Elections are a time when organizers hope to establish their issue as a central priority for both the public and the candidates campaigning to take office. The phrase “electoralizing” an issue during elections has become a frequent term among organizers, but understanding exactly what that means and requires, like much of our movement jargon, can be ambiguous. What campaigners do generally understand is the critical nature of the months before an election and the window of opportunity this time presents where, at the oncoming mercy of the voters, the self-interest of elected decision makers can change. This window provides an opening to break down–or remove altogether–a barrier on a campaign’s path to victory. Analilia Mejia, Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy and previously the Director of New Jersey Working Families summed it up: “Politicians are self interested. Use it.”
The following case study defines “electoralizing” as a strategy that uses an election to help get a direct win on an issue campaign. This can take the form of using the months leading up to an election to make the issue salient in the election and pressure decision makers to enact the policy, defeating a decision maker who opposes the issue, and electing someone who is a champion of the issue. Successfully electoralizing an issue would mean that the difference between the candidates on that specific issue contributes to the election’s outcome. I’ve conducted a series of interviews with organizers and campaigners who have explicitly set out to electoralize an issue and succeeded. The issue, in this case, was paid sick days, and the campaigns that led to its passage in Connecticut, New York City, and subsequently a remarkably successful series of policy victories in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Oregon and beyond. The example provides valuable insights into how electoral moments can transform the dynamics of a campaign and make victory possible. In interviewing these campaigners, I hope to craft a study organizers can pull from, with lessons that explore using an issue in the leveraging of relationships, electoral power, and polarization between candidates within an election to positively determine its outcome.
BEFORE THE CASE: AUTHOR’S REFLECTION
This case study surfaces at a time when organizers are picking up the pieces of the 2024 election and marching forward to secure wins for their communities in state and local races. As the movement persists, we are beginning to plant new seeds –– seeds informed by hard-fought victories and the hard truths buried beneath our losses. This study is meant to serve as an echo of a winning strategy and the context in which it was able to materialize. Today’s organizing context looks different. But the connective tissue between this organizing of the past and how movement allies now are adapting to meet the political moment is the same: each other. The strategy, and I say this holistically, is only as effective as the relationships we build with one another. The best policy to electoralize will always come from the movement and chooses its authors. Whether we choose to electoralize an issue in our respective elections or not, taking time to revisit what’s worked in old-school organizing and reevaluating what you can take or leave behind now is absolutely critical to how our movement can sustain itself –– a constant reassessment and reordering of who to move and how.
There are those who say progressive organizations and our issues are unpopular, costing us material wins in the political arena. I respond: wins for who? The recent mayoral victory by Zorhan Mamdani says otherwise. Perhaps what was costing the win was the cowardice in leaning fully into what the people are calling for. Electoralizing an issue, in this case paid sick days, is a living and breathing reminder to who our wins are for. The lessons highlighted throughout this study offer practices and tactics that may point to the need for a shift, both in how we approach our campaigns and in the language and strategies we use to make our priorities cut through the vicious machinery of partisan politics. But let there be no mistake, behind the noise and violence of this machine and the deep opposition from powerful corporate interests, our movement is a popular one. Let our past and our present lessons be a reminder, refusing to fall into the status quo does not make us a liability, it makes us dangerous.
PAID SICK DAYS POLICY
Paid sick time refers to short-term time off that workers can use when they are sick, injured, receiving medical treatment, or taking on medical caregiving responsibilities. This can include both serious conditions and everyday health needs such as the flu, a cold, or food poisoning (Williamson, 2023). Prior to 2010, no states in the U.S. had any requirement for employers to provide paid sick days. Merely one city, San Francisco, had any sort of paid protections for workers when they were sick, making the U.S. an outlier among an abundance of countries. Even with San Francisco’s law, passed in 2006, the policy did not migrate to other jurisdictions until 2011 when a wave of state and local campaign victories on paid sick days began to take shape, effectively moving the issue into mainstream Democratic policy. This wave began in Connecticut, where the first statewide paid sick days policy would be implemented into law in 2011. Not long after, campaigners began to secure victories in New York City, Jersey City, Newark, and Philadelphia. Today, 18 states and 21 cities guarantee paid sick days to workers, and many others have gone further in adopting more extensive paid family and medical leave policies for longer term needs.
