Afrigather 
A down-on-his-luck New Yorker, anxious, slightly street-worn, however in a fedora and a neat if very outdated go well with, politely approached Yuh-Line Niou at Father Demo Sq. in Manhattan’s West Village final Sunday. I don’t suppose he knew she was Assemblywoman Niou, or congressional candidate Niou. He knew we had been two girls on a park bench speaking, and he or she appeared good (perhaps I didn’t?). He requested her to purchase him a slice of pizza at Joe’s throughout the road. She promised she would, as quickly as she and I completed speaking.
Niou stored her phrase. Ultimately, she purchased me a slice of pizza—full disclosure, I missed lunch and had no money—and him two. However after we got here again to the park, the person was lacking, and her employees wanted her to maneuver onto different occasions. She held them off. Lastly, the person within the hat confirmed up. He took the 2 slices of pizza with gratitude. Her staffers scooped her up and he or she went on to her subsequent appointments, which apparently concerned some “name time”—dialing principally for {dollars}, hours progressive candidates are likely to hate—however then a karaoke bar in Brooklyn the place she sang “9 to five” by “legendary queen,” in her phrases, Dolly Parton.
The venue isn’t a surprise: Niou has labored as a karaoke DJ, a bartender, an anti-poverty, anti-racism activist, chief of employees to the New York State Meeting’s first Asian American member, Ron Kim, after which, stunning even herself, a candidate on her personal. She received her race for the state meeting from a liberal however sophisticated Chinatown, Decrease East Facet, and Brooklyn district within the dispiriting 12 months of 2016, and received it twice extra. Vogue named her “The New Face of Downtown Manhattan’s Political Scene.” The New York Instances endorsed her twice.
However in a crowded race for the Democratic nomination for the open tenth Congressional District seat—the election is subsequent Tuesday, August 23—the Instances has been not been form to Niou this 12 months. The primary slight was designating her merely “a lesser recognized candidate” in a headline in regards to the information that the regionally highly effective Working Households Get together endorsed her again in June. It merited a narrative, however the information worth to the Instances appeared to lie in the truth that she was “lesser recognized.” Niou received the paper to alter the headline on its web site, to drop “lesser known” and add her actual name.
Then got here a joint Instances profile, shared with New York City Council member Carmen Rivera, one among her closest ideological counterparts, which described the 2 progressive girls of shade as working surprisingly sturdy grassroots campaigns in a race of 12 candidates, together with the self-funding Levi-Strauss inheritor, lawyer Daniel Goldman, and well-funded Consultant Mondaire Jones, a progressive Niou ally who moved into her residence district to run towards her after redistricting shifted the boundaries of his. It quoted solely Rivera supporters, together with an Asian American girl who particularly criticized Niou.
Lastly, the Instances endorsed Goldman, however the worst slight to Niou was that the paper’s endorsement didn’t even point out her, or Rivera, regardless of the information facet’s describing them as competent, sturdy candidates with deep grassroots help, slightly over every week earlier than. “I’m used to being erased,” she stated.
The Instances endorsement might properly assist Goldman, alongside together with his wealth, regardless of his lack of political expertise. Nevertheless it additionally had the impact of galvanizing progressives, in anger. Niou teamed up with Jones at a press conference on Monday the place they denounced Goldman—one of many Democrats’ impeachment attorneys and an MSNBC authorized analyst—as a “conservative” making an attempt to purchase his seat, and urged district voters to decide on “Anybody However Goldman.”
On one degree, although, progressives needs to be offended at themselves. They didn’t rally round one candidate, in order that 5 politicians—Niou, Rivera, Jones, legendary former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman and Assemblywoman JoAnn Simon—can all plausibly hunt progressive votes. On this district, there are lots of. However cut up 5 or extra methods? Goldman doubtless wins. In a ballot launched Monday, he garnered 22 p.c help, with Niou at 17, and Jones and Rivera each at 13.
Niou has one highly effective asset, although: that endorsement by the WFP. The occasion selected her regardless that it had endorsed Jones in his first congressional run. “Sure, we supported Mondaire in 2020. He’s been an amazing member of Congress,” stated Sochie Nnaemeka, the native occasion head. “However there are three candidates within the race which have represented these communities,” she added, referencing Niou, Rivera, and Simon. WFP is dedicated, she stated, to elevating candidates “solidly primarily based locally.”
