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After 28 Years in Office, Jeff Aubry Faces Tough Assembly Primary from Disgraced Former Senator Hiram Monserrate


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Assemblymember Jeff Aubry (photo: State Assembly )


This story was first published by the Queens Daily Eagle 

Eleven years have passed since Queens Assemblymember Jeff Aubry led the successful effort to repeal the state’s Rockefeller drug laws and address the brutal impact of the War on Drugs on communities of color. Since that fight, Aubry has sponsored legislation to ensure inmates have access to mental health treatment behind bars, introduced a bill to curtail the use of solitary confinement, and called for a special prosecutor to investigate prison deaths and complaints made against correction officers. 

 The 14-term incumbent, who once taught at a New Mexico prison in the early 1970s, championed criminal justice reform long before criminal justice reform became a hot issue among his Democratic colleagues.

 “I’m proud of the way young people in the Senate and Assembly have come to this battle,” Aubry told the Eagle June 10, a day after he voted to eliminate 50-a, the state law that shielded police personnel records. “Once we’re on a roll with justice, you try to keep that ball rolling.” But the ball may keep rolling while he watches from the sidelines. 

 Aubry, 72, is facing the toughest primary challenge of his 28-year career. Perhaps fittingly, it’s the tenets of criminal justice reform — second chances for the formerly incarcerated, a complex life beyond the superficial label of ‘convicted felon’ — that inform the viability of his opponent, Hiram Monserrate. Or at very least, it’s what enables some supporters to justify their votes for an extremely polarizing politician convicted of cutting his girlfriend and stealing public funds.

In November 2019, Monserrate, a former state senator and City Council member, declared that he would challenge Aubry in Assembly District 35, which covers much of Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Corona, and LeFrak City. To many voters, the name “Hiram Monserrate” is synonymous with a recent era of political corruption that saw numerous state elected officials charged, convicted and sentenced for bribery, kickbacks and steering schemes. 

Monserrate, who did not respond to multiple phone calls, emails, and Twitter messages for this story was sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2012 after he funneled City Council money to a nonprofit and used the cash to boost his Senate campaign. He was ordered to pay nearly $80,000 in restitution, but by February 2020, he had paid less than $9,000. 

He told the New York Times he would pay the rest leading up to the primary. It remains unclear whether he actually has paid the money back. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, to whom he owes the money, did not immediately respond to emails and phone calls. 

Monserrate was also convicted of a separate domestic violence-related misdemeanor in 2009 after he cut his then-girlfriend in the face with a glass, dragged her to a car, and drove her to a far-away hospital. He and his then-girlfriend said the gash she suffered was the result of an accident.

If that wasn’t enough baggage, Monserrate is known for grinding the Senate to a halt by briefly siding with Republicans and nullifying the slim and, at the time extremely rare, Democratic majority. 

“The rise and fall of Hiram Monserrate is like a movie,” Aubry said. “He robbed, he stole, he beat his girlfriend and still he rises. It’s a sexy story and any darn writer can make a novel about that. And I think he sees himself that way.”

On the Ground in Elmhurst and Corona
New York City will soon find out how voters see Hiram Monserrate. 

His campaign signs adorn the walls of various shops and businesses around Elmhurst and Corona, though that does not necessarily mean that passersby — or even the store owners themselves — know who he is.

At a bus stop near the corner of Grand Avenue and Queens Boulevard, not far from the Queens Place mall on June 18, five people who said they were registered to vote in the area said they had never heard of Monserrate, whose sign hung in the window of a doctor’s office behind them.

Across the street, a man named M.D. stood outside a bodega and counted himself a Monserrate supporter. “He’s a gentleman. I’ve known him for years,” M.D. said as he scratched off lottery tickets against a railing. A Monserrate sign hung from the window of an Indian restaurant next door. 

“Somebody just came and pasted it on the wall,” said the restaurant owner. “I said, ‘OK.’ I don’t know him.”

The same thing happened at a discount store a few blocks away, the store clerk said. 

“Some kids just came by and asked if they could put the signs up. We said, ‘Yes,’ but I don’t know who he is,” she said.

The demographics have shifted significantly in District 35, with Latino residents now accounting for more than 60 percent of the population — up from 52 percent in 2012. At the same time, the district’s Black population has decreased. The demographics could help Monserrate, a Latino candidate who connects with many voters in their native language, said political strategist Martha Ayon, who lives in District 35 and has endorsed Aubry.

“From November, all the way until February they could have been doing articles and going on TV in Spanish to criticize Hiram,” Ayon said. “They didn’t take the time before this to reach the Spanish audiences. “You need it to be in El Diario and some of the other Spanish publications in Queens.”

In recent weeks, Aubry’s campaign has circulated Spanish-language literature, but Ayon said it was already too late to reach many voters.

“They weren’t persuading them in the language that they understand,” Ayon said. “Why don’t people care about his criminal history? Because you’ve been saying it in English,” she added. 

Younger voters, meanwhile, may not recall his past misdeeds — or Aubry’s achievements

“My story is longer and maybe not so flashy,” said Aubry, who is Black. “You get a younger population where Rockefeller is like the First World War.”

Monserrate has already been elected to a party post during his post-prison comeback. Assembly District 35 Democrats chose him as a district leader in 2018. 

During that election, Monserrate helped carry three other other members of his East Elmhurst Corona Democratic Club to district leader victories as well. The four officials are gadflys among the borough’s 72 elected district leaders — two men and two women in every Assembly district. They refuse to support the county party’s endorsed candidates and Monserrate has been an outspoken opponent of the organization, which has long backed Aubry.

Though Monserrate did not respond for this story, loyal surrogates have repeatedly come to his defense.

“If we speak about reform and forgiveness and giving people a second chance then we speak to people who are critical of Hiram,” said Monserrate’s friend and ally Anthony Miranda, a retired police sergeant running for Queens borough president. Ten years ago, Miranda lost to Aubry in the Democratic primary for Assembly District 35. He has received campaign contributions from Monserrate during his bid for borough president.

“I don’t agree with any of the things he’s been accused of, but he was found guilty, he served his time, he came back to the community. And the community residents voted him in,” Miranda said, referring to the district leader election.

Monserrate, a gifted retail politician, has remained active in the community, developing relationships and laying the groundwork for his campaign through his political club. 

“Hiram has been physically working and getting out the vote for months, doing mutual aid, handing out PPE, door-knocking and that’s not something that should be taken for granted,” Ayon said.

Monserrate has advised the anti-displacement coalitions Nos Quedamos and East Elmhurst Alliance, which advocate for affordable housing in Willets Point. After the Eagle referenced Monserrate’s criminal history in a 2018 article about those efforts, an East Elmhurst Alliance representative wrote a message explaining why the members value and support Monserrate.

“We believe in fully re-integrating our returning citizens. He has done lots of great things in our community and quite frankly our Coalition has gotten more than a full semester of Willets Point knowledge from him,” the representative wrote. 

“His past errors have nothing to do with our fight at Willets Point and our Nos Quedamos Queens coalition stands by him because quite frankly he is the only Leader who is independent of the machine with the knowledge and force to stand up for us when other politicians cut deals with developers etc.,” they continued.

The East Elmhurst Corona Democratic Club has also served as a sort of power broker in the area, running a slate of candidates for elected office in the past few election cycles and hosting higher-office hopefuls like Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and four candidates for Queens borough president: Donovan Richards, Elizabeth Crowley, Costa Constantinides and Miranda, who the club endorsed.

Last year, the club’s pick for Civil Court judge, Lumarie Maldonado Cruz, defeated the candidate endorsed by the county organization in Queens’ first contested Democratic primary for a judgeship in decades.

The club, one of the most active in Queens, features an effective petitioning operation and has organized a get-out-the-vote initiative in the district as well. Two Corona residents said East Elmhurst Corona Democratic club members even visited their home to help their older relatives apply for absentee ballots and then returned a few weeks later with the ballots, which they had picked up from the Board of Election office in Forest Hills. 

One resident, Natalia Guzman, said she answered the door and spoke with the campaign worker to prevent the woman from pressuring her mother.

“She asked if she is going to vote for Hiram Monserrate and I said, ‘She’s not going to declare that right now,’” Guzman said. “She was reluctant to let go of the ballot.”

Election attorney Sarah Steiner said that picking up blank ballots is not prohibited, but verges on illegal when a campaign worker pressures a voter while they fill out a ballot — or fills out the ballot themselves.

“There’s a fine line about what’s legal and what’s not,” Steiner said. “You can deliver absentee ballots, you can pick up absentee ballots, but if you help the voter fill out that ballot you could be breaking the law.”

Antagonists Unite for Aubry 
On June 18, Aubry — far from an active social media user — tweeted a major development in the race: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was endorsing him for reelection. On Sunday, she even canvassed with Aubry in LeFrak City.

The endorsement was also unique in Queens politics because it united two influential antagonists — Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the chair of the Queens County Democratic Party, a position he won after Ocasio-Cortez defeated then party chair Joe Crowley. 

“Aubry’s going to win. Here’s a man of distinction, character who has served his community with grace and decency,” Meeks told the Eagle Friday. “People in his district are recognizing that.”

Some colleagues and Queens leaders were slow to provide that sort of aggressive support for Aubry earlier in the campaign, however. While elected officials have focused on their own races and the impact of COVID-19, they have also weighed the political risks of alienating Monserrate supporters.  

Aubry said he does not fault his allies for showing up late to rally behind his candidacy given the impact of COVID-19 and current political realities.

“Some folks were under pressure from outside forces in their district,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 28 years. I watch and know politics as best as anybody else, and I know the things that people have to watch out for in their own world and have to take into consideration.”

Others spoke out early on. City Council Member Francisco Moya called Monserrate a “disgraced politician” and a “joke” when Monserrate first filed a campaign committee in November 2019. Assemblymember Catalina Cruz from the neighboring 39th Assembly District sponsored a failed bill that would prevent people convicted of public corruption from serving in the state Legislature. 

In March, Assemblymember Aravella Simotas vowed to leave the Democratic conference if Monserrate were invited to join after potentially defeating Aubry.

“I will not sit in the Democratic conference if he is sitting there with me,” Simotas said during an appearance on WBAI radio’s City Watch show.

“I’m very passionate about this because I’ve spent years talking with domestic abuse survivors and survivors of sexual assault and women and men who’ve had this violence,” she added. Simotas is facing a tough primary challenge of her own from Democratic Socialist of America-backed organizer Zohran Mamdani.

 Yet, it’s more than just tweets and bromides. Support for Aubry has surged in recent weeks based on financial disclosure reports.

 Aubry began the year with $114,000 in his campaign account but raised just under $21,000 between Jan. 11 and May 18, according to financial disclosure reports filed with the state Board of Election. 

 But over the next two weeks, Aubry raised more than $40,000, including a $4,700 contribution from ex-Rep. Joe Crowley’s campaign account, according to Aubry’s 11-day pre primary report.

In contrast, Monserrate raised $68,772.02 between July 15, 2019 and Jan. 11 of this year but just over $4,800 between Jan. 11 and May 18, according to financial disclosure reports. He raised another $7,150 in late May and early June, according to his latest filing.

 Ayon, the Queens political strategist, said the race remains wide open a day ahead of the primary.

 “That’s why I endorsed Aubry, because I’m extremely concerned,” she said. 

Whatever voters think of the candidates and their pasts, there’s a practical reason to vote for Aubry, she said.

 “Anyone can be an advocate, but if I’m paying someone to go to Albany and pass legislation, that is not something Hiram will do,” Ayon said. “The governor, Carl Heastie, they won’t let his legislation get to the floor. That’s my argument for Hiram and Aubry: Who can physically do the job? Hiram cannot.”

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by David Brand of the Queens Daily Eagle
@DavidFBrand @QueensEagle
@GothamGazette

Insurgent Campaigns Try to Replicate Major 2018 Voter Turnout Jump in Very Different Circumstances


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Jamaal Bowman's congressional campaign attempts to capture some 2018 magic (photo: Bowman campaign)


This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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After a massive wave of voters shook New York’s 2018 primary elections and subsequent state government, this year’s primary turnout could be hobbled by the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whereas the 2018 primaries for state Legislature, governor, and other state-level seats saw an immense jump in voter participation from 2014, this month’s party primaries — almost all of which are again among Democrats — for president, state Legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and other seats, could see a drop. 

Many of the strategies employed by campaigns and activists in 2018 — explored in-depth in part one of this two-part series — have simply not been possible during the coronavirus shutdown, fundraising has become a major challenge, and many voters are less able to focus on politics given the public health and economic hardships ravaging New York City.

Across boroughs and races, Gotham Gazette spoke to a diverse array of campaigns to understand how tactics have shifted throughout the coronavirus crisis, and how they are trying to draw voters to the polls — or to the absentee ballots all eligible voters can use given gubernatorial order based on the pandemic — as millions of New Yorkers' lives are upended, advantages of most incumbents appear strengthened, and there is an immense unknown when it comes to voter participation.

Several of these races are in districts that overlap with pivotal districts from the 2018 state primary elections. While there are no statewide seats on the ballot this year as there were in 2018, the state and federal primaries (state Legislature, U.S. House, president) are combined this year while in 2018 they occurred over three different primary days.

