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Reporter's Notebook Elections New York State

DoorDash Starts Super PAC to Repel Progressive Challengers to Assembly Incumbents

Also: Michael Bloomberg gives $1.5 million to a pro-charter school group.

Nick Garber and Chris Bragg   ·   May 14, 2026
A diptych of two photos: a DoorDash delivery worker and a photo of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
DoorDash and Michael Bloomberg are joining a rush of big-money outside spending in New York state races. | Photos: GoToVan / Flickr; Gage Skidmore / Flickr | Illustraton: New York Focus

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Months after the food delivery platform DoorDash’s big foray into New York City elections last year, the company is taking the fight to Albany.

DoorDash registered a new super PAC with the state Board of Elections on Wednesday. The filing says the independent expenditure committee, called Local Economies Forward NY, plans to support four Assembly incumbents facing June primary challenges: Jeffrey Dinowitz, William Magnarelli, Jordan Wright and Stefani Zinerman. All four are up against progressive candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America or the Working Families Party.

Besides the four incumbents, DoorDash plans to support two candidates for open seats in Queens: Nathaniel Hezekiah, running to replace retiring Vivian Cook; and Patrick Martinez, who is seeking the seat being vacated by Steven Raga, who is running for state Senate.

Photo of uber lit up in windshield

John Horton, DoorDash’s head of North America public policy, said in a statement that the company is supporting “leaders who are focused on local economic growth, affordability, and opportunity.”

DoorDash has not put any money into the committee yet, and the company did not respond to questions about how much it plans to spend. As an independent expenditure committee, Local Economies Forward NY can raise and spend unlimited sums, but cannot give directly to campaigns or coordinate with them. 

The company said it is not pushing any single policy. State records show that DoorDash has lobbied the Assembly’s Democratic majority this year on bills regulating e-bikes, and on another measure that would ban companies from using algorithms to impose delivery time limits on their workers.

Last year, DoorDash’s identically named city-level super PAC spent over $800,000 on six City Council candidates, all of whom won their primaries. But the company was less successful in its big bet on Andrew Cuomo’s mayoral campaign, on which it spent $368,000 on top of a separate $1 million donation to another pro-Cuomo committee.

DoorDash’s increasing involvement in local elections has coincided with a raft of new laws seeking to regulate the delivery industry. The San Francisco-based company has sued the city over laws that limit the fees app companies can charge to restaurants and force them to show the tipping option when customers check out. (The fee-cap case was settled last year.)

DoorDash has seven different lobbying firms on retainer in New York City and in Albany this year, paying them $98,000 combined in January and February. 

DoorDash is the latest big corporation with plans to dump money into this year’s state elections. Gambling platforms DraftKings and FanDuel have put a combined $2.5 million into their own super PAC, New York Future, that will spend in 28 Assembly and Senate races around the state. And Uber has spent more than $9 million boosting Governor Kathy Hochul through the company’s Citizens for Affordable Rates committee, in response to her push to rein in auto insurance costs.

Insurgent socialist candidates for state office this year may run up against a wall of outside spending. One group run by Cuomo’s former campaign treasurer has already drawn donations from former supporters of the ex-governor’s campaign, while another aligned with the city’s business establishment plans to get involved in as many as 10 primary contests.

— Nick Garber

BLOOMBERG GIVES $1.5M TO NEW PRO-CHARTER SUPER PAC

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg poured $1.5 million last week into a new super PAC poised to back candidates who support pro-charter school policies in Albany.

The independent expenditure committee, New Yorkers for a Stronger Future, is associated with a longstanding political action committee called Democrats for Education Reform New York, according to Jacquelyn Martell, the latter group’s executive director.

“The committee has begun fundraising and will support candidates who share our priorities around strengthening educational opportunity and improving outcomes for New Yorkers,” Martell told New York Focus.

Registration paperwork filed by New Yorkers for a Stronger Future does not disclose which candidates it plans to support or oppose. A spokesperson said the group is still deciding which races to engage in. As of Thursday, Bloomberg was the group’s sole donor.

A Bloomberg spokesperson declined to comment. The billionaire former mayor has a long history of donating to pro-charter causes, including to another independent expenditure committee associated with Democrats for Education Reform that focused on supporting pro-charter Democrats in state Senate and Assembly primaries in previous years.

In March, Bloomberg gave $1.8 million to a different pro-charter independent expenditure committee, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany. That group once routinely spent heavily to help Republicans keep control of the state Senate. It has shifted to supporting pro-charter Democrats in primaries in the years since the party took the majority in 2019.

The groups seek to serve as counterweights to the powerful state teachers union, which also spends heavily in legislative elections and is often at odds with the charter movement. Most charter schools in New York are not unionized.

— Chris Bragg

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Nick Garber covers politics for New York Focus. He previously worked for Crain’s New York Business, where he covered city and state government, housing and real estate, and money in politics. He also covered neighborhood news in Manhattan and Queens for Patch, and got… more
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Chris Bragg is the Albany bureau chief at New York Focus. He has done investigative reporting on New York government and politics since 2009, most recently at The Buffalo News and Albany Times Union.
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