Mondaire Jones And The Newly Progressive Westchester Suburbs

The first openly gay Black man in the House could come from the burbs [View this email in your browser]( [Politics Brief from WNYC + Gothamist] [Keep friends and family informed. Forward the Politics Brief.]( Is Ballot Design Keeping Most New Jersey Incumbents In Power? By [James Ramsay]( [A Hoboken voter stares at a confusing ballot] Julio Cortez/AP Between 2009 and 2018, no New Jersey legislative incumbent lost a primary [if they had their party's endorsement](. By contrast, 22 legislative incumbents in New York lost primaries during that same period. A big reason why incumbents rarely lose, according to a coalition of election lawyers and policy experts, is because New Jersey has the most convoluted ballot design in the country. For example, the party-endorsed candidates for each contest in a given county might be listed in one vertical column on the left side of the ballot, with the names of challengers placed in so-called Ballot Siberia to the right. Rutgers professor Julia Sass Rubin argues that laying out the names this way confuses voters who might otherwise vote for a challenger. "New Jersey’s primary ballots give the party-endorsed candidates an almost insurmountable advantage and enable party insiders rather than the voters to pick the winners in primary contests," Rubin wrote in [a report]( released Monday. This year, for instance, a typical Democratic Party-endorsed line would start with Joe Biden and Sen. Cory Booker at the top, followed by the endorsed candidate for the House of Representatives, then county freeholders, and so on. "You're going to go with the top of the column, right? So you trust this person there," Rubin [told WNYC's Nancy Solomon](. "You're voting for Biden and you're just going to go naturally down that column." In New Jersey's July 7th primary, ballot design could also be consequential in the highly competitive Democratic contest in the 2nd Congressional District, where no incumbent is running. (Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who won the seat as a Democrat in 2018, switched to the Republican Party last December.) Brigid Callahan Harrison, a Montclair State professor, was endorsed by members of the party machine led by George Norcross, who's widely considered [one of the most powerful figures in the state](. But Callahan Harrison's main opponent isn't an anonymous challenger — she's facing Amy Kennedy, a member of the Kennedy political dynasty. In most of the district's eight counties, Callahan Harrison's name is aligned with Biden and Booker on the ballot, while Kennedy's name is somewhere off to the side. [Amy Kennedy's name shunted to the right in a Waterford Township ballot] a Camden County ballot Then there's Salem County, which is one of the rare New Jersey counties that doesn't give preferential placement to an endorsed candidate. Rubin said she'll be closely analyzing the primary results to see how the candidates fared in each county. Some advocates who want fairer ballots in New Jersey have suggested that people invested in reform should run for county clerk positions, since clerks actually design the ballots. But to get that job in the first place, a candidate often needs an endorsement from the very party machine that doesn't want the ballots to change. Rubin says the best case for reform is to take this issue to the courts and argue that New Jersey's ballot designs are unconstitutional. Mondaire Jones And The Newly Progressive Westchester Suburbs As long as something dramatic doesn't happen with the final count of absentee primary ballots, 33-year-old Mondaire Jones is set to be the Democratic nominee — and likely the next representative — for New York's 17th Congressional District, which includes parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties. As of June 27th, [Jones had 15,541 votes]( the second-place candidate, Adam Schleifer, had 6,849 votes. Jones, who has never held elected office before, would be among the first openly gay Black members of Congress. (City Councilmember Ritchie Torres, who's leading in the Democratic primary in New York's 15th Congressional District, is Black and gay, as well.) A victory for Jones would also point to a further shift in the politics of New York City's northern suburbs. "[Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney] was just like, 'In the 1980s, who could have predicted that you’d have two gay and two Black members of Congress from Westchester?" Jones told [City & State](. "I’m both. You’ve got [Jamaal Bowman]( (who is Black). Then you have (Maloney) as the other gay member of Congress. And then if you really want to do the Hudson Valley, you can throw Antonio Delgado (who is Black) in there." Now, not only is a Black man who grew up in Section 8 housing on track to represent a majority-white district with a median household income of [over $100,000]( it also appears that a Medicare For All- and Green New Deal-supporting progressive will be replacing 16-term