From Jewish teen magician to congressional contender: Meet Micah Lasher, Jerry Nadler’s heir apparent

Left to Right: New York Assemblyman Micah Lasher and Rep. Jerry Nadler. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images and Noam Galai/Getty Images for Riverside Park Conservancy

By Jacob Kornbluh September 4, 2025

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Celebrity names like Chelsea Clinton and Jack Schlossberg popped up just hours after Rep. Jerry Nadler announced his retirement after 36 years, but the most credible contender may be a one-time teenage magician juggling pro-Israel positions with progressive politics.

Micah Lasher, a protege of Nadler and a newly elected state legislator, filed Thursday with the Federal Elections Commission. Lasher tapped Rob Gottheim, Nadler’s longtime aide, as his campaign treasurer, suggesting that Lasher has Nadler’s blessing.

Lasher is Jewish, like Nadler and much of the 12th Congressional District he represents. He has a resume that comes across as inevitable. He has worked for some of the heaviest hitters among New York Democrats, and handily won his bid last year to the State Assembly. He has hewed to mainstream pro-Israel positions, but has also endorsed the bete noir of pro-Israel Democrats, mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

Lasher previously worked for former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Kathy Hochul. He started his public career as a special assistant to Nadler in 2007.

Last year, Lasher won with 53% of the vote in a five-person race for an open Assembly seat on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Nadler’s district has one of the largest Jewish electorates in the country, with Jews accounting for about 30% of Democratic primary voters, according to data analyzed by Prime New York for the Jewish Community Relations Council. Nadler has in recent years campaigned on the need to preserve Jewish representation from New York City in Congress.

Lasher has already faced backlash from some Jewish constituents for helping rally Jewish support for Mamdani, who has a long history of criticizing Israel and of associations with pro-Palestinian groups.

The other declared candidate is Liam Elkind, a 26-year-old Jewish activist who had initially presented himself as a generational alternative to Nadler.

A history of working for Jewish politicians

Growing up in the Upper West Side, Lasher first gained attention as a magician, according to a 2007 New York Times profile. By the age of 14, he had already published a 224-page book of tricks, titled The Magic of Micah Lasher. Lasher hired Joel Stein, a former columnist for Time, as a publicist when Lasher was 12 and Stein was 23. Lasher performed illusions like the “Ambitious Coin,” in which a half-dollar disappears, on NBC’s Today show.

In high school, he was editor of Stuyvesant High School’s student paper, The Spectator, and fought with administrators over free speech. He graduated from New York University, where his roommate was comedian Aziz Ansari.

Lasher dove early into politics: At 17, he was an informal adviser to then-Assemblymember Scott Stringer, who is also Jewish. Years later, he managed Stringer’s 2021 mayoral campaign. After Assemblymember Deborah Glick lost her 1997 bid for Manhattan borough president, Lasher reportedly went to a corner of a West Village restaurant and wept.

In 2001, working for the mayoral campaign of Mark Green, Lasher faced accusations of racism over a flyer showing rival Fernando Ferrer kissing Rev. Al Sharpton’s backside. He later apologized for it. He also managed Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s campaign for New York City Council. Hoylman-Sigal is now the Democratic nominee for Manhattan Borough President. 

Lasher went on to serve as a campaign consultant before joining the Bloomberg administration, first in the Department of Education and later as the city’s chief negotiator in Albany. The spokesperson for the state Senate’s Democrats, Austin Shafran, described Lasher to The New York Times as someone who “can go to war with you on Monday and break bread with you on Tuesday.”

Lasher then became chief of staff to Schneiderman, who resigned in disgrace over sexual abuse allegations. Lasher also served as policy director for Gov. Kathy Hochul.

He narrowly lost his first race for the New York State Senate in 2016, but won a majority of the vote in last year’s election.

Lasher’s Zionist views

In his 2024 victory speech, Lasher boasted that for his Jewish interns, the campaign “was a place where you could be both a proud progressive and a proud Zionist.”

Lasher during the campaign hewed to a mainstream Democratic stance on the Gaza war, supporting a diplomatic solution that would return all the hostages and culminate in peace with the Palestinians. “I would like to see Hamas out of Gaza and Netanyahu out of the Knesset,” he said at a candidate forum.

Earlier this year, Lasher introduced legislation that would implement measures to protect students from harassment and discrimination on college campuses amid rising antisemitism.

Lasher’s endorsement of Mamdani, a supporter of the Israel boycott movement, and Nadler’s recent statement that he will support legislation to block the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel, will likely be an issue in the race if other candidates join.

Clinton has adamantly said she is not running. Schlossberg has said he is still considering a run.

A Politico reporter on Wednesday revealed a poll now underway that appears to come from Lasher’s campaign or someone close to it, and it signaled how large an issue Israel has become in the district.

It tested Lasher against other likely contenders and also asked whether respondents support blocking aid to Israel as a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or oppose any limits on arms sales. The survey also tested favorability for AIPAC, the pro-Israel group that has in recent years played a role in Democratic primaries.