NY-17: Lowey faces her first primary challenge in three decades
The year was 1988. Def Leppard topped the charts and stonewashed jeans were all the rage. It was also the last time powerful House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey faced a primary challenge.
That’s all changed now with the decision by Mondaire Jones, a former Obama administration Justice Department staffer and attorney for Westchester County’s Law Department, to challenge Lowey in next June’s primary. The 32-year-old political novice plans to take on the New York Democratic incumbent over her positions on issues ranging from climate change to student debt forgiveness to oversight of the Trump administration.
Jones hopes the same sentiment that propelled young progressives to victory in the last election cycle — with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defeat of longtime New York Democrat Joseph Crowley the most famous example — will resonate with voters throughout New York’s Rockland and Westchester counties.
“The conventional wisdom dictated that people like me — young people, people of color — had to wait their turn, that they had to accept the opportunities that were given to them instead of putting themselves out there and letting the voters decide,” Jones said in an interview.
https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/lowey-faces-primary-challenge-her-first-in-three-decades
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