Right here, to be honest, I ought to word that Jones made his choice to maneuver to the tenth district solely after Consultant Sean Patrick Maloney, the top of the Democratic Congressional Marketing campaign Committee, moved into his. Maloney had his alternative of two newly drawn districts—Maloney’s was divided, with extra Republican voters added—and selected to run within the safer Democratic district that principally belonged to Jones. Such braveness from the top of the DCCC! Jones may have stored his seat, and Niou, or doubtlessly Rivera, and even Goldman, may have received the tenth. Two secure seats for the embattled Democratic Home majority, or two secure seats for the state’s rising progressive majority. A victory for Democrats in both case.
However confronted with having to defeat the occasion’s fundraising maestro, Jones decamped to Brooklyn to run within the already crowded tenth.
Earlier than they teamed up towards Goldman on Monday, in our Sunday dialog Niou lamented that Jones hadn’t stayed in place to problem the centrist rainmaker Maloney. “I feel he would have received. [Progressives] would have all galvanized behind him.”
However Jones didn’t, which leaves Niou’s left-wing supporters in a bind. Nnaemeka famous that the tenth district is likely one of the strongest in supporting WFP, as measured most just lately by the occasion’s push to get folks to vote for Joe Biden on its poll line (as I did). The tenth “accommodates a number of the strongest Working Households Get together geographies in New York State,” Nnaemaka stated. In dense neighborhoods in Brooklyn, she stated, “upwards of 25 p.c of 2020 normal election voters voted for Biden/Harris on the WFP line.”
Nonetheless, regardless of endorsing Niou, Nnaemeka would solely say, “We must always align as progressives behind the strongest candidate, to defeat a self-funded, self-avowed average, in one of the progressive districts within the nation.” That means Goldman. However after I requested her whether or not that meant WFP would possibly attempt to get different progressives to drop out and endorse Niou—the occasion has some sway, because it’s backed Jones, Rivera, and Simon prior to now—she politely ducked the query.
Born in Taiwan, Niou principally grew up in El Paso, Tex. She describes herself as a lifelong activist. At 12, she based a gaggle known as “Children Serving to Children” with some pals, to help kids with most cancers at an area hospital. Their fundraising technique: accumulating discarded cans and bottles after which turning them in for the recycling cash. “We had been all out within the scorching El Paso solar, scavenging for cans, however we solely wound up accumulating $60,” she recalled with fun.
She graduated from Evergreen State School in Washington. At 22, she was recognized with autism. As a toddler, she says, “I undoubtedly knew there was one thing completely different. I didn’t learn to tie my sneakers. Driving a motorbike, I’m nonetheless unhealthy at it. In case you take a look at my report playing cards, you may inform: Straight As in all the themes, an F in [physical education], and actually all of the feedback from academics are like ‘she doesn’t speak in school,’ ‘she doesn’t need to do group initiatives.’ I’m like: ‘Mother and Dad, did you not suppose that perhaps…?’
“I feel there was loads of racism, too. Folks simply assumed as a result of I used to be Asian, I didn’t converse English,” she provides. “And ladies are recognized later in life. Girls and ladies be taught to masks very properly.”
After school, she moved to Seattle. She describes one mentor, the late legendary civil rights activist “Uncle Bob” Santos, who with a multiracial staff of allies taught her that oppressed communities shouldn’t combat each other over the identical piece of pie, “we must always combat for the entire pie.” After a stint working for Washington state legislators, she moved to New York to get a grasp’s diploma in public administration at Baruch School, then went to work with Ron Kim.
In 2016, she ran for the seat vacated by the corrupt Democratic chief Sheldon Silver in a particular election, and misplaced. Inside months, she got here again and received. Nearly instantly she received consideration for resisting then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, whereas he was on the high of his sport. Niou voted towards what she calls his “austerity budgets,” and made nationwide information when she known as him out for a $25,000-a-couple fundraiser the place donors may additionally meet with finances director Rob Merica—throughout a extremely contentious finances season. “It was a visible expression of corruption,” she remembers. Cuomo’s high adviser then known as Niou, and the 2 different assemblywomen who stood up together with her, “fucking idiots.”
She has had 15 payments handed, her employees says, together with establishing a hotline for sexual assault victims, and permitting hard-of-sight New Yorkers to choose to obtain giant textual content payments (Cuomo vetoed it, unbelievably; Governor Kathy Hochul signed it). Allies marvel that she was nonetheless in a position to get Covid aid to her hard-hit district even after falling out with the governor—who was quickly to fall out himself. Niou was an early state chief demanding that Cuomo resign after sexual harassment and assault allegations surfaced. And resign he did. The “fucking fool” outlasted him.
