New Generation of NYC Insurgents Seeks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fervor

(Bloomberg) -- Incumbent New York City Democrats face an unprecedented number of challengers in this year’s primary election, reflecting the party’s ideological divisions and the impact of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset election to Congress.

The outcome of about a dozen races in the June 23 primary will test the power of the party’s county organizations as young and immigrant voters increase their clout.

One of the establishment’s chief rivals, the Democratic Socialists of America, has a stake in some contests after helping Ocasio-Cortez beat former U.S. Representative and Queens Democratic Chairman Joseph Crowley. The DSA has backed six insurgents, and other progressive groups want to build on past success that has ousted conservative Democrats.

“Ocasio-Cortez showed you can mount an insurgent campaign and win even if you don’t come from wealthy donors with the backing of the Democratic establishment,” said Monica Klein, a spokeswoman for the Working Families Party, which helped seven successful state senate challengers in 2018. “Those victories and people’s feelings about Donald Trump’s presidency have energized young and working-class voters and people of color to get involved.”

City Battles

The primary for state and local candidates is separate from New York’s presidential primary on April 28. In a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, winning the primary virtually assures victory in November’s general election.

Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment. Matthew Thomas, a spokesman for the DSA, said the lawmaker has not endorsed any of the candidates.

In the 38th Assembly District in southeast Queens, Jenifer Rajkumar, 37, a non-socialist Stanford-educated lawyer and immigrant-rights advocate, has taken on Michael Miller, 58, a Democrat also backed by the Conservative Party. His 10-year record includes opposition to same-sex marriage and a vote against equal pay for women that was included in a package that guaranteed access to reproductive health care and abortion.

“It shows he doesn’t represent the values of our district’s voters or today’s Democratic Party,” Rajkumar said. “It shows he represents yesterday and not today.”

Miller, who said his votes reflect his constituents’ beliefs, is taking Rajkumar’s challenge seriously. He has paid $34,000 to Meridian Strategies, a Brooklyn consulting firm created by two college students, for an “Incumbent Protection Program” that includes house-to-house canvassing and voter-opinion surveys. Miller has $37,000 on hand, mostly from lobbyists, unions and Democratic organizations.

Rajkumar has outraised him so far, reporting $230,000 this month from about 200 donors, including $50,000 of her own money. She has $223,000 on hand.

In an interview, Miller said his 40 years living in the district should count for something. After office hours, his calls bounce to his mobile phone so that constituents can stay in touch, he said. He disagreed with Rajkumar’s approach in appealing to the district’s different ethnic groups. “We’re all people, Queens is a melting pot,” he said. “Latinos, Asians, Irish, Italians, all should be treated the same.”

Miller took credit for helping save Neir’s Tavern, reputed to be New York’s oldest bar, attending a Queens Chamber of Commerce meeting that produced a last-minute city grant to keep the bar open. But he skipped that night’s celebration while Rajkumar joined scores of politicians and customers at the bar. She said if she represented the district, she would have come to the bar’s rescue before it faced imminent eviction.

Rajkumar began her campaign in Queens after serving as Governor Andrew Cuomo’s statewide immigration director. She organized and ran a $31 million project to ensure legal representation for non-citizen New Yorkers. The district she wants to represent is near the neighborhood in which her parents settled upon arriving from India about 45 years ago. It’s not just the district’s Latino and south Asian majority who need a champion, she said.

“This area has been hidden away, undercounted by the census and overlooked by the state, and everyone in it would benefit from getting state funds and resources and the attention we deserve,” she said. “I see this race as very winnable. The demographics are in my favor. The party machine can’t stop us.”

Party Support

U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks, the Queens Democratic chairman, said he would back Miller even though his voting record doesn’t always match the party’s mainstream. “He was duly elected and he’s earned our support,” Meeks said. The party organization backs Ocasio-Cortez as an incumbent, he added, and if Rajkumar wins the primary she’ll get party support, too.

Not all the insurgents competing in the primary are progressives. State Senator Michael Gianaris, who fought Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed move to Long Island City last year, faces long-shot opposition from two sparsely funded candidates who are more conservative. And self-described Marxist state Senator Julia Salazar, who beat longtime incumbent Martin Dilan two years ago, is opposed by a former aide to Vito Lopez, a now-dead Brooklyn assemblyman censured and ousted from office in a sex harassment scandal.

Dilan’s 45-year-old son, Erik, who has held a central Brooklyn assembly seat since 2016, has competition from Salazar’s former chief of staff, Boris Santos, 29. Santos, backed by the Democratic Socialists, says Dilan has taken too much money from the real-estate industry.

Housing issues are also driving the campaign on Ocasio-Cortez’s Astoria, Queens, home turf. Zohran Mamdani, 28, an Indian-Ugandan New Yorker with experience as a housing counselor and Democratic Socialist organizer, is challenging five-term Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, 41, arguing she’s not aggressive enough in fighting gentrification. But Simotas has her own progressive credentials: She opposed the Amazon deal and sponsored a law protecting tenants that passed last year.

Such challenges have unnerved party veterans and excited a new generation, said Democratic political consultant George Arzt.

“Many incumbents are scared of new, young voters and immigrants who are registering in big numbers and voting in droves,” Arzt said. “They believe the country is going in the wrong direction and they can do something about it.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, Stacie Sherman

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.