The Electoral Context in Connecticut
While today we think of Connecticut as a “deep blue” state with a track record of passing progressive policy, that wasn’t always the reality. From 1991 to 2010, Republicans held the Governor’s office, which constrained moderate Democrats from advancing progressive policies for fear of vetoes. In November, 2009, Republican Governor Jodi Rell announced she would not seek re-election, creating a pivotal moment for Democrats. Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy faced off against wealthy businessman Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Despite Lamont’s early lead due to his financial resources and name recognition from a previous campaign against Senator Joe Lieberman, Malloy secured a surprising victory with 57% of the vote. In the general election, Malloy and Republican Tom Foley were seen as evenly matched, but Malloy won by a mere 6,404 votes, making it the closest gubernatorial election in Connecticut’s history. A key factor in his victory was a cross-endorsement from the Connecticut Working Families Party, which provided him with an additional 26,308 votes. This win marked the first Democratic governorship in two decades and set the stage for the passage of paid sick days in Connecticut the following year.
The Electoral Context in New York
Since 1993, New York City had a chain of Republican and Republican-endorsed Mayors. Starting with Rudy Giuliani’s two terms, Republican Michael Bloomberg succeeded him with his election in 2001, then taking a second term in 2005. After his two first terms, Bloomberg controversially persuaded the City Council to extend term limits, running for a third term as an Independent on the Republican and Independence/Jobs & Education ballot lines in 2009. As his third term was ending, Bloomberg’s close ally on the City Council, then-council speaker Christine Quinn, announced her candidacy for Mayor. Quinn was the heir apparent to Bloomberg and an early favorite. She was also running on a campaign to break a centuries old glass ceiling as the would-be first woman Mayor in NYC history, the timing not too long after Connecticut’s win on paid sick days. Also running in the Democratic primary for Mayor was New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, along with Representative Anthony Weiner, former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and the current Comptroller John Liu. Weiner’s campaign famously imploded in a repeat sexting scandal, potentially clearing an easier path for Quinn. But that was not how it played out, and the issue of paid sick days was a major reason why.
ELECTORALIZING PRECONDITIONS & PRACTICES
The focus on Connecticut and New York’s paid sick days examples aims to showcase the conditions and practices that seem fundamental to electoralizing an issue. No two campaigns are the same. The specific circumstances that made electoralizing possible for both of these instances were different. Yet the core of how advocates laid out the groundwork, capitalized on candidate discourse, and leveraged the power they had remained similar, even in varying political circumstances and contexts. This became a playbook of replicable tools for the wave of paid sick days campaigns across the country that quickly followed. While electoralizing an issue may not be applicable in just any election or even any issue, the appropriate preconditions found from the paid sick days example provide valuable insight for future campaigners.
Preconditions
1) The issue needs to be easily understood and widely supported
A repeated observation from the campaigners that I spoke with was that the strategy of electoralizing an issue doesn’t work for every issue. The key starting point advocates in Connecticut and New York required was the issue itself. The issue of paid sick days could be made salient through electoralizing within the public and the political class because it was easily digestible, applicable to most people (anyone who works, has worked, or has someone in their life that works), and was one that could be made popular. Lindsay Farrell, a Senior Political Strategist at the Working Families Party, noted that:
“Paid sick days was very tangible, in a way that some issues aren’t. If you work at all, whether you have paid sick days or not, you either understand how much it sucks to not have a safety net, or you appreciate it because you do have it. It’s very easy for people to connect to. I don’t think you can easily electoralize every issue.”
As Javier Valdes, then Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York, reflected on the nature of the paid sick days as an issue, he mentioned that:
“It created a very distinct ‘what side are you on?’ question that people understood … It was just the right wedge issue that allowed us to kind of differentiate between the different candidates, because a lot of times these mayoral candidates don’t have that much distinction on where they stand on issues. But that’s an opportunity. You can make your issue the distinction. This one was one that was stark, and the media ate it up.”
An issue, to be electoralized, must have language that can both make sense to anyone without much of explanation, and paired with organizing that helps make connections for people to understand how they themselves are touched by this campaign.
