SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones said Wednesday that he is seeking to win back the suburban New York congressional seat he lost after redistricting juggled the state’s congressional maps last year.
Jones, 36, a Harvard Law School graduate who in 2020 become one of the first two gay Black men elected to Congress, touted his working-class roots in a video announcing his campaign.
“Most people in Washington didn’t grow up like me,” said Jones, who was raised by a single mother in the Rockland County community of Spring Valley, which is in the district he represented for one term. “They have no idea what it’s like to struggle.”
Elected to represent New York’s 17th Congressional District, north of New York City, Jones was among those who lost in the state’s contentious 2022 redistricting process, which put him in the same district as former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.
Rather than running in the redrawn 17th District, Jones joined a crowded Democratic primary field in the 10th Congressional District in New York City, losing to former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman, who went on to win the general election.
Maloney lost narrowly to Republican Michael Lawler in the 17th District in a 2022 election that saw Republican candidates pick up several New York seats.
Other Democrats seeking to represent the 17th District include Liz Whitmer Gereghty, a Katonah-Lewisboro school board member and sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
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