Some of the results from 2018 may be instructive in 2020, especially when it comes to the tactics and strategies used by activists and campaigns, the coalitions that formed or grew and remain active, and where within specific districts saw the largest voter turnout jumps in the prior primaries. But at the same time, 2020 has become an election year like no other in recent memory due to the pandemic.

From Door-Knocking to Delivering Groceries
The neighborhoods within Queens’ 34th Assembly District — parts of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, and Woodside — were some of the hardest hit in the city by the COVID-19 pandemic. In Jackson Heights, one in every 25 people have contracted the coronavirus; in East Elmhurst, one in 23 people have contracted it; and in Woodside, one of every 39 people have had it, according to Department of Health data analyzed by The New York Times

The devastation and dangers wrought by the virus made normal political campaigning untenable. In its place, candidates started using their campaign apparatuses as mutual aid networks to help residents in need. 

“My office and campaign volunteers have shifted to providing much-needed supplies and food to my constituents,” Assemblymember Michael DenDekker told Gotham Gazette. His campaign has largely been on pause since March, and only recently began again, mostly online. “The need has been overwhelming,” he said. 

DenDekker is vying to keep his seat from four challengers this competitive primary season; the first time he has had to overcome any primary competition in a 12-year legislative career

Three of his challengers — former Manhattan prosecutor and local civic leader Nuala O’Doherty-Naranjo; former National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health Executive Director Jessica González-Rojas; and Uber driver and organizer Joy Chowdhury — also began to funnel campaign energy and resources into fighting the effects of the pandemic, they said in interviews. 

O’Doherty-Naranjo started the COVID Care Neighborhood Network in Jackson Heights, which delivers supplies and staffs a helpline residents with the coronavirus can use to connect to different services. Instead of fundraising for her campaign and appealing to voters, O’Doherty-Naranjo has been raising tens of thousands of dollars to support COVID Care.

“It’s a weird kind of campaign,” she said. 

Chowdhury paused his campaign for a few months and started delivering food to residents in need through the Queens Mutual Aid Network. Both Chowdhury and González-Rojas used their campaign staff to deliver groceries and supplies.

“The priority was not IDing voters, but checking in on neighbors,” said González-Rojas, who has amassed significant support from progressive individuals and groups, such as the Working Families Party and immigrant rights group Make the Road Action. State Senator Jessica Ramos, who won her seat in 2018 in the partially overlapping Senate District 13 after upsetting another long-standing incumbent, former State Senator Jose Peralta, had similar progressive support from the WFP and Make the Road Action, among others. 

González-Rojas and O’Doherty-Naranjo also said they have prioritized educating voters about the new, pandemic-driven practices around absentee ballots, with both campaigns noting that many voters are confused about the ballot. 

Absentee ballots are perhaps the biggest wild card in this year’s primary election cycle, as the New York City Board of Elections scrambles to deliver on an unprecedented increase in absentee ballot requests. It is unclear whether everyone who wants to vote absentee will be able to have their vote counted.

Whether and how campaigns have urged their likely and potential voters to access the absentee voting process could be determinative in closer contests. While absentee voting strategies have always been important, more so in some races than others, this year’s circumstances have given such tactics an unprecedented weight.

In grassroots and insurgent campaigns, where candidates don’t have the benefit of name recognition that the incumbent has, the pandemic has made the hard task of winning even harder. 

“The number one most effective thing is for the candidates themselves to be able to speak directly to voters,” said Mia Pearlman, a co-founder of the grassroots political organization True Blue NY, which has endorsed González-Rojas and a slate of other candidates in this month’s primaries. “And then after that, the next most effective thing is for activists like us to do so, or people who work with the campaign. So that’s really been a struggle for campaigns to redesign their strategy in the moment in order to reach voters.”

True Blue NY was part of a coalition of grassroots organizations that helped trigger a wave of insurgent progressive candidates to overtake incumbents in the New York State Senate in 2018. Those races, along with a competitive, intense and high-spending gubernatorial primary, and a renewed interest in local politics spurred by the 2016 presidential election, led to a record-breaking primary turnout in New York in 2018. 

These factors helped Ramos, who True Blue endorsed, to victory that year. Voters in swaths of Assembly District 34, especially in Jackson Heights, turned out in force for Ramos in 2018, potentially signaling that the district could be ready for another progressive insurgent in 2020. While the races have many differences, some of the neighborhoods and players are the same.

Pearlman is concerned that challengers this year may get lost in the shuffle. 

“The pandemic is an incumbent protection machine,” she said. “Everything about the pandemic favors the incumbents. And it creates a situation in which challengers are really fending off a lot of problems simultaneously.” 

Campaigning Without Contact
Typical campaign tactics like door-knocking, rallies, and in-person fundraising events became an impossibility in mid-March, when social distancing measures were put in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, campaigns amped up phone-banking and -texting operations, dipped their toes into virtual events, and tried to meet voters where they were — at home. 

In Brooklyn’s competitive 9th Congressional District primary, the race to draw in voters has become more important than ever. 

“We’ve had to completely shift the way campaigning works,” Krysten Copeland, the communications director for incumbent U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke’s campaign, said in an interview. 

Clarke’s campaign has conducted Zoom and Facebook Live events, and several weeks ago held a virtual campaign rally featuring various prominent endorsers to kick off the stretch run toward primary day, June 23. 

The primary race looks tight: four challengers have been campaigning against Clarke, including Adem Bunkeddeko, who narrowly lost to Clarke in 2018 in what was a one-on-one contest. Other challengers this year include City Council Member Chaim Deutsch, small business owner Lutchi Gayot, and U.S. Army veteran Isiah James. 

Clarke, who was first elected in 2006, represents a diverse swath of Central and South Brooklyn, spanning from Park Slope to Crown Heights to Brownsville and Gerritsen Beach. 

In normal election cycles, campaigns often highlight prominent endorsements to build momentum and gain goodwill with voters. In such an unusual election year, endorsements represent one of the additionally limited tools campaigns have to catch voters’ attention. 

Clarke is being backed by a long list of elected officials and power players, including U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the 32BJ SEIU union, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and State Senator Zellnor Myrie, whose district overlaps with NY-9, to name just a few. “I think it sends a strong message that the people of Brooklyn know that Congresswoman Yvette Clarke has been fighting for them in Washington,” Copeland said of Clarke’s local endorsers.  

The Brooklyn Young Democrats are among those endorsing Clarke. The group’s president, Christina Das, said that the pandemic has vastly impacted campaigning strategies as they work to get candidates they support elected in Brooklyn. 

“It is a stark contrast comparing 2020 to 2018,” she said.

Das and many BYD members campaigned for Myrie when he was making an ultimately successful insurgent bid for incumbent Jesse Hamilton’s seat in 2018. Instead of canvassing and knocking on doors as they did in the area in 2018, the group has been phone-banking and hosting virtual events.

“It feels so much less energizing to get on the phone from your bed…than to knock on doors,” BYD Executive Vice President Julia Elmaleh-Sachs said. 

With so many people out of work due to the coronavirus-forced economic downturn, it has also been difficult for campaigns to fund-raise. “I don’t think they can give their $30 to a fundraiser right now,” Elmaleh-Sachs said of many voters. 

Both Das and Elmaleh-Sachs said that they think insurgent candidates will have a tougher time this election, as those candidates often rely on new and non-traditional voters heading to the polls. 

Myrie was able to score a victory over Hamilton through an extensive campaign network of political groups, volunteers, and progressive activists able to turn the tide of the district and attract new voters, a feat that may be more difficult without in-person campaigning. Additionally, Myrie snagged a broad spectrum of endorsements, including from many of Brooklyn’s big-name Democrats, such as some of the borough’s Congressional delegation, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Council Speaker Corey Johnson, among others.

Bunkeddeko said in an interview that he has made reaching out to residents a priority during the coronavirus crisis, participating in mutual aid efforts across the district and encouraging people to sign up for absentee ballots to not put their health at risk at the polls. 

“Our big push has been to push everyone to vote absentee,” he said. 

In a crowded field, Bunkeddeko said that his progressive policies and his track record running for election in the district before have helped him stand out to voters when his campaign calls. 

“We’ve run the race before,” he said. “We were primarying people before it became cool.”

As of late May, Bunkeddeko’s campaign had hundreds of volunteers, made over 14,000 calls, and sent over 12,000 texts to voters, according to a campaign email. Those efforts have only intensified in June.

“One thing that’s been really powerful as we make calls for Adem in his race is the fact that you’re calling and checking in on people,” said Ricky Silver, the co-lead organizer with Empire State Indivisible, a progressive political activist group formed after the 2016 presidential election and has endorsed Bunkeddeko in NY-9.

“Phone-banking for a candidate as a part of outreach for mutual aid has been, I think, a really critical development in the post-COVID world,” Silver continued. “There’s been a real positive response to those types of outreach calls, because people are looking for help.”

In a time where so many people are looking for assistance, the outreach shows voters that the campaign is looking to help those in the district, not just “transactional ways to get elected,” Silver said. 

Empire State Indivisible backed Myrie in his race in the somewhat overlapping State Senate district in 2018. Bunkeddeko has received some of the same endorsements and progressive support that Myrie did in 2018, including an endorsement from The New York Times, but endorsements from many of the major elected officials that backed Myrie have eluded him.

One of the key differences between some of the most contentious 2018 primaries and the 2020 ones is the presence (in 2018) or absence (in 2020) of the State Senate Independent Democratic Conference, whose members had lost a great deal of support from other elected officials, labor unions, and other key electoral players.

While Myrie was running to unseat a Democratic state senator who had helped empower Republicans, Bunkeddeko is again running to unseat a member of the House delegation in solid standing with most of her colleagues. While Ramos ran in Queens to similarly unseat a Democratic state senator whose conference allied with Republicans, some of the Assembly primaries happening in and around her district do not have that galvanizing element for the insurgents.

As Some Things Change, Some Things Stay the Same
Though the pandemic has radically impacted how campaigns are normally run, certain objectives remain the same: attract voters and endorsements, raise funds, and run a compelling campaign. 

In the race for the 16th Congressional District, which includes parts of the northern Bronx and southern Westchester, incumbent U.S. Rep Eliot Engel faces one of the most competitive matchups of his political career and this year’s primary election cycle. Engel has three challengers: middle school principal Jamaal Bowman, retired NYPD officer Sammy Ravelo, and tax attorney Chris Fink. 

Bowman’s progressive campaign has made enormous waves in recent months, netting high-profile endorsements from the Working Families Party, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and Bronx State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, among many others within and outside New York, such as U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He has reportedly raised $2 million in campaign contributions, and has benefited from a few high-profile gaffes Engel has made over the course of campaign season. 

However, the incumbent has many major endorsements of his own, including Governor Andrew Cuomo and former Secretary of State and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. 

Last election cycle, in 2018, Biaggi was able to unseat a powerful incumbent, former State Senator Jeff Klein, in a district that overlaps some with NY-16. Bowman hopes to have a similar upset against Engel, who has held a congressional seat since 1989.

Biaggi’s door-knocking was a key voter engagement strategy for her campaign, and her largest shares of voters were also in the neighborhoods that had some of the highest increases of voter turnout in the district, such as Riverdale. While in 2018 the candidate and volunteers were able to pitch Biaggi’s message to thousands across the district in person, Bowman has had to adjust his own strategies in the age of social distancing.

Luke Hayes, Bowman’s campaign manager, and Biaggi’s before that, said in an interview that phone-banking and Bowman personally calling voters has been a boon to the campaign. The campaign has also sent out mailers, hosted listening tours and livestreams, and connected with volunteers. Bowman has also developed a fairly large social media following, regularly posting direct-to-camera video messages that range from reflective to inspiring to singing and dancing.

“Jamaal is like, ‘Give me more voters to talk to,’” Hayes said.

As of mid-June, Bowman’s campaign had made over 850,000 calls to voters in the district, and thousands of people have signed up to volunteer with the campaign, its representatives said. In the days leading up to the primary, as coronavirus restrictions began to ease, Bowman and the campaign were out in the field more, and are conducting a bus tour around the district to encourage voters to choose the challenger.

In a sign of Bowman's momentum, Biaggi herself recently changed her endorsement from Engel to Bowman.

“Very few people have voted for elections by absentee in New York," Hayes said of the big outstanding question of how that process will unfold and which campaigns may be best able to take advantage of the shift. "So we’re all in the same boat.”

Ravelo’s campaign also has an extensive phone-banking strategy, a representative said.

“The first weeks of the pandemic, we felt destroyed. Because nobody wanted to hear about politics,” said Catherin Corrales, a volunteer coordinator for the campaign. After two weeks, the campaign adjusted, and volunteers started making calls to check in on residents and offer information during the pandemic. 

“For everybody, this is a moment to learn and come up with a new plan. In the end, this wasn’t what we were expecting, but at least we were able to do something else,” Corrales said. 

Similarly, Fink said via email that he has an extensive phone-banking, targeted email and social media strategy. He is working with a local production company to make videos of himself talking about the issues on camera, as a substitute to talking to voters in real life. 

Though campaigns across the city have adapted to a year of new strategies, the results of hotly contested primary races is anyone’s guess. 

“You have a massive number of variables interacting in a different number of ways, it’s extremely difficult to predict,” Baruch College political science professor Doug Muzzio said in an interview. Muzzio pointed to the destabilizing effect that the pandemic has had, along with the protests brought on by the police killing of George Floyd, a black Minnesotan, as factors that could drive the election in different ways. 

