Brad Hoylman Wins Handily in Senate Primary

Brad Hoylman, who easily captured the 27th District Democratic State Senate nomination on September 13. | DONNA ACETO

Brad Hoylman, an out gay attorney who served three terms as chair of West Village Community Board 2, easily captured the Democratic nomination for the 27th State Senate District seat currently held by Tom Duane.

Garnering more than two-thirds of the vote against Tom Greco, the straight owner of a gay bar, the Ritz on Restaurant Row in Midtown, and educator Tanika Inlaw, Hoylman is now guaranteed election in November since he holds the only other line on the ballot, that of the Working Families Party.

The 27th District runs from the Lower East Side to the West Village and then uptown to the Upper West Side. Duane, who held the seat since 1999, announced his decision not to seek reelection in early June.

At an August 20 debate sponsored by Citizens Union, a non-partisan civic group, and Gay City News and its sister publications, Greco and Inlaw charged that Hoylman was hand-picked by Democratic insiders to replace Duane. They also questioned his 12 years of work at the Partnership for New York City, a major business lobby that has taken some public positions at odds with those Hoylman advocated in the race –– for example, on legislation guaranteeing a living wage to employees of enterprises enjoying municipal subsidies.

The three candidates, however, agreed across the board on the substance of the issues discussed during the debate.

Hoylman enjoyed essentially unanimous support from elected officials in Manhattan, including Duane, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, US Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, and State Assemblymembers Deborah Glick and Dick Gottfried. He quickly amassed a campaign war chest of more than $200,000 that dwarfed those of his opponents.

He also won the endorsement of the New York Times, as well as of this newspaper and its sister publications, the Villager and Chelsea Now.

Hoylman, 46, who was raised in rural West Virginia, graduated from West Virginia University, and became that school’s first Rhodes Scholar. After his work at Britain’s Oxford University, he attended law school at Harvard University. He is engaged to his longtime partner, David Sigal, and the couple have a baby daughter who is nearly two years old.