2) A competitive election with at least one viable candidate who publicly champions the issue
It is worth noting that both Connecticut and New York’s races were open elections, having no incumbent and a highly competitive environment. Both candidates who ended up winning the races were not initially seen as the front runners of their respective races. Paid sick leave was an issue on which the candidates needed to differentiate themselves from their opposition. Valdes also spoke to the necessity of the election being competitive, noting open elections as a key factor:
“I would first say open elections –– when there’s not an incumbent. It allows for more things to push the envelope of what is possible. Let’s say we were trying to do this under Mike Bloomberg, running a progressive against him. It would not have been as contentious of an issue and to be honest, he wouldn’t have even cared about it. But because it was an open seat, it allowed for some issues to break through when they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Getting candidates to champion an issue — and ensuring those who do actually win — requires significant political muscle. This power was evident in the decisive endorsement of Dan Malloy in Connecticut and the extent to which candidates in competitive elections coveted the party’s endorsement. That power was evident in the Working Families Party ability to move the petition to discharge in New York City, a procedural rule allowing a bill sponsor to force a vote despite the Speaker’s objections, provided they gather signatures from 12 council members. For any City Council member to sign that petition was a direct confrontation with the Speaker and presumptive next Mayor. This high-risk tactic was only possible because of the Party’s reputation as a political powerhouse. “We had elected a bunch of people in the City Council against the machine,” explained Bill Lipton, the New York State Director of the Working Families Party at the time. “So there were a bulk of people who were more loyal to us and saw us as their path to a bigger future.”
Alison Hirsh, at the time the Political Director of SEIU Local 32BJ, added that the Working Families Party’s ability to move council members on the petition to discharge, combined with SEIU 32BJ’s endorsement of Quinn, was a powerful combination.
“When people are scared because they can see your ability to win targeted races, that you can move a mass amount of people, and that you follow through on your threats and commitments, you have something there. Us nearly using the petition to discharge on Quinn was us following through. Us endorsing Quinn when she followed through on our demands was also us following through on our commitments. That was where our power was.”
Emmanuel Caicedo, then Legislative Director of the Working Families Party, went on to speak on building that power, even when your issue isn’t the sole-focus issue, sharing that:
“There’s never one issue in an election. There’s almost always a variety of key issues depending on your location and election … but by using the petition as our tool of power, it was enough. To electoralize, you need to leverage the loopholes, the bits and pieces of power you can collectively get, and use it against your opposition on your specific issue. It was enough, and I’m proud and confident that we did the right thing. And on our way there, we built a broad coalition. It’s important to create that network, to work together to electoralize the issue and make it happen. It can’t be just you.”
The two preconditions establish the foundation in which an issue can be electoralized. However, the tactics and practices each of these campaigners applied represent the tools they used to effectively execute their electoralization strategies and achieve success.
Tactics & Practices
1) A steady and consistent drumbeat of communications.
Joe Dinkin, the then Communications Director for the Connecticut Working Families Party, had shared that the Connecticut paid sick days campaign executed reports, petitions, letters to electeds, and events and drove content about the issue to the media on a weekly basis. Lipton mentioned that New York’s consistent media pushes
“made paid sick days something that people would have to question whether or not they could even support a candidate or seated elected if they weren’t for it. We made it a front page news story, repeatedly, so that this standard was set. So I think the fight was more about salience and making it an issue that people visibly and vocally cared about, rather than an issue that people just softly supported.”
Dinkin also shared that in Connecticut, they used the media pushes to connect voters to the issue, mentioning::
“We recruited workers without paid sick days, doctors, small business owners, and all kinds of other people who touched the issue in one way or another. We educated everyone we could and we made it personal.”
Voters themselves weren’t the only audience that mattered in the communications strategy around the issue. That ongoing drumbeat of coverage generated “public and political class penetration before the actual election time.” While efforts to win paid sick days in the past had been unsuccessful, Dinkin spoke to how these efforts paved the way for the eventual win, adding:
“I don’t think the work leading up to the electoral moment was wasted. I think, had we not done that, Ned Lamont never would have even been asked about it. He never would have bothered to have a position on paid sick days in the first place, and Dan Malloy would have never used it against him.”
It was this kind of media narrative that caused reporters to ask candidates questions about the issue, and set the stage for these efforts to take place.
