The Working Families Party in Queens (photo: @NYWFP)

The results of the August party primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and State Senate were bittersweet for the New York Working Families Party, the progressive third party that seeks to push Democrats to the left. The WFP is one of the most prominent actors in the intra-party battle Democrats continue to wage in New York and beyond.

Several WFP-backed Democratic incumbents who faced competitive challenges emerged victorious in their primary races. Other endorsed candidates won primaries for open seats, likely adding to the ranks

Yuh-Line Niou with WFP volunteers campaigning in BK (photo: @bkswjennie)

The New York Working Families Party is no stranger to big fights and it is facing one of its most intense campaign battles in this month’s Democratic primary in the new 10th Congressional District of New York. With six prominent candidates and more than a dozen Democrats on the ballot, the Working Families Party’s influence and organizing power is being put to the test as it hopes to propel its endorsee, Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, to victory.

The WFP experienced several defeats and few victories in the June

Yuh-Line Niou & others at a Lunar New Year celebration (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

No one said it better than Congresswoman Grace Meng when, after the 2021 elections, she tweeted of Democrats, “our party better start giving more of a shit about #aapi [Asian-American and Pacific Islander] voters and communities. No other community turned out at a faster pace than AAPIs in 2020.”

Meng, the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York, was reacting to significant swings by Asian-American voters

Yuh-Line Niou, center, with campaign volunteers (photo: @teamniouyork)

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who has represented the 65nd Assembly District in Lower Manhattan since 2017, is running for Congress in the new 10th Congressional District of New York.

Niou, a favorite of many in the progressive left, is part of a crowded race of roughly a dozen Democratic candidates hoping to win the new congressional seat, which spans a set of diverse neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who represents the current

Voters on the move (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)

There are less than three weeks until primary day, August 23, and the deadline for voters to request an absentee ballot is Monday, August 8. In New York’s 10th and 12th congressional districts, where there are heated Democratic primary contests underway, absentee ballots may play a particularly significant role under the peculiar circumstances of the election.

“Absentee ballot organizing is likely to be the single most important factor in determining the winner of these races,” Neal Kwatra, founder of Metropolitan Public

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Max Politics Podcast: Yuh-Line Niou Runs for Congress in the New NY-10

Recorded July 19, 2022

Listen to the audio here, or at Max Politics wherever you get podcasts.

Democratic primary day: August 23, 2022

District: Lower Manhattan & parts of Brooklyn (...

Candidates Niou, Rivera, Simon at Tuesday's forum (photo: The Cooper Union/Marget Long)

Several Democratic candidates running to represent New York’s new 10th congressional district answered questions related to climate and sustainability challenges facing the district and New York City during a forum held at The Great Hall in Cooper Union Tuesday evening. Such issues are especially relevant in the district given that much of it is along the waterfront, whether its Manhattan or Brooklyn side.

The panel, hosted by the New York League of

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

July 19, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Yuh-Line Niou on Running for Congress in the New NY-10

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, a Manhattan Democrat, joined the show to discuss her campaign in the new 10th Congressional District of New York, which includes a large section of Lower Manhattan and a wide swathe of Brooklyn.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode

(l-r) Illapa Sairitupac, Grace Lee, and Denny Salas

UPDATE: Grace Lee won the Democratic primary for Assembly District 65. Read the full story for background on the race, her priorities, and more:

There’s a wide open and highly-competitive Democratic primary heading for the finish line in Lower Manhattan’s 65th State Assembly District.

It is among many Assembly primary elections where voting is set to conclude Tuesday, along with the statewide party primaries for Governor

Bill de Blasio, Yuh-Line Niou, Carlina Rivera, Jo Anne Simon, Mondaire Jones, Daniel S Goldman, Elizabeth Holtzman, Maud Maron

More than a dozen New York City Democrats are vying to represent the newly redrawn 10th congressional district, which will span much of Lower Manhattan and a large swathe of Brooklyn. The candidate who wins the August primary is expected to win the general election in November given the district is heavily Democratic.

The reconfigured New York congressional map, approved by a New York Supreme Court judge last month, has shifted district boundaries and political aspirations. Given

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, the author (photo: NYC Department of Transportation)

Every day, our court system loads New Yorkers down with additional fees that further criminalize poverty while doing nothing to make us safer. In fact, these court fees are among the government’s most effective means of extracting money from New Yorkers most at risk of poverty and least able to bear the financial burden.

How much money are we talking about? Every single day, New York’s courts levy around $14,000 in regressive administrative surcharges, fees and fines, on top of

Incoming Governor Kathy Hochul (photo: governor's office)

Kathy Hochul will become New York’s 57th governor on Tuesday, and the first woman ever to hold the position, as disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation goes into effect and he hands over the reins of state government. Hochul, who has been Cuomo’s lieutenant governor since 2015, will take over the complicated machinery and immense power of state government. She will face no shortage of challenges as she assumes authority over an executive chamber mired in scandal and a state

State Senator Julia Salazar with activists (photo: NY Senate)

For four years, moderate and progressive Democrats, a number of independents, and even some Republicans have shared a common objective: ensure Donald Trump is a one-term president.

