This socialist pol is keeping his past in the rear view.
David Orkin, a Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate vying to unseat one of ex-NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ biggest allies in the state Assembly, promotes himself as a “working class” candidate — despite being the silver-spooned spawn of a celebrity butt doctor.
Orkin, an anti-Israel activist and lawyer with the George Soros-backed immigrant-rights “social justice” nonprofit Make the Road New York, gushed last week he’s the “proud son of a Mexican immigrant mother whose Jewish grandparents migrated to Mexico to escape the persecution of the pogroms,” while announcing his plans to take on Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar in June’s Democratic primary.
He’s already pumping himself up as the “working class” New Yorker best suited to push Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda in Albany and represent the ethnically diverse 38th Assembly District that includes Richmond Hill, Woodhaven and other parts of Queens.
But the 34-year-old fails to note he grew up in the wealthy Maryland suburb of Rockville and is the son of colorectal surgeon Dr. Bruce Orkin, records show.
The derriere doc’s LinkedIn page touts his “patients from the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and many embassies” during his 20-year career at George Washington University Medical Center as director of the division of colon and rectal surgery.
He’s now a clinical professor and residency program director at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and he and his wife live in a Chicago condo valued at nearly $1 million and own another condo in Kissimmee, Fla., worth nearly $400,000, records show.
David Orkin graduated with a bachelor’s in geography in 2013 from uber-liberal Vassar College, one of the nation’s priciest colleges. He earned his law degree in 2022 from CUNY Law School.
While at Vassar, Orkin — who is white — penned a woke senior thesis analyzing “whiteness” at a Poughkeepsie farmer’s market. His reason for writing the paper: “decoding how white privilege has shaped the Hudson County.”
Rajkumar’s seat is one of many held by moderate New York Democrats in the state Assembly and U.S. Congress that are considered vulnerable by the DSA, which has been recruiting comrades like Orkin to mount challenges
Rajkumar, who in January 2021 was sworn in as the state’s first Indian-American elected office holder, is a frequent critic of socialists and other far-left Dems.
She’s also a prime DSA target in large part because of her cozy alliance with the socialism-hating Adams, as she appeared so regularly at press conferences with him when he was mayor that she was dubbed the “Lady in Red” for the red dresses she’d routinely wear.
Brady Guerrero, a Dominican Republic native and Richmond Hill community leader, said “the DSA seems to be following the playbook” that got Mamdani elected mayor: pushing transplanted candidates from affluent families who claim to be fighting for the working class.
“What do they know about the working New Yorkers?” he said.
“For the first time, the 38th District has a representative that looks like us, who understands our immigrant communities. We don’t need a transplant from the outside telling us what we need.”
Mamdani — the son of filthy rich Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair — won the district easily in last year’s mayoral election.
Rajkumar — who is seeking re-election after losing her bid last year to unseat Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — insisted Orkin, who rents an apartment in Ridgewood, is out-of-touch with the district.
“In a majority-minority district like the 38th, working-class New Yorkers — especially immigrants, women, and communities of color — don’t need to be talked down to, studied, or turned into political branding from an ivory tower,” Rajkumar said. “They deserve respect, dignity, and real power.”
Orkin did not return a request for comment.