 “In New York politics, there’s always problems going to the polls,” said Pearlman, of True Blue NY. “It’s a mess on a good day.”

 With all of the issues the pandemic created, turnout for 2020 is anyone’s guess, Pearlman said.

 “That, in my opinion, is the number one biggest question mark right now. What will the turnout be?”

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 This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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by Victoria Merlino, Gotham Gazette
      

Read more by this writer.

A Pandemic and A Primary in the Most Impoverished Congressional District in the Country


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Ritchie Torres looks at Ruben Díaz Sr. (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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New York City has had very limited success in the voter turnout department for congressional elections in recent years. For the 2018 congressional primaries, the turnout did go up — to 11 percent, from a shockingly low 8 percent in 2016. Though the Bronx was part of a huge surge in turnout for state elections in 2018, the last primary election to take place in the borough’s heavily-Democratic 15th congressional district, in 2016, netted a voter turnout of just under 3 percent.

That’s during ordinary times in a district that encompasses south and west Bronx neighborhoods including Hunts Point, Melrose, Tremont, Fordham, and Bedford Park, which collectively make up the country’s poorest and most nonwhite district.

To add to the structural obstacles, would-be voters are now contending with the swirling maelstrom of a still-ongoing pandemic that has ravaged poorer communities in the global epicenter of New York, and its vast social and economic consequences; a mass popular uprising against police brutality that was met with a heavy-handed response from the NYPD; and confusion over whether the primary is even taking place, and if so, in what format.

The 15th congressional district has been one of the hardest hit by the novel coronavirus in what is thus far the most affected city in the country. A mix of higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions and higher concentrations of essential workers who couldn’t work from home has led to higher death rates in the Bronx and a dire socio-economic picture.

Beyond that, the district has some special political upheaval and intrigue this year: an “open” congressional seat, up for grabs for the first time in 30 years. Longtime Rep. José Serrano announced last year that he would not be seeking reelection following a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, setting off a scramble to succeed him.

Even by normal-year standards, it’s a crowded race with a deep bench of political figures with history in the district, many of whom have been waiting for just such an opportunity. No fewer than five of the primary contenders are current or former elected officials — City Council Members Ritchie Torres, Ydanis Rodríguez, and Rubén Díaz Sr.; Assemblymember Michael Blake (who is also a national vice chair of the Democratic National Committee); and former New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

Also in the race are Samelys López, a community organizer and former aide to Serrano who has received the endorsement of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party, as well as progressive heavy hitters like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders; Chivona Newsome, a former financial advisor who co-founded Black Lives Matter of Greater New York; Tomas Ramos, a program director at the Bronx River Community Center; and a handful of others from outside the established political channels.

“I watched a panel the other day, and there were about five candidates that I wasn't even aware were running that were on that panel talk,” said Ed Mundo, a city tunnels and bridges worker who said he’s lived on the same South Bronx street since he was six years old. Mundo volunteers for a few community organizations, is active in pro-bike advocacy, and is more politically engaged than most of his neighbors, yet he still feels that there is precious little information trickling out about the candidates and the election.

In the current moment of crisis, Mundo worries that “a lot of folks are not aware there is a primary. So many folks are just accustomed to the November elections, see whoever is on that ballot, then they vote.”

The race has become particularly high-profile as a result of its position at the intersection of several broader political currents and movements — longtime political establishment versus insurgent outsiders; the chance to shift the balance of power for the first time in decades; the acute power of federal policy-making during moments of crisis in particular. There’s also the Díaz Sr. factor, as a long-serving, socially-conservative Democrat with strong name recognition, a solid base of support, and a polarizing presence is within striking distance of victory. He has no dearth of critics in the district, a fact that has seemed not to phase him; in fact, he appears to thrive in controversy. His presence in the race has driven local and national attention to the primary.

For the residents of the district, it’s an opportunity to collectively exert real influence, and the race has appeared very much up in the air. Motivating even small groups to turn out can make all the difference, lifting the voices of those living in a district with such great needs.

Several campaigns told Gotham Gazette that they were focused on providing support and services to the community in lieu of pure campaigning. “What we do is we ask people how they're feeling, how they're doing. If they need anything, if they need an errand to run, if they have a need for food,” López said in late May.

“Whenever my volunteers and I are out in the field,” said Torres, “we're limiting ourselves to distributing food and PPE and doing no electioneering out in the field at the moment. The reason for which is simple: campaigning, business as usual, would come off as insensitive to the deep suffering in the South Bronx.”

Newsome said she had her volunteers teaching people how to file for unemployment, and had been riding around the Bronx in a truck with supplies including diapers and baby food. Mark-Viverito has been working with a local restaurant to provide meals to undocumented residents. Not everyone has executed this notion without controversy; Díaz Sr. has been accused of piggybacking off of food distribution events that neither his office nor campaign was involved in to raise his profile, distribute campaign materials and electioneer.

The aid strategy has also been embraced by community organizations, who are focused on simultaneously providing the type of support that their members and clients have always relied on them for, while gently prodding them to exercise their civic voice in the election.

“We started doing care packages, and in those care packages we have a bunch of those safety supplies, some tea, some canned foods, some Asian groceries and veggies. And then we've also put resources and materials in there,” said Khamarin Nhann, campaign director for Mekong NYC, which provides community organizing, cultural activities, assistance with public benefits, and other social services for the Southeast Asian community. These materials include those related to the 2020 Census, access to health care, and elections, including information about where to vote and how to vote in-person and via mail.

The question of tone is one that comes up often as a contentious, high-stakes election unfolds amid a multi-faceted humanitarian crisis. There is real and obvious devastation throughout the district. Yet the overlapping crises to some degree present the opportunity to very plainly tie the political questions at stake to Bronxites’ lived experiences. Questions related to jobs, affordable housing, food security, health care, and police relations have never been abstract in what is the poorest and most nonwhite district in the country, but the pandemic and the social unrest have brought everything into stark relief.

“There are absolutely competing needs for our folks. We've seen our members really struggle with food or worried that when the eviction moratorium ends, will they become homeless and what that looks like,” said Sandra Lobo, the executive director of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC). “What we've tried to do is really equip our folks with an understanding, a deeper analysis that, what they do, how they vote, and how they organize, absolutely impacts what's next for all of us.”

This has involved emphasizing that none of these issues exist in isolation, and in fact they compound; any effort to tackle the current emergencies must also tackle the circumstances that let them get so bad, especially in the district. “I think communities of color, low-income communities, have always struggled with layered issues,” said Lobo. “We've seen our folks really understand and be sophisticated about, where does the power lie, both in organizing and in the electoral system?”

There are particular groups for whom federal policy-making looms particularly large; for example, healthcare workers, many of whom are represented by 1199SEIU, a union that has endorsed Blake, who has amassed a great deal of labor support in the race.

“We've had our members engaging our congressional leaders. We've done roughly 20 video conferences with our New York delegation, where we've had members…explain the realities of what's going on in the frontline,” said an 1199SEIU official who asked not to be identified. “I think that helped our members make the connection, or made it stronger, that politics is the way that we make the transition” to a system more responsive to their needs.

Nhann said that particularly in the last couple of weeks, he’d actually seen a spike in the number of community residents interrogating the decisions of their political leaders. He dismissed “this whole notion that just because folks don't speak English, they're not aware of politics or they're not aware what's going on in the news. For the most part, our folks are actually pretty savvy.”

Dariella Rodríguez of The Point CDC, a community development nonprofit, said the organization’s approach partly centered around making clear that the district was particularly hard hit not just because of decisions made during the pandemic, but decisions made before. “Although we are struggling with the impact of covid in our community, we've been burdened with issues around respiratory health and asthma, issues with water quality — we've been burdened with those issues for a very long time. We've been saying we know when something like this happens, our community is at higher risk.”

For her part, Newsome has found a natural connection between her work with Black Lives Matter and the campaign, particularly as the outrage over police brutality again takes center stage in New York and nationally. Even before current wave of protests, Newsome said she had been part of a group pressuring Governor Andrew Cuomo to acknowledge that “the NYPD was incapable and incompetent in handling the enforcement of social distancing.” The current popular movements presented an opportunity to connect police brutality directly with political participation.

No one knows how many of the roughly 337,000 eligible Democratic voters in the 15th congressional district will cast a ballot, absentee or in-person, for this month’s election. In 2016, Serrano received just over 9,000 votes in the Democratic primary, beating an opponent who received just over 1,000. A total of about 74,000 votes were cast in the district during the 2016 presidential primary. In 2018, Serrano did not have a primary, but won the general election with around 125,000 votes to his opponent’s 5,000.

One quirk of a low-turnout race is that very small differences in the number of votes cast for each candidate can determine a win and a loss. This fact has taken on an added salience for progressives in the district given the candidacy of Díaz Sr., an always controversial and regularly offensive political figure. A pentecostal minister, he is probably the most socially-conservative Democrat holding political office in the city, having staked out positions opposing abortion and marriage equality. A comment claiming that the City Council was “controlled by the homosexual community” last year got his issue committee disbanded and prompted calls for his resignation. He has also called into question the mandate to report sexual harassment.

Nonetheless, he has held political office in the Bronx for nearly 20 years continuously and enjoys a base of support with religious and conservative Latino residents, who have a strong presence in the district. He won his seat at the Council just three years ago, edging out more progressive challengers as he moved from the state Senate with at least tacit support from much of the political establishment. The concern that candidates to his left will split the vote and hand Díaz Sr. the primary win is being used to varying extents by rival campaigns.

Torres in particular appears to be making opposition to Díaz Sr. a centerpiece of the turnout effort. “From day one, I have been sounding the alarm about the threat of a Trump Republican representing the most Democratic district in America,” he said, adding that in the home stretch of the campaign, he would be pitching himself as the candidate most able to head off this threat. Díaz Sr. did not respond to messages seeking comment. He has repeatedly ducked debates in the race.

A significant concern is that there will be issues not only of enthusiasm, but mechanics. An attempt by the state Board of Elections to cancel the Democratic presidential primary over coronavirus concerns failed when a federal judge ruled that it had to be held, in response to a lawsuit filed by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Yet a number of voters may have heard that the primary was off, but not back on.

Disseminating the information can be difficult, partly because some of the community groups and campaigns involved aren’t entirely sure what the correct information is. “Is the election going on? Where's my polling station? Can I vote early? Who are the candidates? Where's the platform? All of those have been communicated via text via email, via phone,” said Lobo.

The point was echoed by some of the candidates. “There's a lot of confusion. There was that whole back-and-forth around the presidential primary and canceling it, not canceling it. So some people assume that the primary completely is canceled,” said Mark-Viverito.

Some number of voters won’t want to go to the polls due to the extant viral threat, leaving the option of absentee voting, and herein lies another problem: unlike 34 other states, New York typically doesn’t allow “no excuse” absentee voting. In April, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order making the coronavirus part of the existing “excuse” of illness and directing county boards of elections to mail absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters, but the lack of a prior generalized avenue for absentee voting has left many voters unfamiliar with how it works and the New York City Board of Elections appears to be straining under the demand, leaving many unanswered questions as voting of all kinds wraps up on primary day, June 23.

Mundo, the community resident, said he’d gotten a ballot application in late May. “It looks like traditional junk mail. So if you're not actively looking for it, you may bypass it. Or someone like my mother, who's been out of town since April, she's not even going to get that application.”

Rodríguez of The Point said that the group had been providing staff members specifically to explain to voters how poll sites (both for early voting and primary day) work and how to access absentee voting. “We're using apps to do mass texting, we're using social media, we're using Zoom, WhatsApp and Signal. There's even been suggestions of other kinds of apps that folks from other countries use, especially Southeast Asian communities,” she said.

The Point, NWBCCC, and Mekong all had a built-in advantage in that they were part of a coalition that spent months crafting a “people’s platform” that had community delegates participate in crafting a set of issues and proposals meant to be representative of the entire district’s political priorities. The listserv has been useful in disseminating information to the community at large, even via word-of-mouth from individual influential residents.

Fundamentally, the winning approach seems to be one of illuminating how the extant crises are manifestations of broader systemic issues. “You can’t separate the political from the personal, especially at these times,” said López. “So this is the time that we need to rally and organize for the kind of society that we want to live in. And those are the kinds of conversations that we've been having through the phone banks.”

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This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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by Felipe De La Hoz, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Voter Turnout in New York City Was Cratering; Then Came 2018


biaggi voters

Alessandra Biaggi on the 2018 campaign trail (photo: @Biaggi4NY)


This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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On the night of September 13, 2018, a wave crashed through New York state politics.

For years, pressure had been mounting on the members of the Independent Democratic Conference, or the IDC, a small group of high-profile and controversial Democrats who caucused with Republicans in the New York State Senate. At times, the IDC effectively barred the mainline Democratic conference from holding a majority in the chamber, hobbling party-backed legislation and affording its members major leverage in Albany.

The presence of the IDC also appeared to hamper Democratic efforts every two-year cycle to swing certain State Senate districts from Republican to Democratic hands, meaning a split Legislature with Democrats in control of the Assembly. After the election of President Donald Trump in November of 2016, significant additional pressure grew on the members of the IDC and their Democratic allies, which included Governor Andrew Cuomo.

