Jones became one of the first two openly gay Black men elected to Congress when he first won his seat in 2020. As a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Jones supported “Medicare for All” and the “Green New Deal,” while also voting for increased police funding and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure deal. Jones also voted to approve funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system in 2022, a nod to his district’s sizable Hasidic Jewish population.
After redistricting placed him in the same district as former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, then the chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm, Jones opted not to run in the 17th District, even though it contained most of his old district in the lower Hudson Valley. He instead ran in the Manhattan-based 10th District, losing to Dan Goldman in the primary. Maloney then went on to lose to Lawler by less than a percentage point, one of many upsets Democrats experienced in New York House races. President Joe Biden carried the 17th district by 10 points in 2020.
Jones said in a Wednesday interview on News 12 Westchester that he regretted his decision to forgo a primary challenge against Maloney in 2020.
“I never imagined that I would wake up one day and would have to decide against primarying a member of the Democratic party at a time when we were seeing an assault on our democracy,” Jones said. “To that extent, yeah, I do regret not being the Democratic nominee last cycle.”
Lucy Hodgman contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/05/mondaire-jones-reelection-new-york-00104558
