Mondaire Jones loses critical support from Working Families Party after blowing off Bowman

The influential New York Working Families Party is pulling its funding and ground support for Democrat Mondaire Jones after he threw his fellow Democrat Jamaal Bowman under the political bus this week by endorsing his opponent in a tough Congressional primary.

The party told Gothamist it would yank support from Jones in his general election contest against Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, a critical battleground for Democrats seeking to expand their footprint in Congress.

The party will not rescind its endorsement entirely, leaders told Gothamist, but it will not be sending mailers, doing polling, deploying staffers and affiliates or offering any form of support from its political apparatus, effectively freezing Jones out despite his name remaining among their endorsed candidates.

Jones blew off progressives this week by endorsing Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat who has amassed serious campaign cash and endorsements from the local Democratic establishment in his primary challenge to Bowman, who has been deeply critical of Israel’s war in Gaza. Whoever wins the primary is likely to win the general election in a heavily blue district that spans parts of Southern Westchester and the Bronx.

The seat Jones is running for spans northern Westchester, Rockland County, Putnam County and parts of Dutchess County, and is seen as crucial for Democrats looking to take back control of Congress.

“Over the course of his campaign, Mondaire has strayed from the values and principles that made us proud to support him in 2020,” NYWFP codirectors Jasmine Gripper and Ana María Archila said in a statement. “His decision to back George Latimer, who uses racist dog whistles, rejects core parts of [President] Biden’s economic agenda, and shares donors with Mondaire’s own MAGA extremist opponent, runs counter to our values as a party.”

The political arm of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which had also endorsed both Jones and Bowman, rescinded its endorsement of Jones as well on Thursday morning, which executive director Evan Brown attributed to multiple factors.

“This was a unanimous decision of our PAC board," he said in a statement.

In a statement through his campaign, Jones defended his decision to endorse Latimer.

“I have no regrets about standing up for what I firmly believe in. Nor have my values changed,” Jones said on Thursday.

He reiterated that Bowman’s rhetoric on Israel was the “last straw” that forced his hand.

“I have had countless conversations with Jewish residents in my district and across the Lower Hudson Valley who feel anxiety, anger, and fear due to Rep. Bowman’s words and actions.” he said.

The Bowman campaign declined to comment on any of this week’s developments.

Jones is running in the 17th Congressional District, a version of which he previously represented before redistricting fiasco for Democrats prompted him to flee the Hudson Valley and run for a different congressional seat in New York City in 2022. Jones’ departure cleared the way for Republican Mike Lawler to defeat Sean Patrick Maloney, then chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“I want to be very clear: I am making this endorsement to stand up for my Jewish constituents because Rep. Bowman and I have very different views on Israel,” Jones said during his endorsement event on Tuesday.

The district Jones is seeking to represent is more politically diverse than the 16th Congressional District, where Bowman is defending his seat.

Jones ran as a progressive in 2022 in a crowded Democratic primary for the 10th Congressional District in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Now, running against a Republican a few miles north in the Hudson Valley, Jones has swerved noticeably to the center, going from pushing to defund the police, to backing a pro-Israel establishment Democrat.

“I think he forgot why all these people had voted for him,” said former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, a progressive who outperformed Jones in the Democratic primary for the 10th district. “These are the folks who voted for somebody who didn’t bend.”

Jones spelled out his allegiances on Tuesday morning, when he formally endorsed Latimer, a longtime local Democrat with deep ties to New York’s political circles and the backing of several pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Political observers said the endorsement was more likely to produce results for Jones than for Latimer, in a bid to win over pro-Israel Democrats.

“We all know that politics creates strange bedfellows,” Basil Smikle, former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, said. “It's unusual, but in the world of politics, it actually makes sense.”

Jones came into office with Bowman as a fellow freshman progressive from the northern suburbs, having appeared together on their respective campaign trails in 2020 with similar messaging on slashing police funding, single-payer universal healthcare and a Green New Deal to combat climate change.

In 2022, Jones ran against a dozen fellow Democrats where, among other progressive stances, he gave a full-throated endorsement of the now-imperiled congestion pricing plan in an apparent appeal to voters in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.

"At the local level, we need to be doing congestion pricing. It is long overdue," he said during a NY1/WNYC debate in 2022.

But the measure is deeply unpopular among suburban commuters in the Hudson Valley where he now faces Lawler and Jones has since changed his tenor.

“We don't even have a one seat train ride into the city over in Rockland County. We have to transfer at Secaucus. That is unacceptable,” Jones said in an interview last summer. "I don't think people should be subjected to congestion pricing if they don't even have an adequate means of conveniently getting into the city."

Jones also expressed support for progressive causes in 2020 around reducing police funding, which he has since attempted to walk back. Now he’s embracing Israel and coming out against Bowman.

“It is more of a net positive for Mondaire than it is for Latimer,” Smikle said. “I don't believe that the Black voters in [Bowman’s district] have enough of a relationship with Mondaire that they would say he's changed their mind.”

In an earlier statement, Jones said he was undeterred by the progressive backlash.

"I have always been, and always will be, pro-Israel and socially liberal,” Jones said on Wednesday. “I'll continue to fight for women's rights, including abortion, and for common-sense laws to get dangerous weapons off our streets. I've also fought for more police funding to keep our communities safe."

In this year’s campaign, Lawler has hit Jones’ previous progressive stances hard, including his previous support of statements calling to “defund” police departments after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Smikle, a longtime Democratic strategist who is not affiliated with any of the campaigns, said Jones appears to be “doing whatever he can” to get back into Congress.

“We saw that before when he left his Hudson Valley seat to run in Lower Manhattan,” Smikle said. “He's now back in that area and trying to get the seat back. He clearly wants to be in office, and this is part of his larger strategy.”