Queens candidates and organizers urge voters to save the Working Families Party ballot line
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Progressive activists and candidates from Queens, plus Assemblymember Harvey Epstein of Manhattan, made more than 7,000 phone calls urging voters to vote for Joe Biden on the Working Families Party line. Image via Screenshot
By David Brand
For Working Families Party members and supporters in Queens, next month’s election isn’t just about control of the White House or the state senate, it’s about the future of their organization in the New York political landscape.
New state rules force third parties to record at least 130,000 votes or 2 percent of the vote total, whichever is higher, every two years to maintain their ballot line. In the past, third parties needed 50,000 votes to keep their automatic spot.
High voter turnout only increases the number of votes that a third-party needs to score 2 percent. The WFP, instrumental in the campaigns of recent Queens progressive candidates like Tiffany Cabán and Khaleel Anderson, estimates it will need at least 160,000 votes based on an 8 million-vote statewide forecast.
That imperative has galvanized elected officials, candidates and organizers in Queens to conduct near-daily phone banks, calling registered Democrats and urging them to fill in the bubble under the WFP.
“Working Families Party right now is fighting for its survival. They’ve been standing alongside bold and progessive candidates for so long and we have to make sure we’re standing by them,” said Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, the Democratic candidate for Assembly District 34, during a virtual rally and phone bank Sunday night.
Gonzalez-Rojas was one of 34 volunteers who made more than 7,000 calls Sunday urging registered Democrats to vote for Biden and running mate Kamala Harris on the WFP line. Gonzalez-Rojas hosted another phone bank event Tuesday, repaying an organization that provided key backing in her crowded primary race against incumbent Assemblymember Michael DenDekker.
Every two years, the WFP gives the Democratic candidate for president and New York governor its ballot line in a practice known as fusion voting. But the relationship between the third party and the Democratic establishment has been far from harmonious over that period.
In 2018, the WFP backed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Democratic primary challenger Cynthia Nixon before giving Cuomo its ballot line in the general election. The party has continued to antagonize Cuomo by pushing for progressive policies like higher taxes on the super-wealthy. The new Cuomo-backed 130,000 vote requirement is widely seen as an effort to neutralize the WFP.
The party has wielded its influence among progressive voters to back various candidates in contentious Queens races over the past few election cycles, including Jessica Ramos’ bid to oust late Independent Democratic Conference member Jose Peralta in the 2018 primary for State Senate.
Organizer Khaleel Anderson topped a field of six candidates in Southeast Queens’ Assembly District 31 after receiving the WFP endorsement in March. He is participating in phone banks every weekend until Election Day.
“We need to support a political party that has been there for us, for working class people,” Anderson said Sunday. “They need us right now.”
In other races, the party has remained pragmatic. Two years ago, for example, the WFP backed Rep. Joe Crowley over challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District. They later threw their support behind Ocasio-Cortez in the general election, but could not drop Crowley from their ballot line based on state election rules.
Getting the necessary 50,000 votes hasn’t been an issue for the party in the four previous election cycles, but only once have they reached the new requirement. In 2012, the WFP recorded 148,119 votes, or 2.08 percent.
In the three ensuing elections, they either notched too few votes or a too-low percentage of the total vote based on the current rules.
The WFP line recorded 114,478 votes, or 1.88 percent of the vote, in 2018. They recorded 140,043 votes, or 1.79 percent, in 2016, and 126,244 votes, or 3.22 percent, in 2014.
Perhaps no candidate has benefited more from WFP support than Tiffany Cabán.
Cabán, a once little-known public defender, lost a Democratic primary for Queens district attorney by just 60 votes in 2019 after the WFP provided support for her wayward campaign. The race contributed to a growing national movement for progressive prosecutors and turned Cabán into a star on the left.
“Their support helped turn a race that the establishment completely wrote off into a national conversation on the importance of transforming the roles of district attorneys,” Cabán said at the Sunday night phone bank.
She later took a job with the WFP before announcing her city council candidacy last month.
“By going all in for working candidates and maintaining and creating an infrastructure on the left, the WFP makes it possible for us to run,” she said.
