At Least It Would Force The AIPAC Gonifs To Spend More GOP Money
The NY Working Families Party endorses all kinds of candidates, not just progressives. This time for example, they endorsed conservatives like Jackie Gordon, Bridget Fleming and Pat Ryan. But they also endorsed some progressives, some who won and some who didn’t. Progressives who won their Democratic primaries include AOC, Jamaal Bowman and Jerry Nadler. But 4 progressives who WFP endorsed lost their Democratic primaries: Yuh-Line Niou, Melanie D’Arrigo, Brittany Ramos DeBarros and Allesandra Biaggi.
WFP tells candidates in competitive districts that if they lose their primaries, they should give up their WFP designations and not split the vote, which could potentially allow a Republican to slip in. That would certainly be the case with 3 of the 4 women listed above, all of which are in districts where a split vote could prove to be catastrophic.
NY-03 (D’Arrigo) has a D+4 partisan lean, too close for comfort
NY-11 (DeBarros) has an R+11 lean
NY-17 (Biaggi) has a D+7 partisan lean, also too close for comfort
A case can be made that progressives should be working to defeat Blue Dog Max Rose (NY-11) and New Dem/corrupt DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-17) and running on the WFP line would absolutely help defeat them and keep them from returning to Congress. I see it that way but not many others who believe they are "leftists" do.
That all said, NY-10 offers a very different picture. The partisan lean is D+69. It doesn’t matter if Yuh-Line splits the vote with the conservative Democratic nominee, self-funder Dan Goldman, who spent $4 million of his own dollars (and benefited from a a filthy last minute AIPAC independent expenditure smearing Yuh-Line. The vote was really close and the progressives, who split the over 70% of the vote to Goldman’s 25.8%.
Yesterday, towards the end of the day, Nia Prater took a look at the situation as it now stands for New York Magazine. “[B]because of the state’s fusion-voting system,” wrote Prater, “Niou could potentially challenge Goldman during the general election by choosing to run on the ballot line for the Working Families Party, which endorsed her during the primary. ‘I’m currently speaking with WFP and my community about how we can best represent the needs of this district,’ she said in a statement to Intelligencer. ‘Because what we can do together is too important to give up this fight, we must count every vote. I’m so grateful for the outpouring of support and all of the people who showed up and turned out. Our people need and deserve a voice.’”
The argument for such a move stems from the fact that, though Goldman won outright, a larger majority of voters cast their ballot in favor of Niou, Congressman Mondaire Jones, and City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, who all campaigned as progressives. Though it’s not a certainty that the candidates’ supporters would automatically back Niou, there’s a belief that more of the district’s voters might back a single progressive candidate if given the opportunity.
The New York Working Families Party hasn’t said whether a challenge to Goldman on its ballot line is likely, but in an Election Night statement, continued to praise Niou and noted that there were votes that still hadn’t been counted.
“Despite being outspent by several million dollars and withstanding a torrent of attacks from Trump-aligned groups, Yuh-Line is within points of Dan Goldman in a heavily contested field. While there are still ballots left to be counted, what’s clear is that the overwhelming majority of voters chose a self-described progressive in this race, and people are hungry for authentic representation that will fight to defend abortion rights and put their needs ahead of the whims of the ultrawealthy,” said New York State director Sochie Nnaemeka.