STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A national social welfare nonprofit organization has Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) in its crosshairs, announcing the financing of a $1 million campaign aimed at unseating the Staten Island Republican leader, the Gothamist has reported.
Organizing a mobilization of volunteers, preparing protests and releasing a series of attack ads just months before the primary, Unrig Our Economy NYC, supported by a mix of current Democratic elected officials and political organizers, is once again thrusting the NY-11 Congressional District into the political spotlight.
Funded by a larger national group called Unrig Our Economy, and advised by the Hub Project, which the Gothamist says has poured millions of dollars into campaigns across the country to pressure Republican members of Congress on policy issues, the group is set to officially announce their launch on Friday.
Drisana Hughes, one of the group’s organizers and a campaign strategist at Stu Loeser and Co., told the Gothamist that Unrig Our Economy NYC hopes to convert the recent momentum of successful unionizing efforts at the Amazon facility in Bloomfield into votes against Republicans, who have traditionally been pro-business. The decision to finance such a campaign, with groups outside the district investing money here, indicates just how highly competitive this Congressional race will be.
“Unrig the Economy is a far-left, dark-money group that supports legislation that fuels inflation and would increase the tax burden on the average American family,” noted Rob Ryan, a campaign spokesman for Nicole Malliotakis.
“The facts are clear, Biden’s ‘recovery package’ and other policies drove up energy and food costs, created a supply chain crisis and brought us the worst inflation in 40 years,” Ryan said.
The district’s congressional lines currently the subject of a lawsuit, with disputed redistricting maps being dubbed by Republican Party officials as “an effort to silence conservative voices,” NY-11 is viewed as one of the city’s only reliably Republican outposts.
According to the Gothamist, outside groups spent more than $15 million in 2020 trying to influence the outcome of NY-11, and voters were bombarded with ads from those organizations.
Max Rose, a moderate Democrat and army veteran who lost his seat to Malliotakis during that race, will battle for his party’s nomination against Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a progressive Afro-Latina candidate who is also an army veteran.
Rose did not return a request for comment on Unrig the Economy’s involvement in the upcoming election by publication of this report.
As a nonprofit, Unrig Our Economy NYC cannot endorse either Democratic candidate. But Gothamist says the group plans to focus on issues around the economy and repairing the Democratic party’s reputation among the middle class. Unrig’s organizer Drisana Hughes even noted in the article that democrats believe they can make a case that Malliotakis has expressed views that are “antithetical to the middle class.”
