The 32-year-old said he will run as a Democrat for the New York City seat of U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who announced he’s retiring.
Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of the late President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, announced Tuesday night that he’s running for U.S. Congress.
The 32-year-old son of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg said he’s running for the New York City seat long held by U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who in September announced he will retire.
“I’m running for Congress to represent my home, New York’s 12th congressional district, where I was born and raised, where I took the bus to school every single day from one side of the district to the other,” Schlossberg said in a video announcing his candidacy.
“This is the best part of the greatest city on Earth,” he said.
Schlossberg’s politics fall within the family tradition of allegiance to the Democratic Party. He has developed an eccentric social media personality in which he often rails against President Donald Trump, Republicans in general and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Schlossberg has been vocally critical of Robert Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist.
“He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Schlossberg said of his cousin in 2023 after the latter’s refusal to endorse then-President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
Schlossberg completed undergraduate studies in history at Yale University and received a law degree and master’s of business administration degree from Harvard University. In July 2024, he joined Vogue as a political correspondent for that year’s presidential election.
He indicated his campaign will be about fighting against Trump’s policies.
New York’s 12th congressional district composes the geographical heart of Manhattan, including all of Central Park and most of the island north of Greenwich Village and south of Harlem.
“We have the best hospitals and schools, restaurants and museums,” Schlossberg said in his statement Tuesday. “This is the financial and media capital of the world. This district should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington.”
Jack Schlossberg, grandson of JFK, to run for US Congress
- Member of Kennedy political dynasty seeks seat held by retiring U.S. Representative Nadler
- Schlossberg got his start as political commentator, writer
- Compares his communication style with that of New York Mayor-elect Mamdani
Jack Schlossberg, grandson of the 35th U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, plans to run for Congress next year, continuing the legacy of one of America’s most storied political families.
Schlossberg said on Tuesday night he was joining the Democratic Party primary race for the Manhattan seat in the U.S. House of Representatives being vacated by retiring Democrat Jerry Nadler.
“It’s a crisis at every level”, Schlossberg said in a video where he criticized Republican President Donald Trump. “It’s a constitutional crisis with one dangerous man in control of all three branches of government.
“He’s stripping citizens of their civil rights and silencing his critics.”
Schlossberg, 32, son of JFK’s daughter and former diplomat Caroline Kennedy and the designer-artist Edwin Schlossberg, first shared the news of his first bid for public office in an email to supporters, the New York Times reported.
Touching on his famous ancestry, Schlossberg noted on his campaign website that he was inspired by the example set by his family and the city that shaped him. He described himself as born and raised in New York City, where he took the bus to school every day.
Schlossberg cited historic cuts to social programs including health care, education and child care under the Trump administration and stressed the importance of Democrats retaking control of Congress.
“With control of Congress, there’s nothing we can’t do. Without it, we’re helpless to a third term,” he said in the video.
A political commentator and writer whose work has been published in such news outlets as The Washington Post, Politico and Time magazine, Schlossberg joins a crowded field of contenders already vying for the 12th Congressional District seat.
Nadler, 78, said in September that he was retiring next year after more than 30 years in House, acknowledging a widespread clamor within the party to make way for a younger generation of leaders.
Schlossberg’s decision comes as Democrats are hoping to regain control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections and thus a measure of legislative clout they currently lack in opposing the agenda of Trump.
The only grandson of JFK, who was assassinated in 1963, Schlossberg grabbed a moment in the Democratic spotlight at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he gave a speech endorsing then-Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for president.
Some of Schlossberg’s critiques as a commentator have targeted his cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, whom Trump appointed as secretary of health and human services despite his vaccine skepticism and propagation of health policies at odds with science and the medical mainstream.
Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, who served as U.S. attorney general under JFK before he was elected to a U.S. Senate seat in New York, was himself assassinated in 1968 just after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California.
Schlossberg’s entry into congressional politics follows the meteoric rise of another younger New York millennial, Zohran Mamdani, 34, the state assemblyman who was elected last week as mayor of New York City.
Like Mamdani, Schlossberg is known for his social media savvy, with more than 830,000 followers on TikTok, according to the Times.
“If Zohran Mamdani and I have anything in common, it’s that we are both trying to be authentic versions of ourselves and meet people where they are and communicate with people in New York City and be present and show up for people,” Schlossberg told the Times.
Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Maiya Keidan in Toronto; Editing by Saad Sayeed and Doina Chiacu
JFK’s Grandson Runs for Congress and Comes Clean on Sexuality
Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, addressed rumors of his sexuality and confronted his past as an internet troll after announcing a run for Congress.
After years of building a profile as a social media star, Schlossberg, 32, made the decision to throw his hat in the ring to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in Manhattan’s 12th District next year, in a seat widely considered one of the “crown jewels” of New York politics.
Heads were turned by Schlossberg’s announcement, who had made his name largely outside of the political sphere as a social media personality who would beef with Anna Wintour and Ryan Murphy, post skits of himself lip-syncing to Taylor Swift songs, and troll politicians to his 1.7 million followers.
“I’m not for everybody,” Schlossberg, 32, told The New York Times. “You know, my mom always said that. She said, ‘Jack, you’re a little different than the other guys.’ And she wasn’t wrong.”
When asked how he spends his free time, Schlossberg said, “I paddle, I do ballet class. I don’t really party. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke.”
He also addressed rumors of his sexuality, telling the NYT, “People often wonder. I am very straight,” he told the publication, and added that he would “one day” like to get married and have kids.
The 32-year-old also admitted that he previously tried out the exclusive dating app Raya, but it didn’t stick because “I went on dates for a while and they didn’t really lead me to find love.”
Speaking of his confrontational posting style and offbeat sense of humor, Schlossberg said his attention-grabbing antics were a necessary response to the shifting attention economy of today’s social media ecosystem.
“The internet is a nuance destruction machine — there’s no room for qualifying anything, ever. You have to be very controversial to break through,” he said.
“Since I started making videos, people have been calling me crazy, but there’s been a strategy and method to what I’ve been doing,” he explained.
“First of all, if somebody thinks I’m crazy because they saw one of my videos, that means that they saw one of the videos, which means that they got some information about the Trump administration and politics that they might not otherwise have gotten. Second of all, I trust people. I have confidence that people understand what’s going on.”
It was this philosophy that saw Schlossberg launch his campaign on Tuesday with a direct swipe at Donald Trump, writing on Instagram that the country is facing a “corruption crisis.”
“Two hundred and fifty years after America was founded, and our country is at a turning point,” he announced in a video.
“It’s a crisis at every level: a cost-of-living crisis sponsored by the Big Beautiful Bill… It’s a corruption crisis. The president has made almost a billion dollars this year. He’s picking winners and losers from inside the Oval Office. It’s cronyism, not capitalism,” he added.
Schlossberg believes that the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York bodes well for his campaign and his vision of the Democratic Party. But after having just summarily dumped Andrew Cuomo out of public life, questions linger over whether the public has the appetite for yet another waning political family.
“When it comes to Jack, New Yorkers just voted to end one political dynasty with a storied past and troubled present,” said assemblyman Alex Bores, who is also running for the vacant seat, told the NYT.
“We’ll see how they feel about another.”
Schlossberg is the son of former ambassador Caroline Kennedy and artist and designer Edwin Schlossberg. He previously served as a surrogate for then-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and as a delegate at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and was also appointed to the America 250 Commission by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this year.