By April of 2018 and facing his own reelection campaign with a primary challenge from his left, Cuomo brokered a deal with the IDC to dissolve and rejoin the mainstream Democrats, with an eye toward capturing the majority together as Cuomo sought to quell a progressive uprising and secure a third term. But the damage was already done, at least for IDC members who provoked such backlash in their districts that activists were set on removing them from office.

A group of largely young, progressive challengers rose up in the districts, recruited and bolstered by the Working Families Party, grassroots groups, community activists, and a smattering of elected officials. By the end of primary night in September 2018, six of the eight former IDC members had been knocked out (while Cuomo secured victory by a wide margin). 

Those Senate challengers would go on to win their general elections and, along with newly elected colleagues that gave Democrats the majority, become massive forces in Albany, championing landmark rent, criminal justice, gun control, environmental, and voting reforms — among others — that were centerpieces of a historic 2019 legislative session.

Though some of the most striking images of that September 2018 primary election night come from the victors — pictures of the Bronx’s Alessandra Biaggi with her fist raised in the air, or Queens’ Jessica Ramos surrounded by cheering supporters — images only tell part of this story. 

The other part isn’t as flashy, but speaks to something more powerful: voter turnout. Voters across New York went to the polls in record numbers for the 2018 state primary elections — the gubernatorial primary more than doubled the votes cast four years prior, and some districts surpassed turnout during the 2016 presidential primary. Still, New York City voter turnout numbers have a long way to go, never in recent years hitting 40 percent in a primary other than when there is a presidential election, a trend that helped lead to the sweeping electoral and voting reforms, like early voting, passed in 2019.

The map below shows where turnout increased the most and the least in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary compared to the 2014 primary.

1 govturnout withoutlines 061120

Overall, the Senate districts represented by IDC members saw voter turnout spikes in line with the overall trend, but within those districts, much of the increases came in geographic areas where the challengers did especially well, a new Gotham Gazette analysis shows. 

The reasons for the voter spike are far more complex than a single night, or even the months of anger among Democrats who finally learned about their rogue state senators. And while in 2018 many New York Democrats were still reeling from Donald Trump’s election as president, it wasn’t that simple either — individual campaigns, newly-formed grassroots groups, and long-standing labor unions and other organizations all played a role in bringing many more voters to the polls. Some relied on tried and true tactics, while others got more creative.

The groups that rose or grew in 2018, and the tactics they developed that year, were ready for a big 2020 — until the pandemic hit. But many of the same activists are again doing all they can, albeit under very different circumstances, to see their favored candidates win in this month’s primaries for congressional and state legislative races. Even as New York City could see a major drop in voter participation, those 2018 successes are still reverberating throughout the state as lawmakers pass bills dealing with public health and police accountability. 

‘Trump Democrats’
Donald Trump’s divisive presidential victory in 2016 sparked a wave of renewed political activism across the United States. Huge demonstrations marked the early days of Trump’s administration, such as the 2017 Women’s March or the protests over a travel ban on countries in the Middle East and Africa.

In New York, grassroots organizations began to coalesce around electing progressives to local and state political positions. Though over half of eligible voters had turned out for the November general election in 2016, the state primary turnout rate that September was abysmal: only 10 percent of voters had come out. 

 For many, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) of the State Senate was the first on their list for change. 

“People were angry,” said Mia Pearlman, a co-founder of True Blue NY. The idea for True Blue was born soon after Trump’s election, at a Park Slope meeting where people were gathering to politically organize. 

 “A lot of people who were at the meeting lived in [State Senator] Jesse Hamilton’s district at the time and were really upset to find out the morning after Election Day that not only was Donald Trump president, but that their own Democratic state senator was empowering Republicans,” she said of Hamilton, an IDC member. 

True Blue began on the idea that even though New York was seen as a Democratic bastion by others around the country, on the state government level, it struggled to pass meaningful progressive legislation. This was in part due to the IDC, and how complacent so many Democrats were about its presence and a Republican-controlled State Senate. In the months after Trump’s election, grassroots groups like True Blue and a network of Indivisible groups sprung up and tapped into the outrage people felt to get them more involved in local politics.

In part, they pointed people angry over Trump’s election to the State Senate, with its Republican control bolstered by rogue Democrats.

True Blue began to reach out to other grassroots groups in districts represented by IDC members, building a coalition of over 45 organizations. The main strategy was voter education — whether that meant protests, phone-banking, tabling at events, handing out informational palm cards, and sending handwritten postcards to voters to convince them to turn out against the IDC.

“The biggest issue with the IDC was that most people didn’t know that their own state senator was in the IDC, or they didn’t know what that was,” Pearlman said. The groups utilized one of their biggest assets — time — to educate voters in the months between early 2017 and the September 2018 primary election.

This initial campaign against the IDC began before the districts even had candidates to put up against IDC members, which was key, according to Pearlman.

“By the time we started to recruit candidates, along with No IDC New York and other groups, we sort of created an opening for them to have the opportunity to win,” she said. 

“The way that the 2018 election went was that it really started 18 months prior, with the notion of, ‘We need to go out and do constituent and voter outreach and engagement on the issues,” said Ricky Silver, the co-lead organizer with Empire State Indivisible, a grassroots political activist group formed following the 2016 presidential election and part of the True Blue NY coalition. 

Silver said that the races against IDC members were powered largely by enthusiastic volunteers. Empire State Indivisible was able to draw volunteers in by hosting forums across the city about particular issues, like education funding or the climate crisis, and educating residents about how the IDC slowed progress on those issues, the importance of electing “real Democrats” and of flipping control of the State Senate (the November elections, with a focus on one Republican-held Brooklyn State Senate seat and others in the city’s suburbs, were always on activists’ minds, even as they focused on the primaries first).

“People showed up because they cared about the issues, and then we were able to get them involved because they understood the pathway to a new vision was electoral. And that’s how we were able to grow the movement,” he said. 

Meanwhile, a slate of statewide races was about to rocket progressive politics, the debate over what it means to be a “real Democrat” (AKA “True Blue”), and the need to control the State Senate, to the forefront of New York political consciousness. 

Backed by the Working Families Party and other progressives, actor and activist Cynthia Nixon ran for governor against Cuomo. The WFP bet big on Nixon, despite upsetting some longtime political allies, and endangering its financial support from labor unions afraid of incurring Cuomo’s wrath. Nixon’s race was accompanied by competitive primary campaigns for lieutenant governor, between incumbent Kathy Hochul and challenger Jumaane Williams, then a City Council member, as well as for the “open” state attorney general seat.

The WFP credited the threat Nixon and Williams posed to Cuomo as the reason the governor brokered the deal to dissolve the IDC, following long-standing accusations that Cuomo backed and benefited from the IDC-GOP arrangement, which Nixon made central to her campaign.

The WFP also took on the IDC, launching a campaign against what they called the “Trump Democrats” in May 2017. The campaign organized thousands of voters against the IDC, giving insurgent candidates a head start before even officially entering their races. WFP ran nightly texting and phone banking activities with over 1000 shifts, and by the end of the campaign, had identified 10,000 voters who would vote against their IDC member in the Senate.

Thanks to the shock of Trump’s victory and these organizing efforts, well over a year before the September 2018 primaries, many New York Democrats were engaged in local politics for the first time.

Central Brooklyn
In Brooklyn, trouble was brewing for Jesse Hamilton, a two-term legislator who had joined the IDC shortly before the 2016 general election

Despite the IDC’s dissolution, many prominent borough Democrats continued to denounce Hamilton’s actions as self-serving well into the primary season, though Hamilton continued to have the support of Borough President Eric Adams. 

Members of the Brooklyn Congressional delegation, state legislators, and Mayor Bill de Blasio, chose to back Zellnor Myrie, a young lawyer trying to unseat Hamilton in Central Brooklyn’s 20th State Senate District.

The campaign got a boost from the WFP, which provided Myrie with media training and campaign support, and from grassroots activists and local political clubs who wanted a bluer district. 

“There was a lot of energy in the air for a real Democrat, and not a law and order Trump Democrat,” according to Myrie’s senior campaign advisor André Richardson. 

Myrie’s supporters took to the streets to drum up buzz for their candidate. For the Brooklyn Young Democrats, a club that endorsed Myrie that spring, that meant extensive canvassing, door-knocking, and days of action. 

“We all went out there in a storm for him, not only because [he was] against the IDC, but because he was speaking to issues in the community,” BYD President Christina Das said. Das estimates that the club knocked around 2,000 doors for Myrie, and held three or four days of actions either in conjunction with other organizations, or on its own. 

A native Brooklynite, Myrie had strong roots in the district, which spans through parts of Sunset Park, Park Slope, Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Brownsville. The district is diverse, but predominantly black — of the nearly 310,000 people living in District 20 in 2018, 50 percent were black, 19 percent were white, and another 19 were Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. 

One of Myrie’s main focuses in his campaign was affordable housing and tenant protections, goals that spoke to a district that is home to an overwhelming majority of renters, who faced challenges with rising costs.

“It was a great race because everyone was kind of in it together in the neighborhood,” BYD Executive Vice President Julia Elmaleh-Sachs said. 

In 2014, the year Hamilton was first elected, there were roughly 129,000 active registered Democrats in the district, but only around 15,000 voted in the primary, which was quite competitive as Hamilton edged out Rubain Dorancy, who had backing from de Blasio, among others. Hamilton won with almost 10,000 of those votes. Then in 2016, Hamilton went through primary season uncontested. In the heavily-Democratic district the Democratic primary is tantamount to full electoral victory.

2018 was going to be a very different year as those frustrated by the IDC, including many educated and activated after Trump’s election, went from not fielding a primary challenger to Hamilton to immense organizing behind Myrie.

On primary day in 2018, Myrie defeated Hamilton by almost 4,000 votes. Voter enrollment and participation in the district saw significant spikes, with 44,000 of the roughly 141,000 eligible Democrats casting a ballot. The increase from 15,000 votes in Hamilton’s contested 2014 primary to the 44,000 votes in Myrie’s victory over the incumbent made for almost a 300 percent increase in raw turnout, and the district was in line with the overall turnout jump seen in the gubernatorial race from 2014 to 2018. 

Part of Myrie’s success stemmed from his ability to garner support from different facets of Brooklyn’s Democrats, from longtime black voters to newcomers and progressives, Richardson said. 

“I think Zellnor’s case was a very unique case because he was able to bridge that divide,” Richardson said of longtime black voters, newcomers to the district, and white progressives. Myrie’s campaign attracted hundreds of volunteers, Richardson added, attributing part of Myrie’s success to his authenticity and speaking to the needs of the district across demographic and other divides.

Myrie nabbed the greatest share of votes in Gowanus, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens and parts of Crown Heights and Sunset Park. In several of these areas, turnout jumped enormously from. The map below, from the CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center, shows where Myrie and Hamilton each did well: 

2 nysenate20 primary results 2018

The Bronx and Westchester
When Alessandra Biaggi, a lawyer in the Cuomo administration and former staffer on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, began her campaign to unseat State Senator Jeff Klein — a founder and the leader of the IDC — from Senate District 34 in the Bronx and Westchester, she understood the stakes. 

“I didn’t go into it thinking to myself, ‘I’m going to absolutely win,’ Biaggi said in a recent interview. “I went in thinking to myself, ‘We probably won’t win. But what we will do is have a win in the loss.’ Because we’re going to raise awareness about an issue that is so devastating to the state. And people are finally going to be excited about their state government and want to fight for it.”

As the head of the IDC, Klein held immense power in state government, and was a major target for progressives. With millions of dollars in Klein’s war chest and his strong web of political connections made over decades, however, most pundits considered a challenge to Klein almost unwinnable. 

In 2014, Klein faced a challenge from former New York Attorney General Oliver Koppell and kept his seat fairly easily, winning with over 9,000 votes compared to Koppell’s roughly 5,000. According to voter enrollment data from that November, about 101,000 active Democrats were registered to vote in the district, which encompasses parts of the Bronx and southern Westchester County, including Riverdale, Hunts Point, Throggs Neck, Pelham Parkway, City Island, and Pelham. 

In 2016, Klein was unopposed in the primary. 

Biaggi’s campaign was assisted by anti-IDC groups that started educating voters in the district about the IDC before Biaggi even started running, according to her 2018 campaign manager Luke Hayes. 

The campaign tapped into community members in the district, generating support in key neighborhoods through word-of-mouth. Together with Biaggi and other organized forces, they started to knock on doors.

“It was a scrappy campaign. We knew we weren’t going to outraise Klein,” Hayes said of the assumed fundraising disadvantage. By the end of the race, Klein would spend more than $3 million on his campaign, an unusually high total for a state legislative race, and 10 times more than Biaggi spent. 

Biaggi said that fundraising became less integral to her campaign than canvassing and meeting with voters.

“I was going to win this thing on the doors. I laced up my sneakers every single day and I was knocking on doors,” she said. She and her supporters engaged with many thousands of voters up to and including primary election day. 

She also credits young, politically active students, some high school-aged, with helping to activate the community around her campaign. About 324,000 people lived in the district in 2018. Of that number, 43 percent were Hispanic, 34 percent were white, 14 percent were black and 6 percent were Asian, according to American Community Survey data. 