The tenth Congressional District is 30 p.c Asian. “It places collectively the 2 Chinatowns,” Niou observes, the well-known hub in decrease Manhattan plus Brooklyn’s Sundown Park (which additionally has a big Latino inhabitants). Roughly 20 p.c of the district is Latino. It’s additionally about 16 p.c Jewish, which might be a hurdle for Niou: She hasn’t denounced the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions motion towards Israel, and he or she has come out towards strikes, by the Trump State Division, the Cuomo administration, and others, to punish or withhold public funding from establishments or people who help BDS. “I help the free speech rights of a nonviolent protest motion,” she tells me. “It’s necessary to verify individuals are in a position to combat for human rights points.” Some distinguished Jewish advocacy teams insist that this implies she “helps” BDS.
I level out to Niou that it’s attainable to argue that the supporters of the BDS motion shouldn’t themselves face sanctions, whereas additionally questioning, even opposing, the motion itself—and that she hasn’t made that distinction herself.
“I haven’t,” she answered. “That’s an excellent distinction that you just’re making. I feel it’s a sound motion and must be heard.” I discovered her reply evasive, to be trustworthy. It’s price noting that Niou has stated she would journey to Israel as a member of Congress. So she’s clearly not boycotting.
“Yuh-Line firmly believes in the proper of Israel to exist and to defend itself, whereas supporting the consensus place that American taxpayer {dollars} ought to by no means be used to help violations of human rights,” her marketing campaign advised me in a press release. “Whereas Yuh-Line has not personally participated within the BDS motion, she helps the free speech rights of BDS activists. On the similar time, Yuh-Line doesn’t agree with the entire BDS motion’s calls for nor does she embrace all of its ways.” That’s a mouthful, nevertheless it’s slightly completely different from saying she “helps” BDS, as in backs all of its stances and actions.
However that hasn’t been sufficient to maintain supporters from labeling her anti-Semitic. Which stings, she says.
“I grew up within the Jewish neighborhood, within the Jewish Neighborhood Heart” of El Paso, Tex., she tells me. “I used to be bullied as a child, as a child with a incapacity, and one of many solely Asian youngsters. The Jewish neighborhood was probably the most welcoming to me, to my household, my little brother. I went to Jewish pre-kindergarten. Yearly I went to a Jewish summer time camp.” As a teen, she went again as a counselor. “I’ve all the time seen the Jewish neighborhood as a secure haven.”
Whereas she’s supported by the progressive native group The Jewish Vote, the agitation over her BDS stance appears supposed to verify the Jewish neighborhood doesn’t see her as a secure haven. Or electable.
Short of different progressives dropping out and rallying round her, Niou says she’s relying on her military of roughly 1,000 volunteers, 600 of whom the marketing campaign says are within the area daily, knocking doorways and telephone banking, to carry her to victory. Although she and Jones made widespread trigger towards Goldman at their Monday press convention, she additionally barely tweaked the Mondaire-come-lately by saying that her estimated marketing campaign volunteers “are my neighbors, are my pals, are my household right here in Decrease Manhattan and in Brooklyn,” received over by her six years representing the district. Which, by the way in which, is the one one, of all the opposite workplace holders, that fully, neatly matches contained in the tenth CD.
Critics say Niou is simply too far to the left, and the progressive however center-moving Rivera may be a more sensible choice for the left to rally round. However Rivera has made some strikes to the middle just lately, and alienated progressives by taking loads of actual property cash. Nonetheless, she has the backing of SEIU 1099 and representatives Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Vasquez.
Niou is backed by not solely the WFP however the Dawn Motion, New York Metropolis public advocate Jumaane Williams, former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, and lots of of her Meeting colleagues.
I ought to say right here: I do know and like Goldman, as a former MSNBC colleague. I feel calling him “conservative” is a bit a lot. He’s a mainstream liberal, and he’d most likely be a high quality congressperson. However in a majority-minority district, with an economically struggling majority no matter their race, however which nonetheless brackets within the West Village and Goldman’s tony Tribeca neighborhood, I perceive why tenth district progressives are outraged.
His admirers on the Instances even acknowledged that “Mr. Goldman would wish to make use of his first time period to persuade the massive numbers of lower-income and middle-class Individuals he would signify that he understands the problems dealing with these constituents.”
Looks like affirmative motion for wealthy white guys to me. Goldman will get an additional two years to “persuade the massive numbers of lower-income and middle-class Individuals” he understands them and may signify them?
The election is lower than every week away, and the five top-polling candidates, together with Goldman, Niou, Rivera, Jones, and Simon, face each other at a debate tonight. It will likely be attention-grabbing to see if progressives can get out of their very own means, even at this late date, and unite behind one candidate. In the event that they don’t, it’s not inevitable Goldman will win. Nevertheless it’s doubtless.
