Rep. Dan Goldman, the $200 million Levi Strauss heir representing New York's 10th Congressional District, is polling more than 20 points behind challenger Brad Lander in the Democratic primary. His response to that deficit tells you everything about where one wing of the Democratic Party has landed: promise more impeachments, more investigations, more rage, and hope voters don't notice the disconnect between the pitch and their daily lives.
Goldman's predicament, detailed in a Fox News opinion piece by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, is a case study in a political strategy that has consumed the Democratic minority in Congress. The incumbent congressman has staked his reelection on vows to lead investigations into President Trump and his cabinet, telling viewers on MSNBC that he and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland "will be leading investigations into Trump's corruption, into all of the cabinet officials."
The voters of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the surrounding neighborhoods appear unimpressed.
Brad Lander, a housing advocate and former New York City Comptroller, has opened a commanding lead by running on bread-and-butter issues. He carries the endorsement of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a pointed rebuke, given that Goldman reportedly declined to back Mamdani's own mayoral bid. Now Mamdani is returning the favor by backing Goldman's challenger.
Goldman's wealth has become a central issue. Worth more than $200 million, with at least three luxury homes, in Atlantic Beach on Long Island, Manhattan, and Water Mill in the Hamptons, the congressman has matched every donated dollar with his own money. The optics of a quarter-billionaire heir trying to out-spend a housing advocate in a progressive district are not subtle.
The Democratic Party's progressive wing has sharpened its rhetoric against inherited wealth. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has argued publicly that "you just can't earn" a billion dollars. Goldman, whose fortune came through family rather than entrepreneurship, makes an easy target for that line of attack. Turley frames the dynamic as the Democratic base shifting from anti-Trump rage toward an "eat-the-rich" socialism championed by figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Goldman, in other words, is caught between two currents in his own party, and losing to both.
On May 18, Goldman cited the $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund", a settlement fund established for people investigated and prosecuted over the January 6 riot, as grounds for impeaching President Trump. The fund's creation has drawn criticism from some legal observers who note it lacked congressional consultation, though settlement funds have historically been administered at the discretion of the Justice Department across administrations.
Goldman is not alone in reaching for the impeachment lever. On May 21, Rep. Steve Cohen filed articles of impeachment against Chief Justice John Roberts, claiming Roberts was "compromising the credibility of the court." Turley characterized Cohen's filing as frivolous, a judgment, not a reported fact, but the timing underscores how freely some House Democrats now deploy the impeachment mechanism.
This pattern has become familiar. Democrats remain split over removal strategies targeting the president, with impeachment calls competing against 25th Amendment proposals and neither gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House.
The question isn't whether these efforts have legal merit. It's whether voters in NY-10 care.
Turley's analysis catalogs a pattern in Goldman's public posture: consistent defense of Democratic leadership paired with dismissal of inconvenient facts. Goldman denied seeing evidence that attacks on ICE personnel had increased. He dismissed allegations of Biden-era influence peddling as evidence mounted. He waved off concerns about the Biden administration coordinating what critics described as a censorship system.
When the Biden administration seized phone records belonging to members of Congress, Goldman downplayed the significance. When an investigation was proposed into the burning of Tesla dealerships by protesters, Goldman denounced it as political weaponization.
That selective standard, outrage over Trump's conduct, indifference toward similar or parallel conduct by Democratic administrations, is the kind of inconsistency that erodes credibility with voters who pay attention. Other Democrats, like Rep. Ro Khanna, have made explicit promises to impeach Trump if the party reclaims the House, making the impeachment-as-platform strategy a broader phenomenon rather than Goldman's invention.
But Goldman has leaned into it harder than most, and his district is punishing him for it.
The broader context matters. House Democrats have filed impeachment articles not just against the president but against members of his cabinet. Five articles of impeachment were recently filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, adding to a growing list that now includes a Supreme Court Chief Justice. The constitutional tool designed for high crimes and misdemeanors has become, for some members, a press-release generator.
Turley tied Goldman's strategy to the Justice Department's approach to January 6 prosecutions. Michael Sherwin, a Justice Department official, told CBS News on March 22, 2021, that the harsh treatment of defendants was intended "to ensure that there was shock and awe." That phrase, borrowed from military doctrine, captured an approach that prioritized spectacle over proportion. Goldman's impeachment-first campaigning operates on the same principle: generate maximum outrage, worry about the substance later.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Chairman has placed expungement of Trump's Ukraine impeachment under active review, a move that would formalize what many Republicans already argue: that the prior impeachment proceedings were politically motivated from the start.
The 20-plus-point polling gap between Goldman and Lander isn't just a number. It's a verdict on priorities. Voters in one of the most progressive districts in the country are choosing a housing advocate over a man promising to lead the next impeachment crusade. That should tell Democratic strategists something.
Goldman's fortune lets him stay in the race longer than most candidates in his position could afford. He can match donations dollar for dollar from his own accounts. But money hasn't closed the gap. If anything, his spending has reinforced Lander's argument that Goldman represents a privileged class detached from the concerns of ordinary New Yorkers.
The congressman's three luxury homes, spanning Long Island's beach communities, Manhattan's real estate market, and the Hamptons, make for an awkward backdrop when your party's base increasingly views inherited wealth as illegitimate. Goldman isn't just losing on strategy. He's losing on identity, in a party that has made identity the currency of politics.
Turley's central argument is that Goldman is trying to "rage bait" his way to victory, substituting fury at Trump for a substantive case about what he has done or would do for his district. The professor, who has testified more than 50 times before Congress on constitutional matters, views the impeachment-as-platform approach as a symptom of a deeper problem within the Democratic minority: the belief that opposition to Trump is itself a governing philosophy.
For Goldman, the math is unforgiving. Twenty points is not a gap you close with press conferences about impeachment. It's not a gap you close by outspending your opponent when your opponent's message is resonating and yours is not.
The New York 10th District primary will test whether Democratic voters have grown tired of the impeachment reflex, or whether they still have an appetite for it. The early evidence suggests they want someone who will talk about housing, not about removing a president their party lacks the votes to remove.
When voters tell you they want solutions and you keep offering subpoenas, the problem isn't the voters.
