NYC-DSA slate members sweep their races + Working Families Party retains ballot access

Elections: 

• The NYC-DSA slate members who won primaries in June were all officially elected in their general elections. State Senator-elect Jabari Brisport talks about teaching during a pandemic in City & State.
• The Working Families Party appears to have received enough support in New York to remain on the ballot. (The Conservative Party was the only other minor party to survive the newly raised vote threshold.)
• While New York was called for Joe Biden early on Tuesday night, no absentee or early votes have been counted yet, meaning many races are still in doubt and early maps of voting patterns are based only on the in-person votes. In New York’s Congressional races, attempts by Democrats to pick up two Republican-held seats in Suffolk County appear to have fallen short, pending the mail-in vote results, while incumbent Democrats Tom Suozzi (Long Island) and Max Rose (Staten Island) trail (Rose’s opponent, Nicole Malliotakis, holds a significant lead and has declared victory). Some New York State Assembly races also hinge on mail-in votes.
• The Democrats seem likely to retain their majority in the New York State Senate, but not to reach their hopes of a 42-vote supermajority. They could lose as many as five seats when mail and early votes are counted. This will be important for next year’s redistricting fight.
• Based on the votes counted so far, New York appears to have reached record turnout in the 2020 elections, but it still lags behind the national average. The City is looking into how to improve early voting going forward.
• With the election of Joe Biden as President, but a divided Congress (contingent on the outcome of January’s run-off elections in Georgia), desperately needed federal aid for New York is currently in limbo.
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez provided a post mortem analysis of Joe Biden’s presidential win and Democratic House losses.

Local News:

• Despite the NYPD engaging in violent crackdowns on post-election protests, Mayor Bill De Blasio once again declined to criticize the force.
• On Tuesday, Governor Cuomo issued another executive order on eviction protections. The City put out a brief explainer on how pandemic-related executive orders to date affect NYC tenants.
• Over 60% of applicants to the NYS COVID-19 Rent Relief Program were rejected due to its extremely narrow criteria.
• The State has cancelled January Regents exams due to Covid-19, but students will need to make them up at a later date.
• A subway train operator is facing suspension after tweeting photos of the homeless and exposing unsafe working conditions for MTA workers.