2) Significant volume of constituent voter contact
Particularly in Connecticut, the campaign featured a strong field operation, with organizers going door to door in the districts of wavering legislators, asking residents to write a personal letter to their legislator. Farrell shared her recount of this operation:
“Folks would write a personal letter by hand and they would tape it to the outside of their door so the canvassers could collect them at the end of their shift. Then we would copy them and mail them to the Senator’s office the next day. We got a ton of these letters and they were all personal and hand-written. Some of them were just a sentence or two long but a lot of them had incredibly moving stories.”
Getting thousands of personal handwritten letters to state representatives made it so the issue was felt as something that could impact, and potentially harm, legislators politically.
3) Making it so politically impactful, endorsements hinge on this issue
It’s worth considering it may not always be you that’s best fit to deliver the message. In Connecticut, the Working Families Party’s unyielding prioritization of paid sick days above all other issues sent a very clear message to anyone seeking their endorsement. This was especially impactful given their endorsement could mean votes coming from the Working Families ballot line, which ultimately proved to give Malloy the winning edge. In New York, mobilizing Gloria Steinem to threaten pulling Quinn’s endorsement sent consequential shockwaves to Quinn’s campaign. When asked about how to center an issue in a politically impactful way, Lipton responded:
“Endorsement power. The big names. Celebrities, elected officials, leaders. Full pages out of the New York Times. As you do the work to mobilize the community around your issue, also using the individual power people have to influence key actors. Identifying who holds the weight to drive your message. It is all about finding the electoral muscle.”
When speaking on 32BJ’s compromise to endorse Quinn once she had come to the negotiating table, following the threat of the petition to discharge, Hirsh also spoke to Quinn’s fear of the potential political harm:
“So the key piece about New York City was that because the candidate was in a position of power, by electoralizing the issue, we managed to hurt her election prospects and do so in a way that she felt threatened. The possibility of losing Gloria Steinem’s endorsement was a big threat, and the possibility of 32BJ’s endorsement mattered. That threat required her to act quickly, in the moment. Not in a way that promised future action, in a way that was then and there.”
The tactics and practices presented through this series of interviews adapts baseline methods for using an election to help get a direct win on an issue campaign. If you’d like to dive into the stories behind these tactics and practices pulled from these campaigns, we’ll now explore the real-world applications of these strategies and the people who brought them to life.
Paid Sick Days in Connecticut
The Working Families Party had been the lead organization pushing for paid sick days legislation for three years prior to the hotly contested governor’s race. They had succeeded in getting the bill passed in each chamber of the legislature, but never in the same year. While the bill may not have passed in its previous attempts, the ongoing fight for paid sick days made it a well known “hot button issue” among the political class and set the stage for Connecticut’s gubernatorial race of 2010. After several years of advocates pushing for paid sick days in the legislature, the policy now had a known history. Dinkin mentioned in his interview:
“What the Working Families Party and partner advocates had succeeded in doing over a period of a couple of years, was making the issue highly salient in the electorate and, in particular, the political class”.
As the Democratic primary for Governor began, the issue was ripe for campaigners to inject it into the debate. The stage was set by Ned Lamont’s opposition to paid sick days, who aimed to rebrand himself as a moderate democrat for the election. But, as Dinkin elaborated, Lamont was not the only candidate who tried to use this issue to position himself in the mind of voters. From the Malloy campaign’s perspective, Lamont had made a critical error.
“It was an issue Malloy understood to be a popular thing to support, helping him characterize Lamont as a rich, out-of-touch business person who didn’t understand what ordinary people were going through”.
Despite being around 20 points behind just three weeks before election day, Dan Malloy strategically leveraged TV ads to highlight his support for paid sick days, distinguishing himself from his primary opponent. This focused messaging proved effective, helping him secure the Democratic primary and carry momentum into the general election. Although the issue became less prominent later in the campaign, Malloy continued to frame Republican opponent Tom Foley as an out-of-touch CEO, reinforcing his commitment to working people. With the endorsement of the Working Families Party, Malloy remained steadfast in his advocacy for paid sick days. Lindsay Farrell emphasized that maintaining the issue’s salience was essential throughout the election cycle, with the groundwork laid prior being pivotal for both the campaign’s success and Malloy’s unwavering commitment to the cause.
