Working Families to drop Maloney endorsement and back Biaggi

ALBANY, N.Y. — The progressive Working Families Party is switching its endorsement from Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney to state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who’s challenging the five-term incumbent in the Democratic primary.

The small but influential party in March endorsed Maloney, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But since then, New York’s congressional maps were redrawn, and Maloney angered much of the left by announcing he was running in the new district he lives in despite it heavily overlapping with the district won by party-backed Rep. Mondaire Jones in 2020 — prompting Jones to now run in New York City.

“She has shown she’s willing to take on a real fight for what’s right,” WFP state director Sochie Nnaemeka said in an interview with POLITICO. “From climate protections to ethics reforms to women’s rights, she really has shown herself as an aggressive, clear-eyed and effective leader.”

Previously, Biaggi spent much of the year running for a congressional seat that was largely centered on Long Island. But after the new maps were released, she announced she would challenge Maloney instead in the Aug. 23 primary and as Jones runs for an open seat in the city.

The endorsement gives Biaggi access to arguably the state’s largest grassroots mobilization operation. The WFP’s canvassers have repeatedly helped topple well-tenured incumbents — including in the 2018 primaries, when Biaggi ousted former Independent Democratic Conference leader Sen. Jeff Klein in a district that stretches across the Bronx and Westchester County.

“The WFP was with me in 2018, and I can’t overemphasize the importance,” Biaggi said in an interview. “It gave my campaign legitimacy. It was crucial, and it opened — in the best way — the floodgates for other grassroots organizations to be part of our campaign. It took that coalition; it started with them and ended with them. We were in an underdog situation — similar to the way we are here — and we won.”