{"id":271052,"date":"2021-08-11T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=366244"},"modified":"2021-08-11T11:00:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:00:44","slug":"steven-holden-is-the-latest-new-york-democrat-to-try-flipping-a-coveted-house-seat-is-he-up-to-the-task","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/08\/11\/steven-holden-is-the-latest-new-york-democrat-to-try-flipping-a-coveted-house-seat-is-he-up-to-the-task\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Holden Is the Latest New York Democrat to Try Flipping a Coveted House Seat. Is He Up to the Task?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flipping the House seat<\/u> in New York\u2019s 24th Congressional District \u2014 which includes all of Cayuga, Onondaga, and Wayne counties\u00a0as well as the western part of Oswego County \u2014 should be a feasible task for Democrats, given that the district elected President Joe Biden in 2020 by\u00a0nine points, Hillary Clinton in 2016 by\u00a0four points, and President Barack Obama in 2012 by 16 points. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already designated the upstate New York district as one of its 21 “red-to-blue” targets for 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hoping to capitalize early on this for the Democratic Party is Steven Holden, a 48-year-old retired Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Holden, the only primary candidate so far, served as a military finance officer and says he was part of the unit that helped finance the operation that led to Saddam Hussein\u2019s capture in 2003.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

But Democrats have faced tough defeats in their past attempts to unseat Rep. John Katko, a former U.S. attorney who was elected in 2014. He\u2019s earned a reputation as an independent thinker in a party increasingly drifting toward extremism. While Katko voted with President Donald Trump more than 90 percent of the time during\u00a0the representative’s first term, that figure dipped to just over 50 percent during his second. Analysts say things could be different, though, now that Trump is out of office. In January, Katko also voted to impeach the president<\/a> following the attack on the Capitol \u2014 a decision that cost him the backing of prominent local conservatives.<\/p>\n

In other words, despite the grim national forecast Democrats face <\/a>for the 2022 midterms, the party is still hoping that now might be a favorable time for a Democrat to flip the seat. The next question is whether Holden is the man for the job.<\/p>\n

\n\"Holden\n

Steven Holden’s campaign photograph.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Courtesy Steven Holden<\/p><\/div>\n

Ideologically speaking,<\/u> Holden is positioning himself closely to the previous Democratic challenger, Dana Balter.<\/p>\n

When Balter ran to unseat Katko in 2018 and 2020, she campaigned on issues<\/a>\u00a0like universal health care, legalizing marijuana, and a $15 minimum wage. In both races, she suffered great losses, losing by about six<\/a> and 15<\/a>\u00a0points, respectively. While her first run was hobbled by a lack of financial support from the party establishment, her 2020 run had the support of the DCCC, EMILY\u2019s List, Obama, Biden and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The 2020 contest was among the DCCC\u2019s \u201cred-to-blue\u201d targets.<\/p>\n\n

Moderates were quick to pin Balter\u2019s losses on her progressive platform. In a blog post<\/a>, the centrist group Third Way said her defeat showed that Democrats \u201cmust run with mainstream, moderate candidates and ideas central to the Party\u2019s position.\u201d<\/p>\n

But 2020 was a tough year for nearly all \u201cred-to-blue\u201d candidates, as well as incumbent moderate Democrats like Abby Finkenauer in Iowa and Max Rose in New York. House Democrats lost a net of 11 seats and saw their majority drop to a slim 220-212<\/a> lead over Republicans.<\/p>\n

Despite centrists’ warnings, Holden thus far is not looking to create much distance between him and Balter on matters of policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are some political actors who take the view that [Balter] lost because she ran too much as a progressive, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s accurate,\u201d Holden told The Intercept. \u201cJust from what I know here, the biggest reason she lost is because of turnout, that\u2019s honestly what this is.\u201d (In fact, more than 340,000 voters cast ballots in the\u00a024th District\u00a0race in 2020, up from 260,00 in 2018 and 302,000 in 2016.)<\/p>\n

