Jay Jacobs Needs to Endorse or Leave

State Party Chair Jay Jacobs (D-NY)

You would be forgiven, even if you follow politics quite closely, for not knowing who Jay Jacobs is, and certainly be forgiven for not having an opinion on him.  So let's start there.  The New York-born Jacobs is a long-time figure in Democratic Politics in the Empire State, finding some success in shifting long-red Nassau County (on Long Island) to the middle.  Jacobs was named by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to lead the state party in 2019, and to be honest, has been largely a failure.  In 2022, the New York Democratic Party singlehandedly cost the Democrats the House, with Democratic candidates in six districts that Joe Biden won in 2020 losing (enough that the Democrats lost the House in the process), and Kathy Hochul won by less than 10-points (considerably less than Cuomo's seismic victory four years earlier).  Still, it's not uncommon for state party chairs to stay on the job through a couple of bad cycles (some party chairs end up having only bad cycles because they're given too many chances), and he has had Kathy Hochul's support (she kept him on coming out of 2022) which is usually what you need for this job.

But Jacobs has run into a huge roadblock in his tenure as State Party Chair, one that I honestly don't see how he's going to get out of, and has started to gain national headlines.  Hochul earlier this week became the highest-profile New York Democrat to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who became the party's nominee for Mayor in June, in his election this fall.  Hochul had stayed silent in the race in large part because Mamdani is considerably more progressive than she is, and you can tell even with the endorsement that it comes with some trepidation.  But it's a big win for Mamdani, who is up against two heavyweights (not just Cuomo, but sitting NYC Mayor Eric Adams), and while he is leading, he would be a huge departure in terms of who is normally elected mayor of the Big Apple, and so getting even a token endorsement from the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party is a big deal as he moves forward to (likely) become the city's next mayor.

But Jacobs has refused to join Hochul in endorsing Mamdani for Mayor, citing specifically Mamdani's views on Israel as being a reason he cannot get involved.  While Jacobs has not actively endorsed another candidate like Adams or Cuomo, his refusal has caused a lot of consternation within the party, and a number of Democrats (including State Sen. Mike Gianaris) have stated this is unacceptable behavior.

It's worth noting that Jacobs is hardly alone in this.  Neither Sens. Chuck Schumer nor Kirsten Gillibrand have backed Mamdani, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has gotten into a petty fight with Sen. Chris van Hollen on social media over his refusal to back Mamdani (for the record, I think Jeffries is being petty...van Hollen has a valid point as you'll soon see).  But Jacobs is different.  These other politicians are the leaders of the party in spirit (more so, quite frankly, than Jacobs), but their jobs are technically to serve their constituents in Congress, not to get behind the Democratic nominees without question.  Jacobs, on the other hand, is the party chair.  To not endorse a Democratic nominee, one who was legitimately chosen in a voter-backed primary, for NYC Mayor absent some sort of major scandal (which is not the case here) is dereliction of duty.  If he can't endorse Mamdani, I think he needs to resign.

I say that because this is a song that we have forced the left to sing for quite a while.  Democrats like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and even Kathy Hochul had a lot of choruses of moderate/left-of-middle Democrats saying "you need to support the nominee no matter what so we can beat the Republicans."  This was right-but it also means that it's on the moderate wing to do the same when the left's candidate wins the primary.  Mamdani is not running a race that can't be won (it's not like he's running in Wyoming or Alabama).  He's inarguably the frontrunner, and polling shows him there...not backing him is being done solely because he doesn't match your specific beliefs, which (I'm sorry) is what was true of Biden, Clinton, & Hochul for the far left in their elections, and we still demanded that they get-in-line to support them.  To not back Mamdani in such a public way, Jacobs is essentially being a hypocrite-he is saying he won't do what he has repeatedly asked voters to do, back a candidate who is your party's nominee when you don't agree with him.  If Jacobs was a private citizen, this would be okay, but he's not-he's the head of the party, and it is his job (the most important part of his job) to do everything he can to make sure that candidate wins.

To Jacobs' credit, it appears that he is aware that forced resignation is a potential conclusion, and has said he'll serve at the discretion of the governor.  Hochul hardly wants to do this (I'd bet decent money she likes Jacobs better than Mamdani on a political/personal level), but if Jacobs won't endorse, she needs to take the next step of asking him to resign.  To let him stay on after this behavior would be to tell the far left of the party "you're required to back our part of the big tent...but we won't do the same when your candidates win," and Jacobs isn't worth alienating the coalition in such a way.