The Fall 2026 state committee meeting
Introduction
I was elected in June 2026 to be a Democratic Party District Leader, a volunteer position representing my community to the Queens County Democratic Party. My district, AD28 Part B, has about 20,000 Democrats in Central Queens. Another position on the primary ballot (but only if there is a contested election) is a State Committee Member, which is a representative to the New York State Democratic Party. In Assembly District 28, the two state committee members are Maria Kaufer and Edwin Wong.
From September 30 - October 1, 2026 was the New York State Democratic Committee Reorganizing Meeting, which is where all new and returning state committee members from all across New York state gather to elect officers, discuss issues, and connect in person. While this meeting is centered around state committee members, any person who is a registered member of the Democratic Party can attend. In fact, the registration form included options for “State Committee Member, County Chair, Executive Committee Member, DNC Member, Press, Elected Official, Just a Democrat!, and Other”. With the goal of broadening awareness about this meeting for other Democrats in our area, Maria Kaufer invited me and other local Democrats to attend. I jumped at the opportunity and drove up to the meeting at the Westchester Marriott hotel in Westchester County near the Tappan Zee bridge.
Wednesday, September 30
Wednesday was a day for caucus meetings, software demonstrations, and the welcome reception. The caucus meetings went from 2-6pm, with sessions for the young Democrats, the Jewish caucus, the progressive caucus, the Democratic rural conference, the Hispanic caucus, and the Black caucus. These sessions were not concurrent since people might belong to multiple caucuses. Caucuses discuss issues and propose resolutions. This year the two candidates for state party chair visited the caucuses which gave the candidates an opportunity to address caucus-related issues.
From 4-6pm there were also two sessions to learn about software. I caught the end of the session about NGP VAN, software the state party provides to county and local parties to help with organizing (for a modest fee). This software can drill down into data provided by state and local boards of elections to help local organizers to prioritize where they want to canvass for votes. The presenters were two party staffers engaged to develop better interfaces and infographics for the end users. Since I have experience in data analysis and visualization, it was one of the highlights of the meeting; if we use this information well, it can help to modernize our campaigning and improve turnout and swing seats to the Democratic column.
On Wednesday evening there was an evening reception with appetizers, drinks, mingling, and engaging speeches from our hosts, the Democrats from Westchester County. They had a lot to celebrate—the county had been predominantly Republican for years and now it almost exclusively elects Democrats. I enjoyed the way they started the evening. They said: For everyone from the South (New York City and Long Island), welcome to the place you call “upstate”. For everyone from the North, welcome to a place (that doesn’t exist) called “downstate”. The joke is that anyone from upstate New York would never call this highly urbanized place “upstate” and no one living in Westchester County or the NY Metropolitan Area calls any part of New York State “downstate”. The evening’s speeches were capped off by Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the New York State Senate Leader who lives in and represents Westchester County.
Thursday, October 1
Thursday was a day to hold a meeting of the Executive Committee, elect officers, and hear inspiring speeches from key figures in the party. That means that if you are only going to attend one of the two days, this is the one that counts.
The day started with a breakfast that allowed for more time for mingling, during which time I was able to meet new people from Queens - yay!. Then we moved over to a big room with a HUGE square table for the “Joint Meeting of the Executive Committee and County Chairs”. This meeting was particularly quick because it only involved approving minutes and a treasurer’s report. Normally time would be spent to approve nominations for incoming officers but that was tabled to the general meeting because there was going to be a vote for state party chair. (See below.) It’s worth noting that even if this meeting was for executive officers and county chairs, all meeting attendees could attend—that was excellent transparency.
We then moved over to the other room set up with chairs facing a podium for the main event. The agenda included “Call to Order, Pledge of Allegiance, Opening and Welcome, Filling of Vacancies, Approval of Minutes, Treasurer’s Report, Party Reorganization, and Judicial District Caucusing”. The formal process of filling of vacancies is something that is foreign to me as a political novice. (I’ll have more to say about filling vacancies in a future post.) Basically, not every state committee member position gets filled during the primary election (or people vacate the position once elected), so the people who are represented by these vacant seats need the opportunity to be represented. That means there needs to be a mechanism to fill those seats, which is laid out in the Party Rules, Section 12(a). What happens in practice is that names are put forth (often by the county chairs or another member) and all the vacancies are filled by affirmative voice vote. If this is contested, there would be a vote by the body about which member(s) to seat.
