At Daily Kos, our motto has always been “more and better Democrats.” Today, we’re pleased to announce our endorsement of two candidates who exemplify what we mean by better Democrats: Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman.
The two candidates share some important similarities: Both are stalwart progressives with a history of fighting for the disadvantaged. Both are African American men running for solidly blue districts in New York that haven’t previously elected people of color to Congress. And both would be the type of representatives who would make every member of the Daily Kos community proud.
Please donate $3 apiece to send these two excellent Democrats to Congress!
Jones is running for 17th Congressional District, an open seat in the suburbs north of New York City. He was raised by a single mother reliant on Section 8 housing vouchers and food stamps, and he credits strong public education for helping to pave his way to Stanford and then Harvard Law School. As an attorney, Jones has devoted countless pro bono hours to representing victims of discrimination and fraud. He founded a nonprofit that teaches leadership skills to underserved middle school students.
Jones is the only candidate in the race who supports Medicare for All and who has refused corporate PAC donations. He has fought for racial justice his whole life. He would also be the first gay African American man to serve in Congress.
Above all else, Jones is running in a field that includes one of the very worst Democrats in New York: state Sen. David Carlucci. Carlucci was a founding member of the so-called “Independent Democratic Conference” (IDC), a group of renegade Democrats who for most of the last decade allowed Republicans to run the state Senate even when the GOP held a minority of seats. As a result, years of progressive priorities—such as a state-level DREAM Act, protections for access to abortion, and the establishment of early voting—never even got a vote.
Mounting progressive fury finally obliterated the IDC in 2018—with a major assist from the Daily Kos community—as six of its eight members lost primaries to progressive challengers and mainstream Democrats finally retook the Senate. Carlucci survived, however, and now he has the chutzpah to seek a promotion. He spent years supporting Republicans for his own personal gain. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do the same in Washington, D.C.? There’s no way we can trust him, and Jones is our best bet to stop him.
Bowman, meanwhile, is running immediately to the south in the 16th District, which straddles the Bronx and Westchester County. He, too, was raised by a single mother and lived in public housing until his family was able to leave thanks to rent stabilization policies. He became a teacher in the Bronx and went on to found a new public school there, devoting his entire adult life to helping kids from circumstances much like his own.
Like Jones, Bowman backs Medicare for All and has rejected corporate PAC money. He has also spoken and written poignantly about his repeated mistreatment at the hands of police, including his arrest—in front of his young son—for “stealing” his own car. That experience has fueled his expansive vision for reforming our justice system and holding the police accountable.
Bowman’s opponent in the primary is Rep. Eliot Engel, who has served well in the past but whose time to depart the political scene has come. Engel has held office for more than 30 years and lately has grown distant from his constituents: He was holed up in his Washington, D.C.-area home for the duration of the start of the coronavirus pandemic, not even returning to New York when the state's first major outbreak was identified in the city of New Rochelle—right in the heart of his district.
When Engel did finally come back just last week, he was caught on camera twice pleading for a speaking slot at a press conference by telling the organizer: "If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't care." It was an inadvertently revealing moment that underscored Bowman’s central argument: The citizens of the 16th District need an aggressive, visible representative who, at this critical moment, will not shy away from fighting for them.
Both Jones and Bowman are exactly the sort of Democrats we need more of in the House, but both need our help to get there. The pandemic has made communicating with voters more difficult and expensive than ever before, and the primary is just two weeks away: June 23. The time to help is now.
Please give $3 to elect these two outstanding progressive leaders to Congress!