“When you have a dynamic candidate like Alessandra, when you can engage with a candidate one-on-one, that can counteract a lot of ads,” Hayes said. 

Support from groups and officials were also key. 

“Endorsements are a big deal,” Biaggi said. “If you are going to be endorsed by, for example, the Working Families Party, which was my first endorsement, it gives you legitimacy.” 

The powerful union 32BJ SEIU backed Biaggi in a big way, mobilizing thousands of members to conduct phone-banking and door-knocking from six weeks before the primary. The move surprised some in the state political scene, as 32BJ’s president at the time, the late Hector Figueroa, had initially helped to kick off attempted IDC reunification with Democrats in 2017. In a 2018 interview with Gotham Gazette, Figueroa said that he thought that the IDC was not sincere in its efforts to fix Democratic unity and explained the 32BJ decision to buck the deal orchestrated by Cuomo. 

Silver, of Empire State Indivisible, points to the cooperation of a litany of organizations, such as the WFP, unions like 32BJ, and grassroots organizations, as one of the keys to Biaggi’s success in appealing to a diverse district. 

“It was that sort of coalescing of organizations that made it powerful,” he said. 

City Comptroller Scott Stringer and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson voiced their support for Biaggi in June 2018, giving the campaign more legitimacy, adding media buzz, and bringing their networks of volunteers to campaign for her. The New York Times endorsed her later that summer. 

When the results rolled in that September, it was a shocking upset: Biaggi had nabbed 19,000 votes to Klein’s 16,000. There were a total of 107,000 Democrats eligible to vote in the district that November. The jump in voter turnout from Klein’s last challenge in 2014 was significant, moving from around 14,000 voters to around 35,000 voters, or increasing by 250 percent. The parts of the district where Biaggi did best also saw the biggest jumps in voter turnout from 2014 to 2018.

The precincts Klein did best in had lower jumps in voter turnout compared to Biaggi’s best precincts. In the Bronx, Biaggi had the greatest share of votes in Riverdale, Fieldston, Kingsbridge and City Island.

“For Senate District 34, the green precincts match up well with Klein's best precincts, especially around Castle Hill and the Throgs Neck area, while most of the orange precincts match up perfectly with Biaggi's best precincts, centered around Van Cortlandt Park,” said Benjamin Rosenblatt, president of Tidal Wave Strategies, who performed data analysis and mapping for Gotham Gazette for this piece. The first map below, created by Rosenblatt, shows where turnout jumped the most and least in 2018, from 2014, for Senate District 34. The second map below, from the CUNY Mapping Service, shows where Biaggi and Klein each did well.

3 sd34 withlines

 

3 nysenate34 primary results 2018

Western Queens
In Queens, Jessica Ramos, a former mayoral aide, was challenging State Senator Jose Peralta for his seat in Senate District 13. 

Peralta joined the IDC in early 2017, claiming that it was a pragmatic choice to best serve the district during the new era of Trumpian policy. At a packed town hall soon after the decision was announced, some residents protested, calling Peralta a “traitor.” 

A legislator with almost two decades of experience, Peralta had no competition in the district’s Democratic primary for the entire time he held the seat, running unopposed in the primary in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. 

The district’s neighborhoods, including Jackson Heights, Corona, and East Elmhurst, are home to large immigrant communities. Of its population of 302,000 in 2018, over half were born outside of the United States, according to American Community Survey data. Of the district residents, 62 percent were Hispanic, 17 percent were Asian, 14 percent were white and 6 percent were black. 

Trump’s rhetoric and policies against immigrants, such as the ‘public charge’ rule or travel bans to certain countries, directly impact residents in those communities, and led many to question how Peralta could align himself with the IDC, which bolstered Republican leadership of the State Senate, preventing major immigrant-friendly legislation from passing. That included the Dream Act that Peralta championed and he apparently saw as possible to get passed with added leverage as part of the IDC.

Make the Road Action, a leading immigrant rights group that is very active in the district, endorsed Ramos for the Senate seat in July 2018, and set out to have thousands of its members phone-banking, canvassing, and engaging voters for Ramos.

Progressives in the district were energized by the stunning upset political unknown Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had in June against then-U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley, the Queens County Democratic Party boss and one of the highest ranking Democrats in Congress. New York’s 14th Congressional District overlaps with Senate District 13. There was a renewed sense of what was possible after Ocasio-Cortez’s win as Ramos and her supporters eyed the sprint from the June congressional primaries to the September state primaries (those primaries were merged to June starting this year).

“Most of all, I think her win has created a lot of enthusiasm for the small “d” democratic process in the district and that enthusiasm is what we’re hoping to maintain our momentum,” Ramos told City & State in the summer of 2018. 

Other political powerhouses and grassroots organizations coalesced around Ramos. The WFP helped her hire key staff, consulted on her campaign, and identified thousands of voters for her. Stringer backed Ramos in March. In the summer after Crowley fell, de Blasio, for whom Ramos had previously worked, and Johnson backed her, and Ramos and gubernatorial candidate Nixon cross-endorsed each other. 

On primary day, Ramos defeated Peralta by over 2,000 votes, with almost 23,000 votes cast in total. In November of that year, 90,000 Democrats were eligible to vote in the district.  Ramos did far better in parts of the district like Steinway, Astoria Heights, and Jackson Heights. The map below, from the CUNY Mapping Service, shows where Ramos and Peralta each did well.

5 nysenate13 primary results 2018

Other Races in Manhattan and Brooklyn
Other districts around the city saw increased voter turnout in the same neighborhoods where insurgent candidates nabbed the largest share of votes. 

In Manhattan’s Senate District 31, former City Council Member Robert Jackson emerged victorious on primary night over former IDC member and State Senator Marisol Alcantara. Jackson had run for the seat before in 2014 and 2016, losing narrowly to Alcantara in 2016 in a three-way race. Alcantara only served one term in office before Jackson overtook her in 2018. 

The largest increases in voter turnout in the district from 2014 to 2018 were in the Upper West Side, Manhattanville, Washington Heights, and parts of Inwood, all where Jackson performed the best, indicating how well the insurgent’s supporters did at turning out the vote. The map below, created by Rosenblatt, shows where turnout jumped most and least in 2018, compared to 2014, in Senate District 31.

6 sd31 withlines

In Brooklyn’s Senate District 18, progressive upstart Julia Salazar triumphed against Martin Malavé Dilan, who had represented Brooklyn in the State Senate since 2003. Dilan was not a member of the IDC, but the progressive push in 2018 helped fuel Salazar’s campaign, including backing from the Working Families Party and the New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Salazar picked up votes in neighborhoods with some of the highest changes in turnout from 2014 to 2018, including East Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint. 

“While the Senate primaries saw dramatic increases in turnout throughout each district from 2014 to 2018, even compared to the gubernatorial primaries, the relative turnout increase was absolutely massive in the areas where progressive primary challengers did best,” said Rosenblatt, of Tidal Wave Strategies, referring to his data and mapping analysis. The map below, created by Rosenblatt, shows where turnout increased the most and least in 2018, compared to 2014, in Senate District 18.

7 sd18 withlines7

The fight continues
According to Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College, campaigns need three things to succeed: money, organization, and message. 

“The opponents of the IDC had more of the three than the members of the IDC,” he said, looking back at 2018’s primary upsets. 

The odds piled up for dramatically increased voter turnout, and for a turnout against the IDC: the national Democratic movement in response to Trump and for a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms, accelerated progressive conversations and efforts launched by grassroots organizers, strong upstart candidates, and a concerted plot to educate voters ahead of the election cycle. 

“The wind was at the back of Democrats and progressives nationally. And certainly the state was part of that,” Muzzio said. “[The IDC] were out of step with the zeitgeist of the time.”

And while pundits and political analysts were surprised by the unprecedented spike in voter turnout in New York, that didn’t mean that turnout in the 2018 primaries was overwhelming. Although turnout in races with former IDC members garnered more attention, the average turnout in those districts and other Senate districts was almost the same — around 29 percent — according to a report from the New York City Campaign Finance Board. 

“This shows that the perceived competitiveness of an election does not necessarily lead to increased turnout in that district, and that in this high-profile election, voters turned out regardless of whether they were voting in a competitive election,” the report reads.

But the key for the IDC challengers appears to have been where some of the increased turnout occurred, in areas of the districts they were running in that were most enthusiastic about their candidacies, and about defeating the incumbents.

To get there, activists as well as candidates and their campaigns, endorsers, and other supporters utilized a variety of tactics, including an unprecedented organizing and voter education effort done over an especially long period of time before any votes were cast. Dynamic and diverse candidates were recruited and backed, and they were just as willing as their volunteers and staff to knock doors and pass out flyers.

These strategies and others mixed with Democratic reaction to Trump’s election, growing frustration with a lack of movement on progressive priorities in Albany, and a robust left-wing challenge to Cuomo, which both further galvanized progressives and pushed the governor to spend tens of millions of dollars getting out his vote.

The energy that led to defeat for six of the eight IDC members then helped flip several state Senate seats in November 2018, giving Democrats a solid, “True Blue” majority for the 2019 session to combine with the Assembly Democratic majority and third-term Democratic governor reelected by a wide margin on a slate of progressive promises.

With those 2018 electoral wins and the legislative victories that followed in 2019 and into this year, the WFP, True Blue NY, and other progressive organizations began preparing for a new slate of races in 2020, hoping to use a similar organizing playbook to net more wins. However, the coronavirus pandemic changed everything.

With campaigns scrambling to adjust to a world without rallies, door-knocking, or tabling, key questions loom. Can upstart campaigns and supporters reach voters to the same extent? Can they drive voter turnout in the 2020 primaries to anywhere near the same level of 2018?

This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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by Victoria Merlino, Gotham Gazette
      

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Could Coronavirus Exodus from Manhattan Impact Competitive Tri-Borough Congressional Primary?


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Suraj Patel campaigning (photo: Facebook)


Wealthy Manhattanites, more than others, fled New York City when the coronavirus pandemic erupted here, according to New York Times data reporting. Now, it’s unclear how that exodus might affect voting behavior in party primary elections happening this month, like in New York’s 12th Congressional District, where much of incumbent Representative Carolyn Maloney’s support has historically been in parts of Manhattan home to many of this year’s departures.

In Maloney’s last Democratic primary, in 2018, Suraj Patel was her only opponent for the tri-borough seat made up of parts of the East Side of Manhattan, north Brooklyn, and western Queens, and he won a somewhat surprising portion of the vote — 41.2%, compared to Maloney’s 58.8%.

Maloney dominated the race in Manhattan. Patel won some areas of that borough, but performed far better in both Queens and Brooklyn, winning a majority of the votes cast in Brooklyn and losing Queens by less than 100 votes. Patel is running against Maloney again this year, and there are two more candidates bidding for the nomination, Lauren Ashcraft and Peter Harrison.

While having additional challengers likely works to Maloney’s favor, the equation is complicated by whether a significant number of her potential voters may be out of town and not voting, though all eligible voters can cast an absentee ballot this month due to a gubernatorial order based on the COVID-19 pandemic. That process is complicated, though, requiring voters to access then fill out first a ballot application then the ballot. In-person early voting is ongoing through June 21, and primary day is Tuesday, June 23.

With parts of Manhattan, including large swathes of the East Side, seeing significant drops in population, the possibility of Maloney, among other similarly-situated candidates, seeing a drop in base support is one of the outstanding questions as voting occurs.

“With Maloney’s district, I think what makes it unique is she has a lot of her constituents who have left,” said Dr. Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University. “However, based on class and past voting records, they are probably more likely to go through the cumbersome process to get an absentee ballot. But for those who aren’t, they’re in Montauk and they’re not thinking about the election, she’s definitely lost some of her faith.”

Maloney’s campaign said it is continuing to make efforts to connect with voters who are not currently residing in district lines, though a spokesperson declined to comment on how voters leaving the city, especially Manhattan, may affect the race.

"NY-12 is a big district, and we're reaching out to connect with voters no matter where they may be located right now,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “The Congresswoman's stellar record and close ties to her constituents mean that now more than ever they are motivated to vote and keep her in office, getting results and delivering for our district and city."

Besides the wealthy, Greer added that young people, especially students, have also left the city as the high rents and crowded apartments may seem less worth it during a time of lockdown and quarantine. Areas of Brooklyn where Patel did well in 2018, such as Greenpoint and Williamsburg, have seen drops in population, too, the Times analysis showed, although much less so than parts of Manhattan.

The big question, Greer said, is to what extent any newly out-of-city voters go through the absentee voting process. Another is how well each candidate is able to reach voters and encourage them to cast a ballot, in whatever form that may take.

“We’ve been spreading the word as much as we can that people do have a choice in this election,” said Ashcraft. “The state originally wanted to cancel the presidential primary, which caused a lot of confusion. There’s so much confusion around that because whenever people heard that an election was being canceled, they thought it was the entire thing, including down-ballot races. So, a lot of our time is unfortunately spent to clear up that confusion.”

All three Maloney challengers mentioned that a large part of their outreach efforts to voters included telling them there was a primary at all, and educating them on how to request an absentee ballot (the governor ordered election boards to mail all eligible voters an absentee ballot application, but voters can also request one just to be sure).

“That New York Times report showed a really large chunk of this district, the Manhattan part of this district, leaving,” Harrison said. “Are the people leaving more likely to be Carolyn Maloney voters or not? I don’t know. Probably, you can sort of squint and say ‘that’s probably true,’ but are they going to get the absentee ballots? Who knows.”