Party reorganization is where you elect the state party chair and the other executive officers. The only contested seat was for state party chair. Throughout the morning session we had speeches from Democratic congressional candidates, like Pat Ryan (incumbent in NY 18th) and Cait Conley (challenger in NY 17th), as well as political heavyweights, including Andrea Stewart-Cousins (NYS Senate Leader), Carl Heastie (NYS Assembly Leader), Adrienne Adams (Candidate for Lieutenant Governor), and to round it off, the Governor of the State of New York, Kathy Hochul. For these speakers, I am sure it was great to be able to speak to a friendly audience; the energy in the room was palpable.
The day ended with more of a whimper as all the state committee members assembled into groups depending where in the 13 Judicial Districts of New York they represent. The groups needed to choose two representatives. Honestly, I am not sure what these positions are and what their importance is. It will be something more to learn the next time around!
A contested race for state party chair
This state committee meeting was different from past years because there was a contested race for the state party chair. The two candidates running were Jay Jacobs (the incumbent state party chair and once chair of the Nassau County Democratic Party) and Caitlin Ogden (the challenger and current chair of the Otsego County Democratic Party). There is a good writeup about her challenge in City and State. It appeared to me that this contest mirrored the national discussion surrounding between the established and older wing of the Democratic party with a message of “we’re doing well; stay the course!” and a more activist and younger wing of the Democratic party that says “the status quo is not working!”. Given the messaging from our own District Leader campaign (“Democrats for Change”), it is obvious which candidate’s message resonates with me.
While I could not vote in the election (because I am not a state committee member), I could observe what was happening. It was an uphill battle from the start for the challenger. Mrs. Ogden and her allies arrived with buttons, informational flyers, and the goal of convincing undecided voters to her side. There was a concerted effort to determine who were the newly elected state committee members and encourage them to vote for the upstart candidate. These discussions happened more behind the scenes than publicly. On the other hand, Mr. Jacobs, as an established incumbent chair, has an enormous head start. He has the whole party apparatus and a broad and deep cadre of loyalists behind him—they had worked the phones before the meeting, calling established and new state committee members to shore up support. They had printed out “I’m with Jay!” stickers for people to put on their lapels and multiple confident staffers were not shy about publicly encouraging people to take and proudly wear a sticker.
One additional aspect of the vote is that Mr. Jacobs had publicly thrown his support behind the Brooklyn Can’t Wait coalition. In June 2026 this coalition had won enough District Leader seats to lead the Brooklyn Democratic Party; however, the corrupt outgoing leadership of the county party had decided to bend the rules to keep power. (Read more here.) Since Brooklyn District Leaders are also State Committee Members, Mr. Jacobs earned many of their votes in the state party chair election. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Jacobs made a nod to the situation by appearing to throw shade at the outgoing leadership of the Brooklyn Democratic Party—that one thing that distinguishes us (the Democratic party) from them (the Republican party) is that “we respect the results of elections”.
The vote took place through a transparent process involving “clickers”. Each state committee member was given a clicker device that had their weighted vote loaded, as well as the weighted vote for any proxy votes they were carrying. The screen helped to show who had voted and who was left to vote. A few clickers ran out of batteries and the corresponding votes needed to be recorded and tabulated by hand.
To his credit, throughout the process, Mr. Jacobs insisted that having a challenger was good for the party. He said that he welcomed the challenge, and after he was elected with 80% of the votes, he extended an invitation to Mrs. Ogden to join him and bring her ideas into the fold to strengthen the state party.