Balter, who told The Intercept she is not considering running for office \u201cat this time,\u201d said she thinks that a Democratic candidate, whoever that is in 2022, could beat Katko. \u201cPresident Biden and the Democrats in Congress are delivering for the people,\u201d she said, pointing to pandemic relief checks, local government aid, and the expanded child tax credit. Katko, by contrast, \u201cis failing central New Yorkers in a big way,\u201d she said, and \u201cspends his time stoking the fears of his extreme right-wing base and placating his corporate donors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holden\u2019s theory of change rests on increased turnout (a harder task during the midterms) and \u201chammering Katko from all sides\u201d on policy. He chalks Balter\u2019s loss up to some siphoned votes from traditional fusion voting. (Over 13,000 voters cast ballots for Steven Williams, a Working Families Party candidate, though Balter lost by almost 35,000 votes.)<\/p>\n

He also thinks his background and experience as a veteran could help him win back some Democrats who voted for Katko as well as attract rural voters. \u201cI know Dana tried, but I\u2019m going to go in and talk about issues with Wayne County and the rural part of Cayuga County, and really getting rural and suburban voters to where they feel comfortable with me,\u201d he said. Left unspoken is the question of whether a male military veteran will fare better in upstate New York than Balter, a female professor, did.<\/p>\n

But Holden\u2019s strength<\/u> as a candidate is unclear, particularly if he hopes to clear the progressive lane. For one, regional activists say that so far his campaign has involved little grassroots organizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a relationship with him and haven\u2019t been contacted by him,\u201d said Brian Escobar, co-chair of the Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know anything about Holden, and he hasn\u2019t reached out to us,\u201d added Tom Heck,\u00a0a member of the steering committee for Indivisible-24, a local chapter of a national progressive advocacy group.<\/p>\n

Nearly two months into his campaign, Holden has no Twitter account, and his Facebook page<\/a>, which he updates frequently with videos of him discussing issues, has roughly 110 followers.<\/p>\n

The district is also set to be redrawn soon, and Heck thinks it\u2019s too soon to say how competitive it will be. (Indivisible-24 backed Balter in 2018 and 2020, and Heck says\u00a0the group is focused right now on both local issues<\/a> and pushing nationally for voting rights reform.) That redistricting process hasn\u2019t started yet, but the census data is set to be released later this month, and it will be the first time in the state\u2019s history that district lines are drawn by an independent redistricting commission.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Katko has his own intraparty conflicts to attend to before the election. While the local branch of the Conservative Party of New York announced in April that\u00a0it will not endorse Katko, whether the incumbent faces a real primary threat will depend on if the Conservative Party actually chooses to get behind another candidate.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Intercept, Onondaga County Conservative Party Chair\u00a0Bernard Ment said\u00a0the local party’s\u00a0decision about John Katko \u201cwill ultimately be decided by our state party with recommendations forthcoming from the counties in the Congressional District\u201d and that they are waiting for the redistricting commission to issue its recommendation. \u201cI will say that I have been approached by a number of candidates willing to take up the challenge to primary Mr. Katko for the Republican endorsement and we may be inclined to back a challenger if that individual shows bonafide Conservative credentials,\u201d he said, adding that the decision will ultimately be up to Gerard Kassar, chair of the state Conservative Party, and the state executive committee.<\/p>\n

For now, no other Democratic candidates have jumped into the race, but a source with knowledge of the local Democratic Party said they\u2019re aware of other candidates being recruited and expect some additional people to announce bids soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking forward to reminding voters of Katko’s toxic record and sending him into retirement in 2022,\u201d DCCC spokesperson Abel Iraola said in an email. \u201cHis craven flip-flop on pursuing the truth about the insurrection and his vote against the Child Tax Credit and relief for New York families and small businesses show he is more out of touch with his district than ever before, and make him one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Steven Holden Is the Latest New York Democrat to Try Flipping a Coveted House Seat. Is He Up to the Task?<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats think they have a chance to unseat Rep. John Katko, but some are concerned about Holden\u2019s organizing abilities.<\/p>\n

The post Steven Holden Is the Latest New York Democrat to Try Flipping a Coveted House Seat. Is He Up to the Task?<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277021,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271052\/revisions\/277021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}