Within the 12th congressional district, the areas of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn have significantly different demographics. An analysis of 2017 IRS tax data, which includes data from most but not all zip codes in the district, shows filings from the Queens parts of the district had an average gross annual income of about $55,000; Brooklyn areas about $80,000; and Manhattan areas almost $300,000. As of 2018, NY-12 was the third most unequal district by income in the country, according to Forbes, a fact that Maloney’s challengers regularly raise in campaigning.

While Manhattan parts of the district are almost 75% white, that number is 58% for areas of Brooklyn within the district, and 31% for those in Queens, based on data from the American Community Survey. The Hispanic population in the Queens and Brooklyn parts of the district is much larger than in the Manhattan section of the district.

Patel said he believes his platform, which includes the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, public housing investments, and tuition-free community college, and more recently defunding the police, better appeal to voters in Queens and Brooklyn.

"This district, which does represent three boroughs, was sort-of gerrymandered this way, in a way that kept Representative Maloney in power by adding folks that she doesn't really represent,” Patel said. “And so, it's no wonder we did well in Queens or Brooklyn because they've never seen her, or heard from her. Her priorities don't align with folks of low-income, diverse folks, young folks.”

How the pandemic may affect voting behavior is still just a guessing game, though, according to Greer. She said that although it is possible those who left the city won't be focused on voting absentee, it’s also quite possible those who remain won’t vote because they are dealing with the financial, emotional, and health struggles the pandemic has caused.

“That part of Queens that Maloney represents, those are people who might be more on the essential workers side of things,” Greer said, “and possibly a little preoccupied with the day-to-day business of survival, and might not be as tuned into the election as they would have been if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic.”

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by Victor Porcelli, Gotham Gazette

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Long-time Incumbent Faces Two Challengers from the Left in Western Queens Assembly Primary


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Assemblymember Cathy Nolan at the Amazon 'HQ2' announcement (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Long-time Queens Assemblymember Catherine Nolan faces two challengers in this month’s Democratic primary in her first reelection campaign since coming out in support of the controversial deal that would have brought a massive Amazon campus to Long Island City.

Nolan has represented the 37th Assembly District, which includes Long Island City and parts of Astoria, Sunnyside, Maspeth, and Ridgewood, since 1985. The district is 39% white, 36% Hispanic, 15% Asian, and 7% black, according to Census data.

Long Island City is the fastest growing neighborhood in the country, and new development resulted in a $3,450 median asking monthly rent in 2019, up 11% from the year prior, according to a StreetEasy market report.

The issues of rising rent and displacement are central to the campaigns of both of Nolan’s challengers, activists Mary Jobaida and Danielle Brecker. Brecker said the incumbent could have shown her opposition to both trends if she had opposed Amazon, and her failure to do so is part of what made Brecker lose faith in Nolan and run against her.

“Assemblymember Nolan had at one time proposed a moratorium on development,” Brecker said. “So when she supported Amazon it was surprising to me as a constituent and felt like a missed opportunity on her part to lead us not only against Amazon but also on stopping luxury real estate development in LIC and the full district.”

Jobaida and Brecker have similar far-left, progressive platforms and a similar message: even if Nolan supports progressive causes, she has not done enough to get them passed.

“I’m running for office because of my dissatisfaction with how New York State has been operating, especially in Assembly District 37,” Jobaida said in an interview. “My interest to run for office comes from my dissatisfaction living in this district, being a mother, being a commuter.”

Jobaida, who moved to Queens in 2001 from Bangladesh, said the district has been a difficult place to live for those like her: low-income people, commuters, and parents of children who attend often crowded public schools. And she’s learned that firsthand, whether when commuting to her work at a healthcare center in the Bronx in crowded, delayed subways or when, despite applying right after admissions opened, her second child ended up 59th on the waitlist for the local pre-kindergarten program due to the overwhelming number of applicants.

“All of a sudden because of overgentrification and overdevelopment, unplanned development, all of a sudden we saw a surge of people coming to this district but resources were not expanded,” Jobaida said. “The living cost is beyond bearable now, and is displacing the people who have been living here and also making the district totally not liveable.”

Jobaida’s platform includes single-payer healthcare, a Green New Deal for New York, tuition free public college, removing income requirements for affordable housing, and criminal justice reform such as ending cash bail, decriminalizing sex work, and legalizing adult-use marijuana.

Her opponent and fellow challenger to Nolan, Brecker, is running on a similar platform, and for a similar reason.

“I never, ever thought I would run for office but then I was co-leader of Empire State Indivisible, we defeated the IDC, and then we sort of discovered that the Assembly was still a problem,” Brecker, said in an interview. “I discovered that my Assemblymember was a little bit complacent, maybe didn’t fight as hard as I and her constituents needed her to and was probably a little more moderate than, say, I am. And so I decided to step up.”

Brecker was an advertising executive for more than two decades before joining organizing and activist efforts following the election of Donald Trump. She said Nolan has simply not done enough to stop overdevelopment. Despite calling for a moratorium on new construction in 2018, Nolan supported the ill-fated Amazon ‘HQ2’ deal. The Assembly member spoke at the announcement press conference with Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Amazon representatives, and others to celebrate the deal, which promised tens of thousands of jobs. But the deal, which was abandoned by the mega-corporation just a few months after it was announced due to significant local backlash, also represented to many a threat of accelerating rising costs of living and displacement.

“Over the course of my career I’ve been very involved in many, many progressive things,” Nolan said in an interview, defending her record. “I supported tenants’ rights, supported paid family leave, supported the cause of women’s entry into the political system, helped mentor a lot of women and was kind of a trailblazer, was the first woman to chair the labor committee in the history of New York State.”

Nolan said she’s championed progressive legislation for her career and cited recent sponsorship of a bill to provide all New Yorkers with sick leave and wage replacement during the COVID-19 pandemic if they are unable to work due to quarantine requirements.

She also referenced endorsements she has received from a variety of labor unions, political clubs, and others, including 32BJ and 1199 SEIU, New York League of Conservation Voters, Transport Workers Union, The Civil Service Employees Union Metropolitan Region 2, the New York Hotel Trades Council, Progressive Voices United, Eleanor's Legacy, and the Stonewall Democrats LGBTQ Club (a full list of endorsements was not provided to Gotham Gazette after multiple attempts to reach Nolan’s office, and she has no campaign website where such lists are typically offered, though some have been posted to her Facebook page).

Nolan’s labor support, which includes a variety of law enforcement unions, has helped her raise money for her campaign: about $120,000 of her $170,000 total haul has come from political action committees (PACs), many representing unions. She’s received donations from chapter 338 of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the New York State United Teachers, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, and many others.

She’s also received a few donations from real estate interests: $500 from the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), $500 from Triad Management LLC, which manages rental properties in Long Island City, and $100 from Gotham Realty. She’s also received several campaign donations from other elected officials and $20,000 from the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, which seeks to protect incumbents and flip Republican seats to Democrats.

Brecker, who was recently endorsed by well-known progressive Zephyr Teachout, has said she’s knocked on over 5,000 doors in her efforts to flip the New York State Senate with Empire Indivisible. She also worked to urge U.S. Senators to vote no on Trump’s initial cabinet appointments and in early 2017 captained a bus to the first Women’s March in Washington D.C.

“I just want that action,” said Brecker, who has also been endorsed by True Blue NY, Empire State Indivisible, and New York Indivisible, of getting more progressive legislation across the finish line. “I just want a leader who’s going to be a little bit more of an activist in her office and less kind of complacent and letting it go and letting it be politics as usual.”

Nolan, though, has largely painted her opponents and their supporters as part of an online progressive movement that is not representative of the district. The Assembly member said she’d only discovered Twitter two years ago, and wants nothing to do with it. She has a Facebook, but she doesn’t have a Twitter account or a campaign website, unlike her opponents, and said she thinks much of the criticisms thrown at her online is more likely from out-of-district millennials who aren’t aware of what she has done for her community.

“One of the problems for like Twitter and Facebook and all this stuff is that people get to say ‘this is who I am,’ but sometimes it’s a little more complex than that,” Nolan said. She added that while her two opponents live in the district, “Many of their supporters do not. So the people hurling these charges don’t seem to know what my record is, and they don’t seem to care about the things we mentioned that we achieved, whether it’s tenant’s rights or environmental issues.”

Lupé Todd-Medina, a political consultant working on other campaigns this cycle, voiced a similar sentiment in her assessment of the race.

“Cathy Nolan is another one who’s been very effective,” Todd-Medina said. “Unfortunately, we are now living in a time where people, younger generations especially, are just not reading the newspaper. They’re online and they’re reading stuff. If they’re not reading the newspaper and you’re not putting it on Twitter they don’t know what you’ve done. Cathy is very effective.”

It’s younger, newer residents’ votes that Brecker and Jobaida should hope to win if they have a shot at unseating Nolan, according to Doug Forand, who runs Red Horse Strategies, a political consultancy.

“This is one of those districts where you have seen a shift in the population, increased gentrification and economic turnover, and a lot of new residents coming in,” Forand said. “That’s a district where I would not be comfortable with an incumbent, in that district, if I was not very very in touch with the newer residents.”

Forand said most challengers, especially in races without major policy differences and well-enough-liked incumbents, would have to draw on newer, gentrifying residents who want change and associate with further left, progressive politics. Without the ability to canvas, Brecker and Jobaida have attempted to reach such an audience on Twitter, where they both have around 1,000 followers.

But any success they’ve had in gaining larger online followings than Nolan does not seem to have translated into their fundraising as both challengers have struggled to gain financial backing. Brecker has only raised $9,000, solely from individuals, and has put another $13,000 of her own money into the campaign, as of as of the recent 11-day pre-primary filings.

After a promising start where Jobaida received 326 donations for more than $34,000 by January 17, she has only received another $7,500 or so since, likely a result of how the world has shifted due to the coronavirus outbreak. Jobaida has found support in endorsements by Our Progressive Future, Amplify Her, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Muslim Democratic Club of New York, Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group, New American Leaders Action Fund, and Ozone Park East New York Democratic Club.

Neither Jobaida nor Brecker have received any corporate or PAC money, and both said their fundraising struggles stem from the pandemic, which has left many New Yorkers facing financial hardship and many candidates more reluctant to ask for donations.

“I call this pandemic a capitalist problem,” Jobaida said. “This pandemic is hurting the poor and low-income people and our grassroots campaign is no different.”

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by Victor Porcelli, Gotham Gazette

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WATCH: Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and Challenger Grace Lee Debate in Lower Manhattan Democratic Primary


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Yuh-Line Niou, left, and Grace Lee during their debate


Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and her Democratic primary challenger, Grace Lee, met for a debate on Monday, June 15, hosted by Manhattan Neighborhood Network and moderated by Gotham Gazette's Ben Max. The primary for this Lower Manhattan State Assembly seat is happening this month, with early voting ongoing through June 21; primary day on June 23; and all eligible voters allowed to vote by absentee ballot. Watch the debate:

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Challenges for Challengers: Coronavirus Crisis May Make It An Especially Tough Year for Insurgents to Overcome Incumbents


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Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas campaigns in bid to unseat Assemblymember Michael DenDekker (photo: @votejgr)


The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, a trend that may extend to party primary elections happening this month, where already-disadvantaged challengers to incumbents could face even more daunting odds, experts say.

Primaries for seats in both houses of the state Legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and more, including Queens Borough President, are being voted on this month, and many races feature incumbents trying to hold onto their offices in elections upended by the COVID-19 outbreak and its fallout.

Incumbents often already enjoy war chests — leftover money from past fundraising efforts and campaigns — and the ability to more easily fund-raise from monied interests, in addition to support from fellow elected officials and organizations often considered part of the political establishment, such as their political party apparatus and labor unions.

For incumbent State Assembly Democrats, for example, one way these advantages manifest is in the form of access to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, which provides campaign services, money, and other resources to incumbents up for reelection. And more relevant now than ever may be sitting officeholders’ ability to send government mailings to constituents, newsletters that are paid for through public money. With campaigns unable to canvass and do other typical in-person activities due to the pandemic, snail mail has become one of the few strategies remaining for candidates to connect with voters.

For these and other reasons, Dr. Jeanne Zaino, a political scientist at Iona College, believes this year may be one of the hardest for insurgent campaigns.

“In our system, our incumbents enjoy enormous benefits and enormous advantages, and so you couple that with a pandemic and try to imagine a challenger taking on somebody who’s got a built-in network, who has mailing privileges, who has a soap-box on which to stand and speak with authority about issues,” Zaino said in an interview. “It’s so hard for a challenger under the best of circumstances to make inroads there. In this circumstance, how do you raise money from people already suffering? Thirty million people out of work. How do you campaign and talk about the things you plan to talk about at a time when people are trying to make sure they stay alive?”

Campaigns Redefined
According to housing counselor Zohran Mamdani, who is running against incumbent Aravella Simotas in Queens’ 36th Assembly District, the pandemic-forced adjustment has been challenging. Mamdani said his grassroots campaign was able to knock on a lot of doors before the coronavirus outbreak made doing so unsafe, but suspended canvassing on March 13.

