Morning Digest: Underdog Democrat picks up big late endorsements in Queens district attorney primary
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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. LeadMorning Digest: Underdog Democrat picks up big late endorsements in Queens district attorney primary
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Leading Off ● Queens County, NY District Attorney: Queens County, New York holds its seven-way Democratic primary on Tuesday to succeed longtime District Attorney Richard Brown, who announced he would retire in January and died in office last month. The New York Times wrote in January that Brown’s office still used “a number of hard-nosed policies aimed at compelling people to plead guilty,” and nearly all the seven Democratic candidates have pledged to adopt a considerably more progressive approach. Whomever wins the Democratic nod should have little trouble in the November general election in this deep-blue New York City borough. Campaign Action One candidate has picked up the bulk of the endorsements and national attention in the homestretch. Public defender Tiffany Cabán, who works as an attorney for the New York County Defender Services, is running on a platform of prosecuting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents “who exceed their authority” to detain undocumented immigrants residing in Queens. Cabán, who at 31 is over a decade younger than any of her six rivals, has also stood out with her call to decriminalize sex work. Before this week Cabán already had the support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents part of Queens, as well as Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has made a name for himself nationally for pursuing criminal justice reform. On Tuesday, one week ahead of the primary, Cabán also earned an endorsement from The New York Times, which is the dominant paper in the city. The paper said that, while it believed Cabán didn’t have the “managerial experience” of some of her rivals, she “would come into office unencumbered by ties to the borough power structure and free to pursue her commitment to serve the community by doing more than just winning convictions.” Read more