Now, with that objective accomplished and a moderate Democrat in Joe Biden set to enter the White House in January, leftists are ready to go all out, at the federal and local levels, to pull the party further leftward and accomplish goals like taxing the wealthy and defunding the police so that they can pass

The State Assembly (photo: @NYSA_Majority)

For some time, a lack of Democratic control in the New York State Senate prevented progressive legislation from becoming law. But even after the chamber flipped from red to blue through the 2018 elections and a long list of Democratic priorities were acted on, some bills that once passed the State Assembly when Republicans held the Senate are now having trouble reaching that chamber’s floor, leading to frustration that multiple insurgent campaigns capitalized on in this year’s primary

Yuh-Line Niou, left, and Grace Lee during their debate

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and her Democratic primary challenger, Grace Lee, met for a debate on Monday, June 15, hosted by Manhattan Neighborhood Network and moderated by Gotham Gazette's Ben Max. The primary for this Lower Manhattan State Assembly seat is happening this month, with early voting ongoing through June 21; primary day on June 23; and all eligible voters allowed to vote by absentee ballot. Watch the debate:

...

Challenger Grace Lee, left, and Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou

An intense Democratic primary is unfolding in Lower Manhattan, where incumbent Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, a staunch progressive, is facing a challenge from business owner and activist Grace Lee, who is partially self-funding her campaign.

While the two candidates don’t appear to disagree on much politically, the race looks like a test of whether a well-financed challenger seizing on hyper-local issues can motivate enough voters to overcome a broadly popular incumbent. Meanwhile, the

NYCHA in Manhattan (photo: NYCHA)

The coronavirus pandemic has shone a stark and unflattering light on the inadequacy of the social safety net in our city and across this country. And nowhere is this failure more glaring than at the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA.

Due to COVID-19, we all must “shelter in place” in the safety of our homes, but for over half a million NYCHA residents, home is no safe harbor. Years of state and federal underfunding have left buildings with no hot water, toxic mold, lead paint, unhygienic conditions, and countless outstanding

A nearly-empty State Senate Chamber as business is conducted amid coronavirus outbreak (photo: NY Senate)

If New Yorkers take Governor Andrew Cuomo’s word for it, the new $177 billion budget approved last week will “deliver results” for the people of the state and was a far cry from a “bare minimum” spending plan at a time when the state’s finances are racked by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. But within his own Democratic Party, which controls both houses of the Legislature where the plan was passed, the budget is a highly unpopular document that to

Empire State Indivisible activists

The 2018 elections saw a sweeping victory for Democrats, as they recaptured the House of Representatives, in part thanks to victories in New York, where the party also took full control of the state Legislature for the first time in nearly a decade. The state election saw several moderate Democrats, who had comfortably worked with Republicans for years, swept out of power and replaced with a new cohort of progressives buttressed with grassroot activist support, while several suburban swing districts went from red to

(photo: @FairElectionsNY)

A state commission charged with creating a system of public financing for state elections has prompted harsh rebukes from several state legislators for proposing what they say is watered down campaign finance reform and for ostensibly advancing a political agenda that targets longtime critics of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The New York State Public Campaign Financing Commission was appointed by Cuomo and state legislative leaders after a failure of consensus on overhauling the state’s campaign finance system. It was tasked in

the authors: Assemblymember Niou, center, & Senator Ramos, left (photo: @NYCComptroller)

We’ve got a big money problem here in New York, and we hear loud and clear the New Yorkers who are calling for a small donor solution in the form of public financing of elections.

Public financing became a top issue in state budget negotiations earlier this year because of public demand. The plan for a commission to now determine the parameters of public financing of elections was placed in a large budget bill in the final hours of budget negotiations, making it

Gov. Cuomo, Sheldon Silver & Dean Skelos in 2012 (photo via The Governor's Office)

As allegations of sexual harassment and assault against disgraced movie producer and major Democratic political donor Harvey Weinstein piled up earlier this month, women around the world took to social media to share stories of abusive behavior using the hashtag #MeToo.

The light being shone on the predatory behavior of Weinstein and

Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (photo via @yuhline)

Yuh-Line Niou, Assemblymember for the 65th District in Lower Manhattan, has a tough task. The new Assembly member takes the seat held by disgraced former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for 40 years. Niou won the September 2016 Democratic primary -- backed by the Working Families Party -- and November general election after losing a prior special election to Alice Cancel, who had been the choice of the Silver machine.

Now, she must navigate growing into her role as an elected official, managing constituent

photo via @NYSCapitolTours

While the ethics trainings and orientation for new state legislators may have evolved over the years, one thing has remained constant: the daunting task of navigating the Capitol’s maze-like corridors during one’s first weeks of work in Albany.

Orientation provides some roadmap to Albany’s byzantine legislative processes, including workshops in drafting bills, organizing a press conference, and conducting research, and legislative staffers are provided for support, but it can take a few

AD65 candidates at a debate (photo: @FilAmDems)

In a world where U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara hadn’t turned his eye toward public corruption in state government, Sheldon Silver would likely be running for his 21st term in the Assembly and easily extending by another two years his 40-year reign over Manhattan’s 65th Assembly District.

In the real world, Silver, who had already resigned the powerful Assembly speakership he held for almost 20 years, was automatically stripped of