centrist Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey. Jones told The Intercept's ["Deconstructed"]( podcast that he's going to be "the best darn representative [his] district has ever seen." "I think we need more people in Congress for whom policy is personal," Jones said. "I think we get better policy outcomes that way. It’s the reason why, in a crowded Democratic primary, I was still the only person talking about criminal justice reform, and policing reform, well before the events of the last few weeks with the murder of George Floyd. "And it shouldn’t be like that," he continued. "More people who have the lived experiences that would inform our policy discussions should be at the table of power, fighting tooth and nail for the things that we say we care about as the Democratic Party." Where New York City's 2021 Mayoral Race Stands, One Year Out From The Primary Right now, there are six Democratic candidates who've either declared their candidacy or are actively exploring a run, including City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has also [emerged as a possible candidate]( with supporters pointing to his active role in past and current protests for racial justice. But despite growing calls for defunding the police, Fordham professor Christina Greer said it's not a given that the most progressive candidate will win the Democratic primary. "Let's just say there's an uptick in crime in the next few months," Greer told [Gotham Gazette](. "Will we see someone who is a little more centrist in their thinking? Will we see someone who wants to be a little more of the Bloomberg model, which is fully economic, trying to get the city back on track financially, or will we see someone who is more of a social justice candidate who's trying to bring all these things together in a more holistic way?" It's highly unlikely that any Democratic mayoral candidate will position themselves as the successor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, even if they share his views or appreciate some of his accomplishments. "I think every mayor is in some ways a reaction to the last mayor," Bloomberg administration alum Chris Coffey told Gotham Gazette. "Being a progressive who can govern and manage the city — and be a cheerleader and give people some hope and confidence in their mayor — is what I believe this election will be about." With registered Democratic voters outnumbering Republicans 7 to 1, it's unlikely that the city will end up with a Republican mayor in 2022. But the [New York Post]( reports that there are two potential GOP candidates who could appeal to centrists, or at least break with the Trump/Giuliani orthodoxy. Sara Tirschwell, the CFO of the mental health nonprofit Foundation House, is considering a run, as is Nicole Gelinas, a Manhattan Institute fellow who's a revered expert on transportation and infrastructure issues. The Wait For New York's Primary Returns May Signal What's Coming In November [This is the screen on one of seven machines that will be used to count mail-in and absentee ballots] Gene J. Puskar/AP Requests for absentee ballots ahead of last week's New York primary [increased ten-fold]( compared to four years ago. Kentucky, which also held a primary last Tuesday, saw a ratio of three mail-in ballots for every vote cast in person. And both states have taken at least a week to finalize [the results](. "Some states allow local elected officials to start opening and processing ballots as they come in," Washington Post reporter Amy Gardner told The Takeaway's Amy Walter. "But in Kentucky, you can't start the processing until 8 a.m. on Election Day. And there are lots of other states that have not altered their rules to accommodate this flood of mail-in ballots. "The other thing is, you need these high-capacity scanners to do it quickly," she continued. "You need more people to open the envelopes and verify the identity of the voter. That's not going to happen in a lot of states in November. And the last and most important thing is how early ballots have to get there. Some states [including New York] allow them to be postmarked by Election Day. So people are going to have to get used to the fact that it'll take time for these states to report their results." She discusses some of the innovations that could speed up ballot-counting, and why it'll still likely take several days to declare a presidential election winner — especially if Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are close. [LISTEN TO POLITICS WITH AMY WALTER]( [the logo for Brian Lehrer's politics podcast] Racist People Vs. Racist Systems A moment at last week's Senate Judiciary Hearing on policing reform underscored a persistent and common misunderstanding about the difference between personal and systemic racism. Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. [Donate]( Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: New York Public Radio 160 Varick Street New York, NY 10013 [unsubscribe]( [update preferences]( [privacy policy](