“We’ve made up the ground, but there’s no question that the coronavirus pandemic has been an obstacle unlike any that an insurgent campaign has faced thus far,” Mamdani said. “It is a different world than that which we prepared for, and it is not as friendly to an insurgent campaign.”

Mamdani, like many others, has shifted his focus to social media, snail mail, and text and phone banking in replacement of canvassing. For him, mailing a single set of literature can cost $7,500 — a significant chunk of campaign funds, and for some candidates, too much of an expense.

Mamdani, who is endorsed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, has called Simotas part of the Queens Democratic political machine, though their platforms are not far apart. Simotas has appeared to move leftward given her progressive challenger, and Mamdani believes his platform will appeal to those hit hardest by the pandemic.

With 900,000 unemployed New Yorkers as of May 5, according to Comptroller Scott Stringer, many people have lost their health insurance, are struggling to put food on the table or pay rent, and the scale of the need is staggering.

“If you were on the fence about the need for single-payer healthcare, if you were on the fence about the need for universal rent control, if you were on the fence about the need for public power or ending cash bail, this pandemic is a very convincing argument as to the necessity for those things,” Mamdani said.

Along with the question of whether he’s right, Mamdani also faces the immense challenge of getting that message in front of enough voters, and making sure that those impressed by it actually cast ballots.

Dr. Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University, thinks Mamdani and others in his category are in trouble. Greer said that, similar to how Governor Andrew Cuomo has seen a rise in approval ratings, local elected officials may see a boost in support by constituents who see them as a more reliable and safe option due to the pandemic.

“Oftentimes in a time of crisis, as we’ve seen, people don’t like to change in the middle of the crisis,” Greer said. “I think that bodes well for [incumbents].”

Challengers have tried to make the argument that incumbents are not actually the source of reliability some might think, and that new blood with the right philosophy or experience, is the way to go for the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. Grace Lee, a small business owner and parent activist running against incumbent Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou in Lower Manhattan’s 65th Assembly District, has been trying to make the case that she is better positioned to represent the district under the current circumstances.

“I was a senior at Columbia when 9/11 happened, I was working in New York City leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and I was a small business owner with a nine-month-old baby, living in Zone A during Superstorm Sandy,” Lee said. “I have the lived experiences of living in New York City during huge crises in the city and those are experiences my opponent does not have.”

Money Problems
Another perpetual challenge for those seeking to unseat incumbents is fundraising. If a candidate is a political newcomer and doesn’t have the right connections, it can be difficult to even begin to compete with incumbents’ financial advantages. With many insurgents running grassroots campaigns that depend on smaller individual donations, it can be even harder. In the midst of a global pandemic, it can seem almost insurmountable, candidates said.

“Many of our supporters are working people, to know that so many of them lost work or didn’t have income any more, we had to figure out new ways of meeting new people who did still have income available,” said community board member Emily Gallagher, who’s challenging long-time incumbent Joe Lentol in Brooklyn’s 50th Assembly District.

As of June 12, Gallagher had about $15,000 on hand. Lentol had about ten times that, with nearly $150,000 available to spend. The majority of Lentol’s donations raised during this cycle were from political action committees, including a $20,000 donation from the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee. Lentol told Gotham Gazette he is not actively looking to fund-raise due to his already substantial war chest and because he does not wish to ask for money while many are struggling financially due to the pandemic. The latter point was something incumbents and challengers have cited over and over again, even as some do continue to solicit donations, acknowledging the reality of a primary campaign season that continues toward its climax.

Other challengers face similar fundraising deficits. Organizer Danielle Brecker, who joins activist Mary Jobaida in running to unseat Queens Assemblymember Catherine Nolan, said she simply doesn’t feel right fundraising at this time.

“Asking for money is never fun, asking for money during a pandemic is really not OK,” said Brecker, who had $5,000 in her campaign account as of June 12.

No-Movement Movements
Brecker was especially disappointed to have to stay at home, as she put it: “knocking doors is my thing.” The co-lead organizer for Empire State Indivisible, an anti-Trump activist group looking to elect more progressive Democrats across the board, Brecker said she had knocked on over 5,000 doors for other causes. The pandemic made doing so for her own campaign unsafe.

Jobaida expressed a similar sentiment. Being unable to hold rallies and in-person events, in addition to door-knocking, takes away from the enthusiasm and personal connection she relies on as a political newcomer, she said.

“Our strength mostly was people,” Jobaida said. “Every time I went to a community gathering and talked to people, in that moment I could see a flood of support and so much enthusiasm in people and in that moment the scenario would change. That moment I am missing.”

Greer said this type of voter interaction is often how challengers have been successful in the past, despite incumbents’ advantages.

Pointing to successful recent insurgents like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zellnor Myrie who in 2018 beat entrenched incumbents, Greer said, “you can look at their shoes and tell they walk the district. You know?” Greer said. “They knock on doors. Part of the appeal is that the constituents know them. And so they were successful knocking off a very solid incumbent in both cases. It’s because voters in the district said, ‘Oh, I met them, and I heard what they had to say, and I liked them, I liked what they were saying, I liked their ideas.’”

There is a long list of upstart candidates challenging incumbents across the Assembly, State Senate, and House. Among those getting the most attention, overcoming some of the aforementioned challenges, and being talked about as this year's Ocasio-Cortez, is Jamaal Bowman, who is challenging Rep. Eliot Engel for his Bronx and Westchester 16th Congressional District seat. Congressional challengers like Adem Bunkeddeko -- in Brooklyn's 9th Congressional District, home to Rep. Yvette Clarke -- and Suraj Patel -- in the 12th Congressional District that spans parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens and is represented by Rep. Carolyn Maloney -- are both attempting to unseat incumbents for the second straight cycle after strong showings two years ago, so they come into this campaign with certain advantages that others don't have. But, both Bunkeddeko and Patel are still facing obstacles brought on by the pandemic as well as others: additional candidates in both races after one-on-one contests last time.

Other congressional incumbents across the city are also facing challengers, as are quite a few senators and Assembly members, who launched pre-coronavirus campaigns with a great deal of hope and game plans that have been immensely impacted. They largely faced extremely daunting chances even before the pandemic.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s successful bid to unseat long-time incumbent Joe Crowley has been the impetus for many progressive, grassroots primary challenges since. But odds remain against those insurgents.

According to Zaino, this should not be surprising.

“That’s what’s a little bit frustrating about the amount of attention — and I’m guilty of this, too — that everybody in the media gives to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Zaino said. “On the one hand, that was a remarkable feat to defeat a sitting Congressman. On the other hand, the amount of attention we give it I think gives people a false sense that it’s possible. And it is possible, but it’s highly unlikely.”

***
by Victor Porcelli, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Self-Funding Community Activist Challenges Progressive Star Incumbent in Lower Manhattan Assembly Primary


grace lee yuh line niou

Challenger Grace Lee, left, and Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou


An intense Democratic primary is unfolding in Lower Manhattan, where incumbent Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, a staunch progressive, is facing a challenge from business owner and activist Grace Lee, who is partially self-funding her campaign.

While the two candidates don’t appear to disagree on much politically, the race looks like a test of whether a well-financed challenger seizing on hyper-local issues can motivate enough voters to overcome a broadly popular incumbent. Meanwhile, the election is unfolding during a pandemic, and in a district that has been uniquely harmed by the coronavirus outbreak and its fallout, throwing campaigning into new territory and casting a great deal of uncertainty around who will actually vote this month.

The district includes parts or all of the Lower East Side, Chinatown, Battery Park City, and the Financial District, as well as Governors Island. The primary, open to all Democrats in the district, is part of an election cycle where all 150 Assembly, 63 State Senate, and 27 New York House of Representatives seats, among others, are on the ballot, though not all have party primaries. Primary day is June 23, while early voting is June 13-21, and all voters are eligible for absentee balloting given a gubernatorial order due to the pandemic.

Seeking a third term, Niou has a strong following among progressive activists and elected officials, with the endorsements to show it, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Comptroller Scott Stringer, many of her Assembly and Senate colleagues, and even U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, to name a few. She has the support of the liberal Working Families Party, which helped spur her to victory over a short-lived incumbent in 2016, as well as New York State United Teachers, New York State Nurses Association, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AmplifyHER, Empire State Indivisible, Stonewall Democrats of NYC, and many other unions and political clubs.

Niou was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States when she was just six months old. She holds the seat that was for decades the domain of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose corruption conviction paved the way for a 2015 special election won by Silver ally Alice Cancel, whom Niou then defeated in the primary the following year.

Her challenger, Lee, is a first-generation Korean-American who owns a toxin-free beauty line for pregnant women and new moms. She got more formally involved in politics in 2018 when she worked as an event organizer with the progressive group called Swing Left, which is focused on getting Democrats to volunteer in swing states. More recently, she co-founded Children’s First, which organized a group of parents to advocate for the cleanup of a possibly toxic former thermometer factory site across from her daughter’s school in the South Street Seaport. The site is slated for development, which worried Lee and others about the disruption of buried toxins, and Lee says she’s running because she does not believe Niou has been active enough on the issue, or others. Earlier this year, Lee wrote an op-ed (in Gotham Gazette) about the issues at the site and a legislative response she wants to see that would empower local communities and apply to other similar circumstances.

“The shocking thing to me through this process is that there were no laws to protect children from sites like this one,” Lee said in an interview. “There were other legislators in New York State who were proactive about finding solutions and writing legislation to protect children from mercury except our legislator, namely my opponent, was not.”

Lee has made her campaign about this type of questioning Niou’s commitment to the district, as she otherwise shares a similar progressive platform to the incumbent. Both support single-payer healthcare, increased funding for public schools and public housing, and climate resiliency efforts. Aside from the seaport site issue, neither Lee nor her campaign spokesperson offered other specific examples where Lee believes Niou has not performed well, though the challenger has offered some broader criticism of Niou’s closeness to issues on the ground and representation of the district in Albany.

Community Ties
Lee has said that, having lived in Lower Manhattan for 15 years, she is better situated to lead the district in the midst of an ongoing public health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I believe that we are only in the first inning right now of one of the deepest economic crises of our lifetime,” Lee said. “And we need someone that understands it, who’s lived it before and can help lead this district out of the crisis.”

Lee specifically said her experiences being in New York during September 11, 2001 and the Great Recession that started in 2008 make her more prepared to lead the way.

Niou of course disagrees.

“[In 2008] she was working for JP Morgan & Chase, literally the people who were putting us into a subprime crisis,” Niou said in an interview. “It’s really important for us to make sure we have a good advocate at this time, and my whole life has been based on advocacy.”

After moving around a bit as a child, Niou primarily grew up in Washington State, where she attended Evergreen State College. During her time there, she interned for Washington State Congressmembers Debbie Regala and Eileen Cody before doing post-grad advocacy work with the Statewide Poverty Action Network, according to her LinkedIn page. She later came to New York in 2010 as one of CUNY’s National Urban Fellows and worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, after that, became Chief of Staff for New York State Assemblymember Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat.

Lee has tried to argue that Niou growing up out of state means she does not have strong local roots, going so far as to claim that she “parachuted in” to the district in 2016 to run for office.

Voter registration data from the New York City Board of Elections shows that Niou first voted in the 65th Assembly District in November of 2014.

“These are laughable lies from a desperate candidate,” said Doug Forand, a political consultant who runs Red Horse Strategies and counts Niou as a client. “For Grace Lee to make these claims? Look, we know that we have politicians like Donald Trump who lie, we do not need politicians like that within our own Democratic Party.”

Forand pointed to Lee’s own community ties. Although she has lived in Lower Manhattan for some time, last May Lee moved about four blocks to officially reside within the 65th Assembly District, a move that occurred because her family needed more space, a Lee campaign spokesperson said.

Lee has some of her own endorsements from local organizations, such as Downtown Independent Democrats, the largest political club in the district. She’s also endorsed by local District Leader Jonathan Gardenhire. Niou, meanwhile, has endorsements from seven District Leaders in the district.

Key Issues
Lee also has drawn support from 10 members and presidents of tenant’s associations at NYCHA developments. Assembly District 65 is among the top 10 districts with the most public housing apartments, according to 2018 data compiled by the Community Service Society of New York. It has 12 NYCHA developments, according to NYCHA. Lee lists funding for NYCHA as one of her main priorities on her website and has made it a campaign talking point.

Niou has focused on NYCHA during her tenure, helping to push for hundreds of millions in state funding for the housing authority, but seemingly noticed Lee’s attention to the issue, writing a recent op-ed (in Gotham Gazette) on the topic, where she called for further action at all levels of government in light of the pandemic and other long-standing issues.

“More than anything, I am deeply saddened by the way our NYCHA residents are being willfully ignored and mistreated,” Niou wrote. “[T]hey deserve a government that will fight for them, not turn a blind eye to their suffering. Like so many institutions of government, NYCHA needs to rebuild trust with its residents, and that starts with honestly and competently addressing the problems they are facing today, not making false promises or missing more deadlines.

On Niou’s campaign website, NYCHA funding and oversight is prominently featured under housing. The website states Niou “secured a record $550 million in funding for NYCHA for capital repairs to the crippling infrastructure,” over her two terms in office.

She also has her own list of endorsements from local NYCHA leaders.

