Driving the news: The 13-candidate Democratic primary to replace now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey's 11th congressional district ended in a dead heat between progressive organizer Analilia Mejia and former Rep. Tom Malinowski. With several thousand provisional and late mail-in still to be counted as of Friday, Mejia led Malinowski by 500 votes, 28.75% to 27.97%, according to the Associated Press. Mejia trailed many of her opponents in fundraising, bringing in just $420,000 to Malinowski's $1.2 million.
"The ultra wealthy and the most profitable corporations are going to fight any revenue raiser," said Brahvan Ranga, campaign manager of Invest in Our New York, a coalition of organizations pushing for progressive tax reforms. "But the political winds are at our back in a way that hasn't been the case in years." Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral election resoundingly by running on reshaping New York to be affordable and manageable for working people. But many of his audacious plans require money-lots of it.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is gearing up for a big campaign for a bigger office in 2028 they're just not sure which. According to Axios's Alex Thompson, Ocasio-Cortez and her political operation are laying the groundwork for a campaign to either succeed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or win the White House. While polling shows that the young, progressive congresswoman would enter the race against Schumer as a favorite and Ocasio-Cortez has held eyebrow-raising events in Upstate New York,
"If sustained youth political engagement is the goal, then more attention must be paid to long-term institution building."
