My Future Representative Acts Like An Asshole

I am proud to endorse @danielsgoldman as the Democratic nominee for NY10.

The time has come for the Democratic Party to coalesce around the nominee.

Unlike Republicans who insist on perpetuating the big lie, we as Democrats respect the results of elections.

— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) August 26, 2022

The NY-10 race turned out to be progressives v. Dan Goldman, who is not exactly some sort of DINO, but did turn out to have various issues. He previously was generally known as the guy who helped to prosecute the first Trump impeachment. Turns out he's darn rich and is "relatively moderate," as one article noted.

My primary complaint (pun not quite intentional but okay) is that we should have instant run-off voting here.  He received about 25% of the vote. Fine to note that his opponents were foolhardy not to figure out a way to rally around someone.  THREE candidates received a fairly respectable amount of the vote, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou (a charming sort I know in part on Twitter and as my current state senator's BFF) received about 23% of the vote.  Two others split around 35%.  

The article notes that the results are not final but Niou's deficit (however small in absolute terms) is likely too big to be overcome. A few years ago, there was an upset in a local DA race (the loser is now in the City Council) where there was an upset from counting votes after Election Day.  But, it rarely happens unless the margin is razor thin. 

But, especially given the passion of the race, Niou wants to make sure. That's fine.  My future congressman here (again, I was redistricted and will lose AOC by less than a block) wants to make an issue out of it.  I can understand (somewhat) Goldman rushing on Election Night to declare victory.  But, Torres here goes a step further.  He speaks of some "big lie."

What the fuck are you doing?  Three quarters of the people who voted did not vote for Goldman.  Alessandra Biaggi lost 2-1 and conceded, endorsing her opponent, probably in part since the district is less blue.  This isn't that case.  It is perfectly fine in this case to wait for the votes to be counted. It's a standard thing to do.  It is not fantastical or a "big lie."

There is some talk, hard to tell how much (I saw a bit on Twitter), that Niou should run on the Working Family Party line (Mondaire Jones technically won, running unopposed, the exact dynamics apparently confusing; but the party endorsed Niou before the primary).  I am wary about that sort of thing since third party splits have a tendency to be made by groups lacking some perspective and endanger splitting that results in what happened.  

I also would find it basically okay for a Democratic member of Congress to support the Democratic nominee for the position.  In the situation at hand, unless there was any realistic chance for a Republican upset (however slim, 2022 is so important and likely to be close, that being careful makes sense), I am sympathetic to the call for a WFP run.  Goldman is not the person the district's voters in the primary wanted.  The primary was so thinly participated in that it is somewhat misleading, but still 75% is pretty damning.  

I saw one account -- don't know how much to put stock in it -- that a leading Democrat in the House is no big fan of Niou.  This also might somehow be involved here.  See also Maloney -- Biaggi's opponent and a key point person on running candidates -- talking about how "moderates" won.  Niou, as a symbol of the left here (Jones is rather liberal too, but as an incumbent, is a bit different) might be seen as something of a divisive force. 

I'm not linking the article I cited since it's just not clear to me how much it should be considered.  The bottom line here is that there is some divisions in the Democratic Party between moderates and more passionate liberal leaning sorts, though as a whole, the liberals have followed the will of the majority as a whole.  This sort of thing is just blatant "screw you" material that is a horrible look.  The guy should apologize.

Elections these days (see Biden/2020) regularly are not clearly over on Election Day.  The special race in Alaska, for instance, is taking a while to finalize.  Many races basically are over but there still is a chance, however small, that the results might go another way. That is what is the case here.  The fact the apparent winner won such a tiny plurality and is a newbie to politics (not an incumbent) only adds to the need for caution.

Some decided to go another way.