Campaign Insiders is PoliticsNY’s latest Q&A series featuring candidates running for office in the 2026 New York primary election. This edition of Campaign Insiders features Furhan Ahmad who is running to represent New York’s 66th Assembly District. The 66th Assembly District is located in Manhattan and includes Greenwich Village, Tribeca, SoHo, NoHo, and parts of Battery Park City and the Meatpacking District.
What are the top three issues for your campaign?
Healthcare, human dignity and quality of life, and housing. I am fighting for care that reaches people before a crisis hits, including affordable prescriptions, home care for seniors, and gender-affirming care. I am working to build safer neighborhoods through real mental health crisis response, protections for small businesses and cultural spaces, and smart public safety reform. And I am committed to keeping seniors, families, and LGBTQ+ youth housed in the neighborhoods they call home.
Why did you decide to run for office?
After retiring from the FDNY, I spent six months listening in senior centers, places of worship, food pantries, parks, and living rooms across District 66. What I heard was urgent and consistent: people are caught in a cycle where one crisis feeds the next. Housing instability becomes a health crisis. Gaps in care become public safety calls. I am running to break that cycle and address the root causes holding our community back.
What do you believe is the top issue facing voters and how do you plan to address it if elected?
Affordability and stability. Seniors are choosing between prescriptions and rent. Families are one missed paycheck from eviction. Small businesses that define lower Manhattan are being priced out. I will fight to expand SCRIE and DRIE, pass Good Cause Eviction expansion, fully fund the Housing Access Voucher Program, and pass the Commercial Rent Stabilization Act. Stability is the foundation. Without it, every other problem in this district gets harder to solve.
How does your background qualify you to hold office?
23 years on the frontlines as a firefighter, EMT, and police officer taught me how government actually reaches people, and where it fails them. I have responded to preventable health crises, mental health calls that needed clinicians instead of cops, and families displaced overnight. I am the son of a Pakistani immigrant cab driver and a CUNY graduate. I have lived these issues. I bring real experience, not a political résumé, to this work.
Why should voters choose you over your opponents?
In a six-candidate primary, I am the only working-class, CUNY-educated, frontline candidate in this race. I have not built a career in political offices. I have built one in firehouses and ambulances, serving New Yorkers on their worst days. After retiring, I spent six months listening to this district before I asked for a single vote. Voters deserve a representative whose experience matches their lives. That is the perspective I will bring to Albany.
From now until early voting, Campaign Insiders will be featuring candidates from select democratic primary races across the City & State. Be sure to check back to hear from a wide range of candidates from assembly, senate, and congressional races as well as the NYS comptroller race!
Early voting in NYC is June 13th-21st and Election Day is June 23rd. Check out the PoliticsNY Election Primer to see who will be on your ballot and don’t forget to vote this June!
