Become part of the movement for unbiased, accessible election information. Donate today.
Lukas Florczak
Lukas Florczak (Democratic Party) ran for election to the New York City Council to represent District 4. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 24, 2025.
Florczak completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Lukas Florczak was born in Pasadena, California. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2015 to 2023. He earned a high school diploma from Valencia High School and a bachelor's degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2024. His career experience includes working for a Triple-A Baseball team, a pest control company, and as a music director for a church.[1]
Elections
2025
See also: City elections in New York, New York (2025)
General election
General election for New York City Council District 4
Virginia Maloney, Debra Schwartzben, and Kyle Athayde are running in the general election for New York City Council District 4 on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
 | Virginia Maloney (D) | |
| Debra Schwartzben (R) | ||
| Kyle Athayde (Revive East Side Party) | ||
| ||||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Vanessa Aronson (Working Families Party)
Democratic primary election
Democratic Primary for New York City Council District 4
The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Virginia Maloney in round 5 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.
|
Total votes: 29,606 |
|||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican Primary for New York City Council District 4
The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Debra Schwartzben in round 1 .
|
||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
Working Families Party primary election
Working Families Primary for New York City Council District 4
The following candidates advanced in the ranked-choice voting election: Vanessa Aronson in round 1 .
|
||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.
Campaign themes
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Lukas Florczak completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Florczak's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Before Luke Florczak served honorably in the Marine Corps, he was a musician and composer and wrote more than seventy five pieces of music for all sorts of ensembles. After the Marines he turned his creative focus on fiction writing and published three novels.
As a musician and author, Luke understands the power that the arts can have in government and sees the arts as fundamental to a thriving community. Luke believes creative ideas to the challenging issues we face today are the way toward robust, long-lasting solutions.- Public Safety remains a crucial issue when it comes to New York City. I don't have any illusions that in office I could solve all crime. But leaders in the community and elected officials are in a unique place to implement policies that might prevent certain crimes and promote public safety. Policies and practices within the city's departments could be improved. These improvements are only effective if the community understands what is going on. This starts with transparency between the People and a police and sherif's department that works tirelessly to improve public safety. As a City councilor and former Marine I have a unique opportunity to develop a dialogue between the People and departments to foster more cooperation.
- Access to more affordable housing is desperately needed for a city whose homeless population is on the rise and while the cost of living across the country is skyrocketing. As construction technology allows for more efficient building techniques, this should allow for a large amount of low cost units. In addition to this, current laws in place to provide affordable housing units like section 8 or Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, should be expanded and bolstered by additional policies like Universal Affordability Preference or by lifting the 12 FAR Cap. These policies along with many others are what the city needs to have a wider availability of housing.
- Education equity is also a very important issue. As it stands, for 2 out of 3 high school aged kids, the cost of a high school education is more than two hours on a potentially dangerous public transportation system, and the mental health strain that a school within walking distance won't admit them because the school district was instructed not to. Public education should be the marble pillar of our country. It should be free and excellent for everyone and the quality of an education shouldn't be determined by geography, wealth, or status. There needs to be a conversation with school administrations and the teacher unions about how to better implement funds and other resources, even educators across the city.
I would also point to two older documents, the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the words of which I grew up believing in. When it comes to the phrase "all men are created equal" I hear it as artistic; understanding that as we strive for a more perfect union, the phrase grows to include all. It is still a beautifully elegant phrase despite its controversy.
I believe the best leaders are also the best listeners and for someone to eventually be the most knowledgable person in any room, they must first be the quietest.
I enjoyed that job and worked there over several summers
"Cowboy Kind of Love" and "I Know It'll Never End" by The Castellows
"Shut Up and Dance" by Walk The Mood
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
|
Candidate New York City Council District 4 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 9, 2024.
| |||||||||