“He was already on the record. And the victory still meant a commitment to the issue because it was central at some point in the campaign. There was a large sense of understanding that he had no choice but to go and implement it now”.
Malloy’s victory provided paid sick days advocates with a powerful ally in the Governor’s office, but the campaign’s work was far from over. The Working Families Party capitalized on their momentum, employing a robust strategy to counter corporate lobbying efforts. A key component of their approach was a grassroots ground game, which involved canvassers visiting districts of moderate Democrats to encourage voters to write personalized letters to their State Senators in support of paid sick days. This effort proved persuasive; One swing vote, Edward Meyer, a state senator who was skeptical about the sick-leave mandate, conceded that a blitz of calls, letters, and e-mails from constituents convinced him to co-sponsor the measure: “We don’t get 2,000 messages from constituents on many issues.
A second tool of the Working Families Party utilized was earned media. Dinkin also explained that the party had an aggressive earned media strategy in the prior legislative sessions, but went into overdrive to combat the counteroffensive from the business lobby:
“We ran an extremely aggressive media campaign. We did events at the capitol that included things like ‘doctors for paid sick’ and ‘women for paid sick’ to get various constituency angles. We did goofy stunts that included moms with baby onesies dropping off 1000s of petition signatures. We gathered petition signatures and letters to drop them off in mass with press there, over and over. We were publicizing every committee vote, because that’s where we could get at least some members on the record. We were organizing press conferences. We pushed out reports and content about the issue to the media on a weekly basis. It was an extremely steady drumbeat.”
Finally, the Working Families Party endorsement process, and ability to put candidates on its own line on the ballot, was a critical tool. Getting Malloy’s name on the Working Families line on the general election ballot through their cross endorsement was a strategic decision early on, Farrell explained:
“The WFP questionnaire’s first question was: ‘Do you support a paid sick days standard?’ The second question was, ‘If you said no, given this is the main legislative priority of the WFP, why are you seeking our endorsement?’ We made a decision around making endorsements where we would give leeway on some of our other priorities for the sake of paid sick days. If your questionnaire was only around 80% good because a couple of things they indicated they weren’t fully with us on, we decided that was okay, as long as they were good on paid sick days. It was a sacrifice we were willing to make.”
The Working Families cross endorsement gave Malloy the sufficient votes, with paid sick days boldly marked across the newly elected Governor’s campaign promises. The increased focus on the issue of paid sick days throughout the Working Families Party’s overall endorsement process yielded some surprising results. Farrell again:
“We even endorsed two Republicans in the State Senate because they had actually voted for the bill in the past and pledged to do so again in the future. Those endorsements were pretty controversial and we got a ton of blowback from the Democratic Party. But the fact is, we passed the bill by a single vote in the Senate and one of those Republicans was the deciding ‘Yes’ vote.”
The impact of the series of wins that came from electoralizing paid sick days continues today. Connecticut’s Governor Ned Lamont –– once running on a platform staunchly opposed to paid sick days –– has been urging the Connecticut General Assembly to approve legislation that expands paid sick days to all workers in the state. As of May 6th of 2024, the Connecticut legislature has passed the major expansion. This continued momentum can be attributed to each of those early campaign wins, with the strategy of electoralizing the issue creating a lasting policy turned law.
Paid Sick Days in New York
Emboldened by the win in Connecticut, paid sick days advocates saw an opening to win in New York City. As was the case in Connecticut, the legislation had been championed on the City Council for years and had strong support, with 35 out of 51 members as cosponsors. But Mayor Bloomberg was staunchly opposed to the bill and had threatened to veto it if given the opportunity. The bigger barrier, however, was City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who, as Speaker, had the power to ensure that Bloomberg never had to use his veto by refusing to bring the legislation to the floor of the chamber for a vote.
This however turned out to be one of several issues where Quinn’s allegiance to Bloomberg damaged her political prospects. Lipton characterized this as
“a fundamental misread of the electorate. They made a guess that people wanted a fourth Bloomberg term. They ran with that, and they didn’t want any stark contrast between Quinn and Bloomberg on paid sick days that would contradict her narrative”.
