rise and resist elections group

The Elections Group was formed in 2017, early in Rise and Resist’s history, an integral part of our organization’s determination to oppose Trumpism in all its manifestations while advocating vigorously for democracy and progressive values. We have worked on national, state and local levels to promote progressive candidates and legislation. 

Our first project was to reclaim the NY State Senate.  In the run-up to the 2018 election we focused on ridding our state of the insidious IDC (Independent Democratic Conference), a group of renegade turncoat Democrats that put the GOP in control of the Senate even though a majority of senators had been elected as Democrats.  We took to the streets in every borough, demonstrating, picketing, and handing out flyers to educate a public that was largely unaware of the problem and to get the issue in the media that had ignored it.  With coalition partners we campaigned vigorously for primary challengers to all eight IDC members.  Our work ended in an astounding success when we won the biggest Democratic majority in the state senate in decades, and six of the eight IDC members lost their primary elections, including the head of the IDC snake: Jeffrey D. Klein. 

When the new senators took their seats, the state legislature quickly passed one progressive piece of legislation after another: women’s reproductive rights, GENDA, a historic climate bill, expanded rights for immigrants, criminal justice reforms and much more.  Some of these bills had been bottled up in the Senate for nearly a decade.

Now in 2022, we face the critical need to maintain Democratic majorities at the national and state levels in the November midterms. Thanks to redistricting, NY now plays a key role in the fight to keep Congress blue. Three of the NY seats that are in play are accessible by public transportation: CD 3 and CD4 in Long Island and CD 11 in Staten Island and Brooklyn. The RaR Elections Group will focus first on CD 11. It's a subway ride away, many of our members now live in the district, it's a red-to-blue flip, and the current representative, Malliotakis, a January 6 apologist and ardent Trump supporter, must go. Our guiding premise is that turnout and enthusiasm are key to winning elections, so we will ally with local groups to register voters, get out the vote, canvass - whatever is needed to flip the seat. Rise and Resist has already been confronting Representatives Nicole Maliotakis and Lee Zeldin directly in multiple ways, including protests at their local fundraising events, and we will continue to raise awareness about their unfitness for office.  

We know how to win!  Come join us in the fight for our lives! We meet on Zoom every Tuesday at 5PM. To join or learn more, please reach out to rar.elections@gmail.com to get connected.