With all due respect to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries \u2013 who\u2019s been going through a rough patch in Washington, D.C. \u2013 no Black politico can match state Attorney General Letitia James\u2019 level of power and popularity in New York.<\/p>\n
So as Black History Month kicks off and as City & State recognizes dozens of Black Trailblazers in this issue, it\u2019s the right time to look at the latest reason no Democrat is even daring to challenge James\u2019 reelection this year: her absolutely bonkers fundraising report.<\/p>\n
James got campaign donations from more than 107,000 people in the past six months, netting more than $3.6 million. With more than 150,000 contributions, her haul practically crashed the state Board of Elections\u2019 website.<\/p>\n
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s incredible fundraising effort attracted just under 41,000 donors over the course of the campaign. James did more than double in half the time without a real opponent.<\/p>\n
Her trick? She spent a ton on fundraising. James\u2019 campaign paid $1.8 million to Anne Lewis Strategies for digital advertising and donor lists. It got her national attention \u2013 just 18% of the contributions came from New York.<\/p>\n
But the real trick, of course, was getting indicted for mortgage fraud by President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Justice. The case was brought for political retribution \u2013 Trump didn\u2019t even try to hide it \u2013 and the facts were so weak that grand juries wouldn\u2019t bite after the original case was tossed.<\/p>\n
James beamed about the small-dollar haul last week. \u201cIndividuals,\u201d she said, \u201cnot only in New York, but all across this nation, don\u2019t support the weaponization of government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all due respect to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries \u2013 who\u2019s been going through a rough patch in Washington,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1414,6492,9,24,11,10,49,299],"class_list":{"0":"post-121072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-campaigns-elections","9":"tag-editors-note","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}