Sign up<\/a> to get the full version where you can ask questions, share news tips and weigh in on the conversation. Hits inboxes on Wednesdays.<\/p>\nOn Saturday morning, some of the Working Families Party\u2019s heavyweights came out to rally for Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in his ongoing primary fight to represent New York\u2019s 7th Congressional District.<\/p>\n
New York state Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez stood with other elected officials and labor leaders to cheer on Reynoso, their chosen candidate in an ongoing primary fight.<\/p>\n
Last year, a very similar scene played out when the WFP embraced the meteoric rise of then-Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who\u2019s now New York City\u2019s mayor.<\/p>\n
But this time, instead of a rally with Mamdani, Saturday\u2019s event amounted to a rebuke of the mayor\u2019s endorsed candidate, Assemblymember Claire Valdez, a fellow democratic socialist, in the Democratic primary for the 7th congressional district. The seat opened up after Vel\u00e1zquez announced her retirement last year. City Councilmember Julie Won is also on the ballot.<\/p>\n
For the WFP and its allies, the race is about showing working people, labor unions and community organizations that they are still the leaders of the left. Jasmine Gripper, who now leads the New York State WFP solo after her cochair joined the Mamdani administration, said the 7th Congressional District \u201cbelongs to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of two marquee Democratic congressional primaries the WFP is focused on this cycle. The other is in the 10th Congressional District, a seat covering part of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan where the WFP seeks to oust incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman in favor of former city Comptroller Brad Lander, a longtime WFP stalwart.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are two communities where the party brand is really strong, where voters are used to listening to the party, and we have a lot of influence in the outcome,\u201d Gripper said in an interview.<\/p>\n
She said the left-leaning, labor-based third party is adopting a \u201cblock and build\u201d strategy to help Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives in November. That means blocking Republicans in districts where they are viable, and sending progressive champions to fight for workers in solidly blue seats.<\/p>\n
Assemblymember Claire Valdez has received Mayor Mamdani’s endorsement for NY-7.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Claire Valdez campaign<\/p>\n
Reynoso played up his union bona fides at the rally on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a union baby. 1199 knows what\u2019s up,\u201d Reynoso said in a nod to his mother, who was a member of the healthcare workers union, and some of his own early organizing work. \u201cWhat I fight for isn\u2019t something that I saw on TV. What I\u2019m fighting for is something that I\u2019ve lived \u2026 I\u2019m doing it because the union saved my life. The unions gave me food on the table and a roof over my head, and I’m going to spend every single day in Congress making sure that I pay that back.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Reynoso is not the only candidate claiming union cred, which also underscores the increasing complexity for the WFP on the left.<\/p>\n
Valdez\u2019s leadership within UAW Local 2110 is one of her calling cards. She also brings with her the electoral turnout machine that helped make Mamdani the mayor, and she\u2019s leaning into that organizing might across the district.<\/p>\n
“Over 1,600 workers \u2014 union and non-union \u2014 have signed up to volunteer for this campaign because they know we can only beat the corporate establishment if we organize together,\u201d Valdez said in a statement. \u201cI’m looking forward to earning the votes of the deliveristas, teachers and restaurant workers who make this district run.”<\/p>\n
Gripper said the WFP is knocking on doors to tell voters who the WFP-endorsed candidates are and added that the party\u2019s brand still carries weight in these districts. When asked whether the WFP would be willing to use its ballot line in races it doesn\u2019t win, Gripper did not rule out the possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe can cross that bridge when we get there. It’s really hard to say at this point,\u201d Gripper said. \u201cRight now, our goal is to win the Democratic primary.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This week, we\u2019re wondering: Have you ever voted on a third-party line for a non-major party candidate? If so, for whom?<\/p>\n
We’ll share responses in next week’s newsletter. (Sign up<\/a>!)<\/p>\nThis week in New York politics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-239593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239593","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=239593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}