That error created space for one of Quinn’s chief rivals –– Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio –– to own paid sick days on the campaign. As in Connecticut, the contrast on paid sick days between candidates created a key opening for paid sick days campaigners to drive the wedge further. Throughout the campaign period, Caicedo noted that advocates and community organizations drove consistent local actions and media pushes around paid sick days at a time where it became a primary discourse between the two candidates. Larger and hyper-local town halls were put forward to educate the working class on the policy, hoping to increase its public popularity. Caicedo went on to mention that:
“This was an issue that could be cut in 1000 ways. So the messaging had to be widespread, public, and consistent. Paid sick days was an issue that was championed for a long time by women advocates. Legacy organizations were calling it a woman’s issue, and it was. It was also a health issue; a worker justice issue. We had to be consistent with our messaging, but also simultaneously cut it in different ways where its base could be expanded. We had to make it not only a women’s issue, but also a race and class one.”
The perception of paid sick days as a women’s issue created a stark contrast with Quinn’s campaign narrative. That contrast exploded into public view when feminist icon Gloria Steinem, an early backer of Quinn’s, threatened to retract her endorsement if Quinn continued to block a vote on the paid sick days bill. Lisa Guide, the Associate Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund which had been funding campaigns in both Connecticut and NYC explained:
“The community around advocacy and activism for women in New York is very powerful. At a time when Quinn was running to be New York City’s first woman Mayor, she had really looked to get the support of women, democratic women, for her primary. Gloria Steinem in many ways was, and still is, the matriarch of that community. So to have someone like Gloria publicly criticize her on an issue, to threaten to pull her endorsement for the democratic woman running for Mayor … I mean, many people analyze her defeat by De Blasio in that election being because she didn’t uplift and support the paid sick leave law.”
Mobilizing someone who had political weight became a pivotal move in deepening the electoralizing work for paid sick days within the election. The threat was powerful, but still not sufficient to pressure Quinn to drop her opposition and allow a vote. At that point, the paid sick days campaigners decided on what they called “The Nuclear Option”: the petition to discharge. Due to the fear of retribution by the Speaker, this rule had rarely, if ever, been invoked in the City’s history. Lipton shared:
“The petition was seen as a nuclear option. The speaker did not want to be seen as losing control of the body … So from now, things could go awry, but from a press perspective, you got something coming to the floor over Quinn’s objection, with a veto proof majority committed to vote for it. That’s a dogfight.”
Left with no other options, the campaign pursued the petition and was able to enlist the necessary 12 council members to sign. Hirsh in her role at SEIU Local 32BJ –– a politically powerful union in New York City that both strongly backed the paid sick days legislation –– was also considering endorsing Quinn for Mayor. As soon as word got out the signatures for the petition to discharge had been collected, Hirsh noted:
“Almost immediately, I received a call directly from Quinn’s political advisor, who told me ‘Quinn is willing to negotiate on paid sick leave but will only negotiate with you. Only 32BJ can be in the room.’ My belief was that as her allies, she had hoped and expected that we would still endorse her if she fulfilled paid sick days. And after that conversation, we did, in the end.”
The negotiations resulted in a bill that was less than what the advocates fought for, but still an improvement on the Connecticut legislation and therefore progress. Quinn was the hero of the moment, but the fight over the issue took its toll on her mayoral aspirations. As Hirsh explained:
“What we did in New York City was make Christine Quinn’s unwillingness to move the paid sick days bill such a huge political liability, both internally in the council and then externally on the campaign, that she had no choice but to do something. But by the time she did do something, it was too late to fix the reputational damage that had been done. There was a real combination of labor and progressive pressure, but I also think that as the first woman running for mayor, the pressure she got from Gloria Steinem calling her out for not doing right by the public, and the vocal nature of the unions, it became too much to come back from.”
When Quinn went on to pass a version of paid sick days following these negotiations, she was hoping it would be enough to prevent further reputational damage and showcase her control. Valdes broke it down:
“Chris Quinn was trying to demonstrate that she could hold the city down and be an effective mayor. By passing a watered down bill, she thought she would be showing, ‘I can control the lefties. And I’m good for business. And I can control my own house.’ We were trying to contest for that and make it as hard as possible for her to be able to say that, because in doing so we thought we could get a better deal for paid sick days … She wore her self interest on her sleeve.”