Niou has criticized Lee on tenants’ rights issues more generally, citing her lack of support for Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar’s “good cause” eviction bill that would protect tenants in market-rate apartments from being evicted without reason. (Salazar is among Niou’s endorsers.) Lee had previously told Gothamist she was undecided on whether or not she supported the bill, but in a January Q&A with The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, which has since endorsed Niou, she affirmed her support.

“This is a necessity more than ever given the coronavirus pandemic,” Lee said at the time. “This, among other housing policies, will be the cornerstone of my agenda during my first term in office.”

Lee has made her background in business (she has a bachelor’s in economics from Columbia and a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business) She also founded and runs her own business, part of her pitch to voters, arguing that she would be able to help small businesses thrive and deal with the economic aftereffects of COVID-19. The broader coronavirus crisis has hit the district, especially Chinatown, very hard.

She’s also criticized Niou’s response to it, citing her “no” vote on an early March measure to issue $40 million of relief that also would grant Governor Andrew Cuomo the ability to supersede local and state authorities by way of executive order.

“For her to vote against that aid was voting against the health and well being of this community,” Lee said. “And we can’t have leaders in this district who don’t understand that.”

Niou said her vote was about disagreeing with giving the governor added powers she did not believe he should get.

“The governor stapled $40 million towards services and expenses related to the COVID-19 outbreak to some very concerning expansions to his own authority and power,” Niou said of her vote in an explanation posted to Twitter. “This was done in the span of just a few hours with no eyes on the language of the bill until just before the vote.”

During the pandemic, both Niou and Lee have been working to help residents of the district. Niou’s office has been working to help people file unemployment claims, and to connect those in need of food or other necessities with mutual aid organizations. Lee is collaborating with the “$1k Project,” an initiative that matches families in need of financial assistance with other families that have committed to donating $1,000 a month to them for three months. Of nine families that have applied through her so far, two have been sponsored, seven are being considered and none have been declined, according to a Lee spokesperson.

Niou was also one of an unusually high number of Assembly Democrats who voted against parts of this year’s state budget. She did so in a floor speech, the video of which circulated widely, where she said, “This budget, this values document, makes a terrible statement that we value big businesses and profits more than we value people, our people, the people of this state, and that is simply not who we are."

Funding
Lee's work with the $1k Project, which relies on making connections to better-off families, mirrors Lee’s own fundraising. Her campaign has been heavily supported by business executives and wealthier donors, many from the financial services industry she formerly worked in. As of the most recent campaign finance filings, Lee has raised about $200,000 while also giving $250,000 of her own money to her campaign.

Niou has raised almost $230,000 in total for the campaign, with almost 5,000 individual donors — which is about 10 times more than Lee — and a much smaller average donation than her challenger.

Other than herself, Lee’s largest donors are Charles and Marissa Cascarilla, who each donated $4,700 (Charles is the CEO and co-founder of Paxos, a company with its own digital currency). She’s also received $2,000 from Frank Bisignano, Chairman and CEO of Fiserv, another financial technology company. Philadelphia-based Lily Fong, the Vice President of AIG, an American multinational finance and insurance corporation, donated $3,000 to Lee, who also received $2,000 from Emma Bloomberg, daughter of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In the most recent campaign finance filings posted on Friday, which show contributions made in the last three weeks, the difference in Niou and Lee’s fundraising has become even starker. While Niou had over 3,000 individuals donate to her during that time period (bringing her cycle total to more than 5,000) — an especially large number for an Assembly campaign — Lee had only 13 individual donors. Lee still had an influx of cash, though, as she put another $150,000 of her own money into the fund (bringing her total in self-financing to the aforementioned $250,000).

Lee’s campaign financing has drawn criticism from Niou’s camp, with Forand characterizing her campaign as an attempt to “buy her way into elected office.”

While Niou’s average campaign donation from individuals over the election cycle is now about $10, Lee’s is $366, according to State Board of Elections filings (and that doesn’t include the $250,000 Lee gave herself).

Besides a large number of individual donations, Niou has received money from many political action committees (PACs), the vast majority of which are associated with unions. The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, New York State United Teachers, and Tenants PAC have each donated around $5,000 to Niou’s campaign.

In a statement to Gotham Gazette about her campaign funding sent after the publication of this article, Lee said, "At the beginning of this pandemic, I had to make some hard choices. I could either spend my time calling donors for money or going out into my community and helping. I chose the latter. My husband and I are fortunate enough to be able to loan my campaign money so that I could keep my staff on payroll. I don’t feel comfortable asking for money while people are dealing with this crisis." She highlighted that unlike Niou she has not taken any PAC money, and added, "I worked very hard to raise money for my campaign, and outraised my opponent in the first quarter without any establishment support. Unlike my opponent, I don’t have a citywide, establishment elected official or unions dialing for dollars on my behalf.”

Debate
The two candidates will meet on Monday, June 15, for a debate hosted by Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) and moderated by Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max. [UPDATE: Watch the AD Democratic Primary debate between Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and Grace Lee]

***
by Victor Porcelli, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Note: this story has been updated with comment from Lee about her campaign fundraising. Also, while the Lee campaign said that the candidate had been endorsed by Alysha Lewis-Coleman, Chair of Community Board 3, and this article originally included that endorsement, Lewis-Coleman told Gotham Gazette that she had made no such endorsement and wished to have her name removed from Lee's list of endorsers above.

Race, Representation, and Community Roots in Focus in Central Brooklyn Assembly Primary


Assembly candidates 

The two Democratic candidates in Brooklyn's 56th Assembly District


With incumbent Assemblymember Tremaine Wright of Brooklyn seeking a promotion to the State Senate, the 56th Assembly District is an “open” seat for the 2020 election. The two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in this month’s primary, Justin Cohen and Stefani Zinerman, represent differing policy approaches, campaign styles, and backgrounds. As no other candidates have filed to run in the deep blue district, the winner of the Democratic primary will be unopposed in the general election and secure the seat.

The 56th Assembly District is predominantly anchored in Bedford-Stuyvesant, but also stretches into some of Crown Heights. The district’s residents are predominantly black, accounting for 63% of residents, according to Census data. Hispanic residents comprise 18% of the district and white residents are 13%. The district is relatively young, with nearly three-in-five voters under the age of 40 and an average age for district residents of 33.5, compared to 39 statewide.

In stark contrast to the nearby affluent neighborhoods of Park Slope and Boerum Hill, 26.1% of the district’s residents live in poverty, nearly double the statewide rate of 14.6%. The median household income is $45,269, compared to $65,323 statewide.

Zinerman, a black woman, is a former pastor who has worked as an aide for retiring State Senator Montgomery (whom Wright is running to replace in the somewhat overlapping district) and a chief of staff to City Council Member Robert Cornegy. All three of those local officials -- Montgomery, Wright, and Cornegy -- are backing Zinerman for Assembly. Zinerman has been involved for many years in a number of community organizations, including the Brooklyn NAACP and Age-Friendly, a senior-focused initiative which she chaired.

Cohen, a white man, is a community organizer and activist. He worked as an education advocate in Washington D.C., cofounded the anti-gun violence group Politicize My Death, and has worked with other organizations such as Campaign Zero and Black Lives Matter. He also touts himself as a “social entrepreneur,” as a cofounder of the Wayfinder Foundation.

Zinerman has questioned Cohen’s roots in the community he seeks to represent and frequently highlights her own, “as a third-generation Bed-Stuy resident.” When asked about her opponent, she warned that “the next assault on our community seeks to destabilize our political power with seemingly well-meaning outsiders.”

When asked why he decided to run for Assembly, Cohen told Gotham Gazette that he had come to the conclusion that “the best use of my energy was to run.” He frames his entire campaign around one overarching theme, justice, which for him would mean that “communities most marginalized by our system get the resources they need to thrive.”

Platforms
Cohen extends the theme of “justice” to a variety of issues, from public safety to immigration to transportation. He says the 56th district is a “transit desert,” where public transportation is not readily accessible for many and often inconsistent. He says a commute into Manhattan can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, which he calls unacceptable.

On issues of healthcare, public safety, and many others, he makes a similar case: that the district does not get enough resources and attention. Cohen calls his proposals “radical” and says “this is a nominally progressive state but we never talk about the wealthy people in our state,” meaning that he wants to increase taxes on the highest-income New Yorkers.

In response to the pandemic, Cohen has argued that rent should be cancelled for the time being. He also supports the New York Health Act for single-payer health care in the state, a homes guarantee, universal rent control, making the MTA’s subways and buses free and accessible for all, and the Green New Deal, among other policies.

When asked at a recent candidate town hall hosted by the Brooklyn Movement Center, a nonprofit community group with deep roots in the district, about the recent protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Cohen called for defunding the NYPD by $1 billion, although as a state legislator he would not have a direct say in that decision. Cohen said on Twitter he was arrested during a May 30 protest, along with other demonstrators.

While Cohen focuses on broad systemic issues and puts forward ambitious policies for seismic change, Zinerman takes a different approach, focusing on more localized concerns and constituent engagement. She lists her top two priorities as community health and education equity for the schools in the district.

On health, Zinerman said she is advocating for several community-based initiatives, including a “healthy aging programming, community farms and access to healthy food, doula care to reduce maternal morbidity, expanding the number of school-based health clinics,” and “safe staffing standards for licensed nurses.”

On education, Zinerman wants the promise of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity to be fulfilled through $3.9 billion in state foundation aid for New York City. Education equity, for Zinerman, would mean that schools can offer career and technical education, “high-quality academic enrichment,” and “physical and mental health programs.”

Zinerman’s position on debates over policing is community-focused. She said at the Brooklyn Movement Center town hall that the “only thing we can do is lessen contact with police,” advocating for “new models” of public safety.

The Money Tree and District Roots
Cohen holds a significant financial advantage over Zinerman. He had raised $83,211, with $15,611 in cash-on-hand as of the 32-day pre-primary report filed on May 22. Zinerman had raised just $13,689 and had $10,090 in her campaign account as of the same date. Additionally, Cohen has spent $67,600 so far in the campaign, while Zinerman has only spent $3,599 as of that 32-day pre-primary report. The average contribution to Cohen was $189, while Zinerman’s average contribution was $227.

Notably, out of the Cohen campaign’s 167 individual contributions, 56% have come from outside New York State and 72% are from outside Brooklyn. By comparison, 40% of Zinerman’s 40 contributions were from outside Brooklyn. Yet, Cohen has far more contributions from within Brooklyn (57) than Zinerman (16). Meanwhile, Cohen’s campaign committee is registered to an address in Jersey City, New Jersey, according to his most recent financial disclosure.

Cohen said he doesn’t take funds from “the monied interests in real estate and the political establishment in this city”  and his campaign has instead “turned to national networks to support our insurgent campaign.” Explaining the reason a New Jersey mailing address was used for his campaign filing, Cohen told Gotham Gazette that his “campaign treasurer is my closest friend, a lifelong New Yorker, who just moved to Jersey City, hence the address on the filing.”

Zinerman is not the only person to raise concerns over Cohen’s connection to the district. At the recent Brooklyn Movement Center town hall, Cohen was asked how he, as a white man, would represent the interests of a majority-black district. He responded that he acknowledges that he “is not the ideal messenger, but I am who I am” and that “my track record shows that I do the work and put in the time.”

Later, in the same town hall, an audience member asked a similar question, wondering if Cohen had a “white savior” complex and how he would make inroads in the local community. He answered that “trust is earned. There’s a difference between being a gentrifier and a neighbor.”

Endorsements
It is Zinerman who holds the advantage in endorsements. She has been endorsed by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, State Senators Velmanette Montgomery, Brian Benjamin, and Kevin Parker; three State Assemblymembers (including current 56th District incumbent Tremaine Wright, as well as Brooklyn’s Walter Mosley and Rodneyse Bichotte), and local City Council Member Robert Cornegy, whom she used to work for. She has also received the endorsements of Vanguard Independent Democrats, Planned Parenthood Action, the Brooklyn Young Democrats, Social Services Employees Union (SSEU) Local 371 and Local 372.

Assemblymember Bichotte, the Brooklyn Democratic Party leader, said in a statement endorsing Zinerman that “I have worked with Stefani personally and she is astute, smart and dedicated to effectively serving the community she grew up in as a legislator.”

Cohen touts endorsements from Kei Williams, a founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, and government reform group Citizens Union. While not endorsing his campaign, several community leaders have voiced support for his COVID-19 recovery plan, including Pastor Rob Waterman of Antioch Baptist Church, which including the NY Health Act, paid sick leave for essential workers, and giving the state the ability to assume control of noncompliant nursing homes.

Zinerman’s endorsement advantage and support from Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders has led some, including her opponent, to assert that she is the “establishment” candidate. Cohen told Gotham Gazette that “if there’s one thing that is clear in our current moment, it’s that business as usual is not working, especially when it comes to the political establishment’s lax reaction to violent policing.”

However, Zinerman sees her endorsements edge as a result of what favorably differentiates her from Cohen in this race. She’s a “long-time resident with generational roots” in the district and she has “a proven track record of accomplishments that demonstrate my commitment to this community. That, she says, is why she is “endorsed and trusted by our elders, small business owners, faith-based and political leadership.”

Early voting starts June 13 and goes through June 21; primary day is June 23. All eligible voters can vote absentee per an executive order by the governor issued resulting from the pandemic. This and other Democratic Party primaries are only open to registered Democrats.

***
by Andrew Millman, Gotham Gazette
   

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