There were a few elections last night (and they were a mess, Democracy is broken, the country is on fire, I hate it here, etc.) and right here in my backyard, we should see another “first” once all the votes are counted and the numbers are official.
Mondaire Jones was a lock almost from the jump.
New York’s 17th Congressional District is just north of NYC, covering parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties. The Democratic Primary is a race between six people vying for the seat being left vacant by 89-year-old Nita Lowey who is retiring after 30 years of holding that seat (through various incarnations of the district). Whoever wins the primary will be elected, and Jones picked up a slew of high profile endorsements early on: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Julian Castro among them. Being openly gay & Black representing a suburban area had some pollsters hesitant to make a prediction (NYC suburbs can be surprisingly “old-fashioned”) but his platform alongside his prominent supporters proved to be a winning combination.
Progressive Mondaire Jones picked up more than double the votes of any of the other six candidates running in the Democratic Party primary to replace longtime Rep. Nita Lowey.
There are still thousands of mail ballots that won’t be counted for a week, but Jones’ commanding early lead has him breathing a little easier as he waits for the mail ballots to be opened.
“It was never about self promotion,” Jones told The Journal News/lohud in a phone interview. “It is instead about an idea, an idea that government has never worked for everyone.”
(cont. Rockland/Westchester Journal News)
Ritchie Torres isn’t quite the sure thing Mondaire Jones is at this point, but his victory would be much sweeter, given the opposition.
Come November, Rubén Díaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister with a long history of homophobia and transphobia, could be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the most Democratic district in the nation — but gay candidate Ritchie Torres is out to see that doesn’t happen.
Díaz is well known in New York politics; he was a state senator for years, and he’s now a member of the New York City Council. In the Senate, he voted against marriage equality, and he has said the City Council “is controlled by the homosexual community.” He considers abortion murder, and he praises Donald Trump. Yet he’s running as a Democrat, as he has for years, although he’s the epitome of a Democrat in name only.
(cont. Advocate)
Rubén Díaz Junior is a pretty decent (and popular) politician. He’s been elected borough president of The Bronx three times and his positions are in line with most mainstream Democrats, including his stance on LGBT equality. His father is an evangelical Christian who hates gays and callously uses the Holocaust in his arguments against abortion. For some reason, the ballots don’t say Rubén Díaz Senior to make sure voters differentiate him from his son, who has higher approval ratings and more name recognition. Two men in politics from same the borough with the same name should definitely have their entire name printed on the ballot to make it easier for voters, but that’s not the case, and RD Senior was polling ahead of Ritchie Torres until last night.
Torres pulled ahead early, with 30% of the vote in a crowded field with 11 other candidates.
So that’s what we woke up to here in the NYC area. Two openly gay Black men are poised to win Congressional races that nobody predicted this time last year. It’s 2020 and we’re still having “firsts” in politics, but slow progress is better than none at all.
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