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**** October 23, 2024
Turning Around the Hudson Valley
BY TOBY JAFFE
Democrats performed badly north of New York City in critical House races. Can they do better this year?
BEDFORD, NEW YORK-At the heart of the New York Democratic Party's disastrous showing in the 2022 midterms was the picturesque and class-diverse Hudson Valley, where Republicans were able to narrowly pick up two U.S. House seats (NY-17 and NY-19), and nearly win a third (NY-18). All three seats are up for grabs again in 2024, and could prove a national congressional bellwether. The question is whether Democrats have learned from what went wrong in the region in 2022, and whether they have applied workable lessons to avoid humiliation once more.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney's 2022 loss to Mike Lawler in NY-17 was one of the most infamous for Democrats, not just in New York state but nationwide. The race was a mess from the start, as Maloney faced allegations that he had left the district he represented for the supposedly more advantageous NY-17, and kicked out sitting Rep. Mondaire Jones in the process. Recent revelations have complicated this perception, as reporting by
**City & State New York**earlier this year revealed [link removed] that Maloney in fact offered to hand off NY-17 to Jones in May 2022.
Maloney's general-election campaign was marred by what Alexander Sammon, writing for Slate, described [link removed] as a nonexistent ground game and distant, even hostile relationships with important grassroots organizations in the district. Sammon reported, for instance, that it wasn't until 12 days before Election Day that the Maloney campaign had any contact with the powerful Working Families Party, "and that was only in response to an email."
Republican Mike Lawler essentially ran the quintessential "moderate" Republican campaign in the Trump era, focusing on inflation, crime, energy, immigration, and education, while distancing himself from January 6th and MAGA election denialism. He also shied away from abortion, making no mention of it on his campaign website (this time, though, he has an entire page [link removed] dedicated to the issue). That was enough to win.
After moving to a New York City-area district and losing, Mondaire Jones is this time the Democratic nominee against Lawler. Jones was elected in 2020 after winning a crowded Democratic Party primary in NY-17's previous, bluer iteration. He ran as a left-wing progressive and earned the endorsements of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Juli??n Castro, and others.
But Jones has in the ensuing years emerged as a controversial figure. Over the summer, he endorsed AIPAC-backed George Latimer against progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the NY-16 Democratic primary. (Latimer successfully ousted Bowman, thanks in part to lots of outside money.) As a result,
**City & State**'s Austin Jefferson noted [link removed], "the Congressional Progressive Caucus rescinded its endorsement and the New York Working Families Party ... announced that it would no longer assist Jones' campaign." So for the second consecutive national electoral cycle, the Democratic Party nominee in NY-17 has strained relations with critical grassroots organizers.
Read the full story at the Prospect. [link removed]
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On the Prospect website
Crypto-Backed California Republican Attacks Opponent for Owning Crypto [link removed]
It's part of a Vietnamese-language red-baiting campaign by Rep. Michelle Steel, who faces a stiff challenge in California's 45th Congressional District against veteran and pharmacy owner Derek Tran. BY DAVID DAYEN
Science Is Political [link removed]
Norms are made to be broken in a time of emergency; so too for the idea that science must float above politics. BY RICK PERLSTEIN
The Changing Spirit of Montana [link removed]
Dirt farmer Jon Tester is the last statewide Democrat. Practically all the Republican officeholders are out-of-state millionaires. What gives? BY DAVID DAYEN
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