Winning an Assembly seat in one state is not the biggest deal in the nation. There are key Congressional races in Montana and Georgia in the next few days. Rob Quist is running for Montana’s only House seat, and Jon Ossoff is running to capture the seat once held by Newt Gingrich and Tom Price. I have sent money to both. Flipping the House in 2018 is crucial to stopping Trump’s cruel and counterproductive budget cuts to education, health, research, science, on and on.
But this is a small harbinger, hopefully, of things to come. Christine Pellegrino won an Assembly seat on Long Island in a district that Trump won by 20 points in 2016. Christine is a teacher, a BAT, an activist in the opt out movement.
It was not a close race. She won by 56-44%.
Woo-hoo!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I don’t know if you-all saw this but Eli Broad is making token objections to the Trump budget that screws kids in public schools.
The Great Man has proclaimed that “school choice should not come at the expense of children in public schools”
Too little, too late. Eli. You did this. You created this monster where public school students are a disfavored afterthought who take hit after hit in service to privatization.
No one in DC gives a rap about kids in existing public schools because DC is captured by the ed reform “movement” which focuses EXCLUSIVELY on charters and vouchers.
Eli Broad engineered this result. He spent billions to buy this government. Now he’s dissatisfied with his purchase? Oh, well. It’s not like he’ll suffer. The 90% of US kids in public schools will take the hit.
NOW ed reformers object to public school bashing? Where have they been the last 20 years? I’ll tell you where. They were DOING the bashing.
Chiara,
That’s bogus from Eli. He publicly supported a tax increase for schools, but privately sent millions to the campaign to defeat the same proposition.
He publicly objected to DeVos the day before she was confirmed.
Not a very good pretender.
Christine had an army of educators, opt out advocates, parents and unionists that worked hard to make this happen. It is a warning shot, that we will not lay down and allow our national nightmare to continue unchecked.
Her district , as much of Nassau County is, a a gerrymandered district that has always voted Republican. Now it’s time to go after Peter King.
As one show up long Island member posted “a Trump supporter I know didn’t know there was an election I was not about to tell him ”
But a larger question is why this district which also over laps Peter Kings Congressional district is so overwhelmingly Republican . When one talks about a basket of deplorables there they are . This is a thriving upper working class to upper middle class area . This is not the suffering industrial Midwest .
For years the Nassau county Republicans held their grip on the area due to a patronage system that demanded loyalty, money, and GOTV efforts from those who were given the spoils of political power
rratto
I would think that ,that type of political machine politics might affect who gets what support in primaries . Who gets the machine working for them in those primaries . But it is hard to see it affecting the vote significantly on a CD basis and for multiple years . A 23% margin for a character as despicable as Trump is revealing of what is going on in the minds of those voters.
A few years back at a John Fogerty concert at Jones Beach Schummer addressed the crowd at intermission he was re-soundly booed. It was rather revolting the display of hate. I assure you the reaction was not brought on by his wall Street ties . I had to chuckle asking myself if the audience knew that Fogerty was an anti war 60s radical.
Good article that explains it all http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2011/02/the-fall-of-the-nassau-republican-machine-and-the-rise-of-homeland-security-chair-peter-king-067223
rratto
Good piece but it does not explain what I am seeing here in beautiful scenic long island . A little North in the Dix Hills /South Huntington area. For as the article points out there was a 23 point spread for Trump in that district . I would guess if you eliminated the minority vote in Nassau and Western Suffolk the white vote probably went 70% for Trump.
My personal experience with these people in almost every case shows them to be racist , Xenophobic and in far to many cases unwilling to see their own reliance on the saftey net for what it is. Some having children living in group homes or being on SSDI … …
Now I may have wanted to boo Schummer but it would have probably been because of his Wall Street ties . He was booed because he was perceived as a Liberal supporter of the illegitimate black President who was giving everything away to undeserving others (minorities ). Who was soft on terrorism because he would allow a Mosque to be built near ground zero (yes Obama had nothing to do with that Islamic center.) . Allowing Mexican illegal Immigrants to collect Obamacare (not possible) or rape innocent Americans… … It is exactly the BS spun by Fox and swallowed every day by their viewers .
Tonight I was with a Trump supporter, First thing out of his mouth, see what your boy (Obama) caused in England. I would not bother to ask what the difference was between Manchester and Sandi Hook. ….. Or how Obama accomplished this in a foreign country five months after leaving office. Nor would I ever ask him if he ever heard of Anders Breivik in Norway.
Try explaining the dynamics of the Saudi Royal families relation to terror groups both Al Qaeda and ISIS as a means of maintaining power or confronting Iran. Or their brutally repressive regime . And why that deteriorated the relation with Obama , don’t bother..
King has been so successful in part because of the demagoguery against Islam. And he uses the dog whistles on race effectively. he may vote for not cutting food stamps but that is a detail lost in his affiliation with the overwhelmingly rt wing party .
Just read this after the last post . And I would dispute the authors assertion that the unemployment rate is below 5% and thus everything in the economy is just ducky . The Employment to population ratio would peg it 1 to 2 points higher which explains stagnant wages. But I would agree with author that the economy is not the motivator for the Trump voters.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-and-how-trumps-base-still-loyal-guy-who-proven-disaster
May Pellegrino’s win inspire many other teacher activists to run for office.
Have you read the latest about Greg Gianforte, Rob Quist’s opponent in Montana?
https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/24/greg-gianforte-fox-news-team-witnesses-gop-house-candidate-body-slam-reporter.amp.html
I watched on TV
Hope Rob Quist wins.
I have sent contributions
The other guy is a bully