Dear John ,

I’m writing this morning to give you an important update about our campaign: effective today, I’ll be officially suspending my campaign for Congress in New York’s 16th District.

This was an extremely difficult decision to make. Unfortunately, there is no longer a path for me to represent my community in Congress.

I am eternally grateful and forever empowered that you believed in me and supported our vision. We built lasting power in southern Westchester, the North Bronx, and throughout the country. I am so proud of what we have been able to accomplish together:

We built a national network of tens of thousands of supporters across the 16th District and country.
Thanks to supporters like yourself, we were able to engage and activate countless New Yorkers over the last year, folks who have historically been ignored by the political process.
Thanks to our team of dedicated volunteers, we made over 70,000 phone calls to voters, knocked tens of thousands of doors, and gained the most petition signatures of any challenger by roughly 1000.
We raised a consciousness that tied militarism abroad to economic exploitation at home.
We served our community by engaging in mutual aid efforts through our solidarity network.

We were driven by a simple message: our country, and world, can look radically different. We don’t have to be spending more than $700 billion on our military, bombing Black and Brown people into oblivion. We don’t have to live in a country where tens of millions of people lack health care. We don’t have to sit idly by as climate change wreaks havoc on our planet. We can live in a society rooted in equity and justice in which progressive safety nets guarantee all, including our most vulnerable, have a dignified life.

We must have electeds who will fight for this society. For now, our business is ensuring that Jamaal Bowman unseats Rep. Engel on June 23. I am happy to endorse Jamaal, my fellow Bronx educator. Rep. Engel’s priorities weren’t aligned with those of the district even before the coronavirus, and our district’s needs are ever more urgent now.

Our work will not stop on Election Day. We will continue to advocate and agitate for the world we want to build. And with your support, we will continue harnessing our movement’s energy, vigor, and activism for the fights that lie ahead.

Thank you for your love, support, generosity, critiques, and questions.

In solidarity always,

Andom