Carl Wilson, Top Bottcher Staffer, Looks to Succeed Bottcher in D3

Carl Wilson, the chief of staff to City Council Member Erik Bottcher and a co-founder of the Hell’s Kitchen Democrats, is looking to assume his boss’s seat—that is, if Bottcher wins a special election that will send him to Albany on Feb. 3.

Bottcher is pursuing a bid for the NYS Senate, hence the expected vacating of his Council seat. The district covers Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, and part of the West Village.

Bottcher, who has secured the Democratic Party line in the Feb. 3 election, is expected to be a shoo-in the heavily Democratic district. Unsurprisingly, he wants his chief of staff to succeed him as a City Council Member.

“I know what it takes to do this job and to do it well. Carl Wilson is exactly the kind of leader this moment calls for. He understands our neighborhoods, fights for working people, and leads with integrity and independence,” Bottcher said in a statement.

Once Bottcher’s Council seat is vacated, Mayor Zohran Mamdani will have to set a new special election date within three days, which is the election that Wilson will be competing in.

He’ll be facing off against the already-declared contender Layla Law-Gisiko, a community activist who has picked up the support of District 1 Council Member Christopher Marte.

Law-Gisiko is organizing her bid around skepticism towards large development projects in the neighborhood, such as demolition plans for the Fulton & Chelsea-Elliott NYCHA complex, which the city would replace with buildings overseen by a private developer.

Lindsey Boylan—who was the first woman to publicly accuse former Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment (leading to his eventual resignation)—has also filed to run, as has Community Board 4 Chair Leslie Boghosian.

Whoever wins the District 3 special election would serve until the end of 2026. The candidates could further compete in the June Democratic primary, which will pick the nominee for a general election this November; whoever wins that election would serve out the remainder of the term.

Wilson has also acquired a slew of high-profile endorsements from City Council Speaker Julie Menin, NYC Comptroller Mark Levine, and City Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu.

His campaign says he’s also picked up the endorsement of 150 “community leaders from across the district,” as well the endorsement of two other previous District 3 officeholders, Corey Johnson and Christine Quinn.

“Carl Wilson has spent nearly a decade serving our city and our neighborhoods with integrity, energy, and heart. His deep commitment to public service has given him a real understanding of how City Hall works and how to make it work better for everyday New Yorkers,” Menin said, in a statement of her own.

“Carl knows that the housing and affordability crises are the defining challenges of our time, and he has made it his mission to fight for stable, affordable homes and a city that working families can actually afford,” she added.

Levine, meanwhile, called Wilson a “determined, values-driven leader who is committed to solving our affordability and housing crisis.”

Wilson’s extensive history as a community organizer and political operative is set to be a key element of his campaign pitch, which happens to be why Bottcher asked him to be his chief of staff.

Namely, Wilson notes that he helped the Hell’s Kitchen Democrats all but snuff out the power of the McManus Midtown Democratic Club, an organization that dominated District 3 for much of the 20th century–as well as one that was arguably a spinoff of Tammany Hall-style machine politics.

Wilson, who grew up in Maryland as the son of two civil servants, moved to New York City in 2009 to study drama at New York University. He then pursued a career as an actor. Wilson pointedly describes this period of his life as a “struggle,” and believes that many New Yorkers will be able to relate to dealing with similar hardships.

Wilson, who is gay, has also vowed to stand up for LBGTQ+ rights “against right-wing attacks in our own backyard.” District 3 is an inextricable part of the history of the world’s gay and queer communities, containing monuments to their civil rights struggle such as the Stonewall Inn in the West Village.