From India Walton winning her historic, insurgent bid for Mayor of Buffalo to six—and counting—progressive women of color elected to New York City Council, once thing is certain: the Working Families Party is stronger than ever in every corner of New York.
This time last year, we ushered in dozens of WFP champions like Congress Members Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones and Assemblymembers Jessica Gonzales-Rojas, Anna Kelles, and Demond Meeks—members of our movement who, since taking office, have fought every day for an equitable recovery from Albany and Washington, D.C.
Over the past 12 months, we built on that foundation, elevating hundreds of progressive leaders to continue the work for our communities. When New Yorkers took to the polls this month, they were faced with a stark choice: continue to invest in the systems that failed us, or transform our society into one where all people can live with dignity. The latter is the vision that WFP candidates all across the state ran on. And as results trickle in, we already know that many of our champions have prevailed. Some exciting highlights so far:
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India Walton—an unapologetically progressive nurse, community activist, and mother— is going to be the first Black woman to serve as Mayor of Buffalo. She was elected with the support of the Working Families Party, and she is going to transform Buffalo into a city that works for all its residents.
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Malik Evans defeated incumbent Mayor of Rochester Lovely Warren, who grossly mishandled the police murder of Daniel Prude and failed to hold the Rochester police acccountable.
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Antonio Reynoso is poised to win the crowded and highly competitive race for Brooklyn Borough President by running on his record as a proud and vocal progressive in the City Council.
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Of our 30 candidates for NYC Council, six women of color have won thus far, with dozens more races still too close to call.
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Tiffany Cabán in District 22, who in 2019 came within 55 votes of being elected as Queens District Attorney and turned into a national leader on criminal justice reform as WFP’s National Organizer.
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Sandy Nurse in District 37, an Afro-Latina carpenter who has been organizing in the grassroots of her community for a decade, and beat a machine-backed incumbent to win working-class, people-powered representation for CD-27.
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Althea Stevens in District 16, a mother, lifelong organizer, and leader for education justice in the West Bronx who ran to bring transformative public safety and investment to her long-neglected community.
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Jennifer Guttierez in District 34, who was raised by working-class immigrants and knows firsthand what transformative change our city needs.
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Marjorie Velazquez in District 13, a lifelong Bronxite who will use her training as an accountant to fight for equitable and just budgeting on the Council.
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Carlina Rivera in District 2, who won a resounding re-election after spending her first term standing on the side of working people.
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Progressive City Council candidates backed by Working Families won across Upstate and Western New York.
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Community organizers Stanley Martin and Kim Smith won city-wide Council races in Rochester on platforms of divesting from policing and investing in community.
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Public defender Gabriella Romero won a seat on Albany Common Council on an unapologetically progressive platform.
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Giselle Martinez, a first-generation Mexican-American and community activist, won for Newburgh City Council advocating for women and immigrant rights.
On top of the incredible individual victories already declared, many more WFP candidates are all but sure to bring it home, pending the final count via ranked choice voting, including candidate for NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, Shahana Hanif in District 39, Alexa Avilés in District 38, Felicia Singh in District 32, Lincoln Restler in District 33, and Chi Ossé in District 36.
We succeeded in driving the narrative across the board towards transformative policies like divestment from policing and investment in the public good, while building the progressive infrastructure we need to win even larger victories for working people in the years to come.
This cycle, the New York Working Families Party endorsed one of the most diverse and progressive slates in our history. We were also proud to elevate working class candidates and essential workers whose experiences informed their decision to run. That includes public school teachers like Felicia Singh in Queens, nurses like India Walton in Buffalo and Mercedes Narcisse in Brooklyn, and carpenters like Sandy Nurse in Brooklyn.
We arrived at our slate of candidates through deeply participatory and inclusive endorsement processes. Hundreds of WFP members and affiliate partners from across the state interviewed over 1,000 candidates who applied for our endorsement. For the first time this year, we conducted our NYC mayoral interviews in five languages simultaneously: Spanish, English, Mandarin, Korean, and Bangla.
All told, we actively supported 700+ candidates across New York State. Here are some of the many ways we threw down for our candidates:
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Our endorsed teams deployed thousands of volunteer shifts by WFP members and affiliates, to make hundreds of thousands of direct voter contacts—at the doors, on the phones,and by text—for our top candidates.
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We provided training, coaching and strategic support for candidates every step of the way: developing fundraising plans, designing field operations, refining voter targeting and developing relational organizing programs that helped candidates’ volunteers organize their networks into becoming supporters. We held dozens of candidate training events.
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We got in early, helping to establish our candidates are clear and credible frontrunners, in order to secure broad progressive support among labor, community and elected allies
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We campaigned with a clear party-building focus: recruiting many new members and leaders in places like Buffalo, Rochester, and Queens to build our base and our strength for the long-term.
We accomplished all this while fending off GOP attacks against our candidates and ballot line. After our unprecedented turnout in the 2020 elections, when over 386,000 voters cast their Presidential ballots on the WFP line, this year our party won a challenge in the State’s highest court against a cynical Republican lawsuit.
Leaders like Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams were part of the Working Families insurgent Council wave in 2009. Now they’re city-wide leaders. Working Families is building a powerful progressive bench across the state and developing the next generation of community and political leaders.
