Anthony Weiner’s comeback bid for the New York City Council ends in a dramatic twist of irony with a significant defeat.
At a Glance
- Disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner attempted a political comeback in a NYC Council race.
- Weiner was decisively defeated, finishing in a distant fourth place with only 10.3% of the vote.
- The winner of the Democratic primary was the incumbent, Harvey Epstein.
- The irony of Weiner’s loss to a man sharing names with infamous figures like Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein has not been lost on observers.
- Weiner’s past scandals, including a prison sentence for sexting a minor, loomed large over the campaign.
The Attempted Political Comeback
Anthony Weiner, the once-promising Democratic Congressman whose career imploded in a series of sexting scandals, has been decisively rejected by voters in his bid to re-enter politics. Weiner sought a seat on the New York City Council, hoping for a redemption arc after his dramatic fall from grace, which included a 2011 resignation from Congress and a 2017 conviction for transferring obscene material to a minor that resulted in a prison sentence.
Running on a more moderate platform focused on public safety and quality-of-life issues, Weiner directly addressed his past with voters. “Since I am asking you for your vote again, I want to address the elephant in the room,” he wrote in his campaign announcement, according to HuffPost. “I accepted responsibility, I did my time (literally), and I paid my debt to society in full.”
An Ironic and Humiliating Defeat
Voters, however, were not buying it. In the Democratic primary for Manhattan’s 2nd District on Tuesday, June 24, Weiner finished in a distant fourth place with a meager 10.3% of the vote. The winner was the incumbent councilman, Harvey Epstein, who secured 39.0% of the vote.
In what can only be described as a moment of cosmic irony, Weiner—whose career was destroyed by sexual misconduct—was defeated by a man whose name echoes two of the most infamous figures of the #MeToo era: Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. As noted by the Western Journal, the coincidence added a layer of humiliation to Weiner’s already crushing defeat.
The result signals a clear rejection of Weiner’s attempt to rebrand himself and suggests that voters have little appetite for returning scandal-plagued figures to public office, no matter how much time has passed.
