“We ran a true grassroots campaign. You can only try to hold the system accountable for so long from the outside. Sometimes, you have to break in and do it from the inside.”

- ROSS BARKAN

Ross Barkan is an award-winning journalist who covered New York City Hall and national politics for the New York Observer from 2013 to 2016. In April 2016, he rose to prominence after resigning from the Observer over the newspaper's close relationship with Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate.

Ross ran a grassroots campaign for the State Senate in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to challenge the incumbent Republican State Senator Marty Golden, but lost to his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gounardes.