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 Ben Yee 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?
- Affordable Housing: Correct the housing market, which over incentivizes luxury development with vacancy and pied-à-terre taxes, a Social Housing Development Authority to build real homes, and incentives for comprehensive planning.
- Healthcare: Pass the NY Health Act to establish universal healthcare and protect local hospitals from closure.
- Civil Rights & Elections: Enhance voting rights through ranked-choice, reestablish civics education, protect elections from Federal interference, end data cooperation with ICE, and make NY a “Sanctuary for Democracy”.
Why did you decide to run for office?
I am running because democracy is only as resilient as the people in it. Growing up as the son of a Chinese father and a Jewish immigrant mother whose family survived the Holocaust, I learned that rights only exist if you fight for them. Today, our government is detached from everyday reality. I’m running to bring my 20 years of experience in tech and organizing to finally return power to the people.
What do you believe is the top issue facing voters and how do you plan to address it if elected?
The top issue is a distorted housing market that prioritizes luxury investments over “regular” homes. This hollows out communities and drives up costs for everyone. I will fight for vacancy and pied-à-terre taxes to un-distort the market, restore NYC’s power to set its own housing laws, establish a Social Housing Development Authority to build permanently affordable, public, and community-owned homes and incentivize real city planning with State support contingent on city government doing its job.
How does your background qualify you to hold office?
I’ve spent two decades at the intersection of technology, government, and organizing. I served as digital director for Obama ’08 (NY) and modernized the NY State Senate to increase transparency. For six years, I’ve helped governments manage remote learning and AI in education. As a State Committee member, I’ve passed more reforms than any member in a decade. I have the technical expertise and institutional experience to beat powerful interests and deliver a government that works.
Why should voters choose you over your opponents?
I am the only candidate who combines a 20-year track record of progressive wins with the technical expertise of a civic technologist. While others offer rhetoric, I have actually changed closed systems from the inside. I’ve trained 8,000+ New Yorkers to navigate power and have built the statewide coalitions necessary to move legislation in Albany. I don’t just vote the right way; I show up, and I fix the systems that fail us.
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!
