obama administration left power. His absence from the campaign, he said, occurred at a time after the death of his sister, Tatiana, who wrote an extraordinary essay published in The New Yorker about personal illness and the family legacy as distorted by the actions of her mother’s cousin, Robert F Kennedy jnr, in his role as health secretary, shortly before her death from leukaemia at the age of 35 last November.

“I had just lost my sister and didn’t feel the need to explain to somebody who was working on my campaign who I had just met why I was hanging out with my niece and nephew,” Schlossberg said.

“Tatiana was my best friend and I will never get over her. When you lose someone that close to you nothing will ever be the same. But it has given me all the confidence I need to run this race as I want, because no moment is guaranteed. No one knows what is coming next and I want to make full use of my life here on earth. And I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than run for office at a time when our country and New York City needs new leadership.”

He has been unsparing in his criticism of RFK jnr, his cousin once removed, and also hardline in his criticism of the Trump presidency and administration. His public profile is an odd mixture of social media playfulness and a pugnacious, direct speaking style reminiscent not so much of his late grandfather but of Robert F Kennedy, the attorney general during the Kennedy presidency.

And that throwback is what Rivman sees.

“Totally. First of all, people are fooled by his social media and like to think he is not serious. Trust me. He is serious. That question: why is he running for Congress first? They say he should join a community board first. At another moment in time there may be other reasonable candidates. But at this moment in time? We need someone who from day one is comfortable in Congress. And I like to say he knows where the bathrooms are, where the deals are made and where the bodies are buried! He knows how it works. I live next door to three young women and they knew about Jack before me. And they and their Swiftie friends went and voted for him. It is a grassroots movement here."

The endorsement of Lasher by Jerry Nadler, who has held this seat since 1992 and has decided not to seek another term, offers voters a clear torch-passing alternative. Schlossberg offers a dynamic-youth appeal and that evocative family heritage. Tuesday night’s primary vote will probably effectively decide November’s election: the district has returned a Republican candidate just once since the start of the 20th century.