2 years ago
NEW YORK — Andrew Yang left the Democratic Party last year, following unsuccessful bids to be the nominee for president and New York City mayor, and he’s regularly lambasted the party ever since.
But that hostility isn’t stopping him from getting involved in local party politics.
Yang, who ended the mayor’s race in fourth place last year after a promising start, is endorsing Suraj Patel in his third attempt at unseating Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 29-year incumbent on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Speaking in Midtown Manhattan Monday afternoon, the two denounced Maloney and her leading opponent — Rep. Jerry Nadler — as stale and out of touch, given their collective six decades in Congress.
Patel, by comparison, is “exactly the kind of next-generation leader that we’ve been looking for,” Yang said during the endorsement Monday afternoon. He contrasted the 38-year-old “tech savvy” attorney with the septuagenarian “fixtures” Patel is challenging in New York's 10th Congressional District.
“Do you want someone who is going to be on the verge of retirement the next time Democrats really have a chance to get something done, who is going to be 78, 79 even older? Or do you want someone at that point who will be in his early 40s, just building seniority and representing this district and community for years and years to come?” Yang asked.
“We know that we need the latter,” he added. “We’re tired of a seniority system that has people staying in power and in office well past the point where they're actually in touch with what’s happening in their community and the average voter.”
Patel applauded Yang’s “historic” presidential and mayoral campaigns for “pitching generational change and Asian-American representation.”
Yang cannot back up his endorsement with a vote, however.
After losing to Mayor Eric Adams last year, Yang announced he would leave the Democratic Party altogether and register as a political independent. In a blast email on Oct. 4 titled “Breaking Up with the Democratic Party,” the entrepreneur-turned-candidate described his frustration with partisan politics, which he feels blocks progress on important issues.
“While it was simply a small piece of paperwork, I genuinely felt a shift in my mindset as soon as I signed it,” Yang wrote in the email.
As such, he cannot vote in any of New York’s primary elections, which are closed to people who do not belong to a political party.
Yang has recently taken to Twitter to vent about the two-party system, writing several days ago: “Dems got over $1 billion in corporate PAC money per cycle - more than Republicans of late. The Democratic Party has become a lobbying firm with a political party attached.”
Asked about the tweet, Patel called himself a “proud, lifelong Democrat” and said he does not agree with the sentiment.
“I fundamentally believe that our party is at its best when it’s building a big tent, when it is including the disaffected, people who are disengaged, and people who traditionally don’t vote,” he said.
That would include Yang himself, who had never voted in a New York City mayor’s race until he appeared on the ballot himself.
Yang applauded Patel’s decision to denounce corporate PAC donations and veered into a criticism of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bid for a different congressional seat straddling Brooklyn and Manhattan.
“New Yorkers are looking for the next generation of leadership, and I winced when I saw that Mayor de Blasio is running for Congress. I mean, I bet everyone here winced,” Yang said. “Come on man — enough. We need politicians who don’t cling to this because of some — I don't know — personal idiosyncrasy or complex.”
Not everyone was impressed by Yang’s endorsement.
“Hard to see how someone who flamed out in his own primary, and then subsequently abandoned and trashed the Democratic Party, is an amazing validator,” consultant Jonathan Rosen, a longtime friend of Nadler, said in a text message.
And Sophia Brown, who runs Maloney’s campaign, said: “I doubt New Yorkers will look to Andrew Yang to suggest who is the best person to represent them in Congress.”
English (US)