Takeaway messages
- Political organizations are not awash in cash. This went contrary to my expectations as an outsider who sees eye-popping contribution amounts to candidates in the news. That money is collected by candidates for spending on campaigns but those sums do not trickle over to state and local party organizations to host meetings. The meeting itself was rather bare bones. There were the normal hotel pens, paper, and mints, and there were two pleasant receptions. I’m not sure where the money for the evening reception came from but I understand the morning breakfast was paid for by the state party chair. There weren’t any vendors vying to get our attention (I am guessing that would be illegal), which probably explains why most large academic conferences I’ve attended appear to be better funded than this meeting.
- These are all volunteer positions. This is an extension to the previous point. State committee members, district leaders, and county committee members are all volunteer positions. Members are expected to organize the people they represent, coordinate with fellow members, collect petition signatures, attend events in the community, and go to these meetings on their own time and on their own dime. That’s why many of these members are earning money by working for political candidates (in their offices for example) or are political candidates themselves. The work of a political party needs to get done and it’s being supported by the people who understand how important the work is.
- Politicians are skilled at politics. I don’t expect this to surprise you, but it bears mentioning. People in these positions have plenty of experience with political campaigns, so they are good at networking and lobbying their positions. They understand the implicit and explicit ramifications of their votes. They know that if they want to drum up support for a candidate for chair, it is helpful to appear professional with a slogan, pins, badges, and informational signs and pamphlets. Furthermore, all the elected officials and candidates for public office were amazing communicators—they could connect with the crowd and speak without notes. Their anecdotes were relevant, they did a lot of name dropping, and made their audience feel heard. Being good at politics is a skill and these people have risen to the top based on these skills.
- Different county parties operate differently. County parties are expected to have similar structures in terms of their party officers. However, the ways they build their party apparatuses can vary widely. Let’s compare Brooklyn and Queens. In Brooklyn, each assembly district has two district leaders, who also serve as the state committee members. Their county committee has two to four county committee members for every election district, which means each assembly district has hundreds of county committee members and their entire county committee has about 4000 seats. In Queens, by contrast, each assembly district has two state committee members and four district leaders (people may serve both concurrently). Queens ADs are broken into two executive districts (a Part A and Part B each with two DLs), and each election district has exactly two county committee members. This leads to executive districts with around 40-80 county committee members and the entire county committee has about 2000 seats. Manhattan breaks its assembly districts into four parts. Upstate counties can have much smaller county committees. There is such a variety across the state.
- The event was successful. I would say that the meeting accomplished what it was meant to accomplish. It elected the officers necessary to run the state party. It brought together and engaged Democrats from across the state. It raised the profile of politicians who needed support before November’s election. It gave everyone (and especially newly elected members) a chance to network with experienced members and high-ranking state politicians. And it did so in a short amount of time and without breaking the budget.
Suggestions for improvement
Here are some thoughts on how this event could be improved going forward.
- Actively broaden participation in these political positions. The fact that all these state and local positions are volunteer positions favors people (a) with existing political connections, (b) with the privilege of time and money, and (c) who know how the process works. (These blog posts aim to help with (c).) The party needs to do more to bring people into elected positions who do not already have discretionary financial resources or access to political power.
- Give people more notice. The laws of New York State give guidance about when parties must hold their reorganizing meetings. The Party Rules say that members are given a 25-day notice prior. People need to be able to plan their attendance and any travel costs. Multiple people were not able to attend because of work obligations or pre-scheduled travel. If the date and location can be provided earlier, attendance and engagement will be better.
- Hold officer candidate forums earlier. Even though there was a contested election for chair, all the lobbying took place before the meeting. So even if strong arguments for one candidate or the other were made during the nominating phase, I can’t imagine that many opinions were changed.
- Make member information available to peers. If you are organizing, information is power. Before the meeting many people had no idea who would be there. Who are the state committee members that you might want to lobby for officer elections? Incumbent officers have access to this information and are incentivized to not share this information with others. It is possible to request information from the Boards of Elections about who submitted petitions to get on the ballot. (In New York City these are called the ledgers.) It is possible get information from the Boards of Elections about who won their elections. Putting this information together lets you know who was elected (with or without an election) and where they live, but it does not give you email or phone information for contacting these people at scale. For a more democratic system, this information should be provided to all other people elected to the same body.
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