With her mayoral campaign in the red, Jessica Ramos brings on campaign head fired by rival candidate

Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News on Mar 18, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

NEW YORK — Progressive mayoral hopeful Jessica Ramos, whose campaign is in financial dire straits amid flagging fundraising, hired a new campaign manager this week who was recently fired as a top aide to one of her opponents, the Daily News has learned.

Trivette Knowles, a veteran New York political consultant, started his new job as campaign manager for Ramos, a Queens state senator, on Tuesday, he confirmed.

Ramos’ new hire comes after fellow mayoral candidate Whitney Tilson terminated Knowles as his campaign manager earlier this month in a staff purge that resulted in the axing of at least six other aides and a fundraising consultant.

The ousters from Tilson’s camp — first reported earlier this month by The News and Politico — came after Knowles and other staffers reportedly threatened to quit over concerns that Tilson, an ex-hedge fund manager, was letting his friends in finance have too much say over his policy platform, especially on law enforcement matters.

“Senator Ramos is an accomplished legislator who consistently stands her ground for progressive values,” Knowles said in a statement on his decision to become her campaign manager. “She spends every day fighting for working-class New Yorkers, and I am excited to join her in this fight.”

Knowles replaces consultant Katie Hamill, who came on as Ramos’ campaign manager at the beginning of this year.

Knowles’ move to Ramos’ camp comes as both her and Tilson’s candidacies are on shaky ground. Ramos and Tilson haven’t clinched more than 1% support in most polls of the crowded June 24 Democratic mayoral primary.

Meantime, Ramos hasn’t qualified for public matching funds yet and her latest campaign finance filing released this week shows she’s in the negative by $881 after raising less than $70,000 over the past couple of months. That marked the worst fundraising total for the period for any of the candidates in the Democratic primary until Mayor Adams — who’s facing serious political headwinds amid his federal corruption indictment and surrounding scandals — disclosed Tuesday that he only raised $36,121 in the latest window.

Tilson isn’t in much better shape financially.

He hasn’t qualified for public matching funds, either, and his team has seen an unusually high error rate on the claims they did submit for matching under the program. His latest campaign finance disclosures shows he has just $84,857 in cash on hand after spending more than $660,000, most of it on outside consultants, to date.

That pales in comparison to other top contenders in the mayoral race, like ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has more than $1.2 million in the bank after just two weeks of fundraising, and Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, whose war-chest tops $3.6 million, filings show.

Though he didn’t share details on how Ramos’ campaign would pull it off, Knowles voiced optimism that she’ll soon qualify for matching funds as voters “continue investing in her ideas, her leadership and her vision for a more affordable New York City.”