As is now well known, DeBlasio surged past Quinn and other rivals to win the Mayoral election. But even after Quinn had passed a compromise version of the bill, the momentum and public pressure that had built around the election on sick days left a visible expectation for DeBlasio to go further still once in office. Hirsh shared:
“One of the added benefits of how this all played out was that, when Quinn did agree to a compromise, she of course was surrounded by advocates praising her, even if they knew she was really forced to do it. But for De Blasio, the only thing he could do at that point was complain that the compromise wasn’t good enough. So when de Blasio was elected he had to kind of show everyone that he meant it when he said it wasn’t good enough. So one of his first acts in office was expanding the scope of the bill to cover a lot more workers.”
The piece that makes the New York Paid Sick Days fight special was the coalition of advocacy organizations coming together on the issue to get this victory. While all working alongside one another, it is worth noting that organizations like 32BJ, Make the Road Nevada, New York Communities for Change, and the Working Families Party weren’t all completely aligned on components like endorsements and ended up in different places throughout the Mayoral election itself. Having all of these organizations that were somewhat divided on the election itself, but were nonetheless conspiring together on this issue, required deep trust, something that only came from years of being in the trenches together to create a progressive infrastructure. Caicedo shared:
“The tactics and strategies were important, but more important were the organizations, the coalition you build. More important is the progressive infrastructure and having progressive candidates in the election you’re targeting. There is a whole ecosystem that you need to create before this fight. If you don’t have that, then you have nothing … All of this also allowed for it to be introduced in neighboring cities like Jersey City and Newark very soon after. And in those places, they also relied on the progressive infrastructure we had all built, together.”
CONCLUSIONS
In the end, what this case study shows me most clearly is that our fights are never just about the policy or the tactic — they’re about what we choose to build around them. Electoral strategies can win material gains, yes, but they also test our willingness to hold contradictions, to compromise when it matters, and to prioritize our larger, long-term vision. As I wrote out the findings of this case study, I found it particularly worth uplifting a point made by Lipton:
“One thing just to note is that electoralizing assumes a transactional kind of politics that’s focused on an issue and getting elected officials to do it. Post-Bernie, there’s a different model, which is much more ideological … There’s going to be a co-governance aspect, where they are going to work together on a whole range of policies and there’s going to be accountability there. I’m not saying that this approach is better or more realistic, but I am pointing out that a different approach can have a lot of impact on issues depending on your context. I think there’s a healthy conversation to be had between those two ways. We should critique and be aware of the shortcomings of using an election to pass a singular bill.”
In both of the examples I describe, campaigners made a decision to use their power in that moment to secure a win on a specific issue. In the case of Connecticut, the Working Families Party endorsed candidates with whom the party disagreed on many issues because they believed it improved their chances of winning on this one issue. The Working Families Party’s decision to endorse a Republican like John Kissel, while arguably unconventional, got him to be the deciding ‘yes’ vote that won paid sick days. This example speaks to a pivotal critique to consider with electoralizing while also validating its power as a strategy. It was, as Lipton describes, transactional. Yet such compromises made people’s lives better as a result. Hundreds of thousands of workers gained paid sick days, all because of a single vote cast by one of those Republican Senators. I’d also be remiss if it weren’t acknowledged that times have so vastly changed. Would this compromise be as productive now in a climate more hyper-partisan than ever? To use a strategy like electoralizing an issue is like cradling a flame in your palms — protecting it from wind, yet not so tight that you smother it; It must be done with extreme care. What’s the bigger picture? As individual organizers part of larger coalitions, it’s worth remembering that the electoral work is not about electing our saviors, but rather, electing our opponents.
The method of electoralizing is not singular to paid sick days. Organizers and advocates may have been electoralizing issues their communities care about for decades, even if perhaps they were unaware of the political jargon that would encapsulate the strategy behind their work into a word. Campaigners understand there is no one way to organize, what that means changing with each day. As advocates look forward to the elections and candidates that campaign to represent us, it is crucial to be nimble yet develop the work in a way that refuses to be moved at their will. The campaigns must move them. The practices and experiences of past organizer’s successes hopefully pose valuable insight to electoralizing, a strategy that uses moments of opportunity to make the laws and policies in service of our communities undeniable –– immovable.