Rep. Pat Ryan is endorsing a slate of local candidates statewide through his Patriot PAC \u2013 but don\u2019t read into his decision to get involved too much, according to Ryan. Despite his name being on many lips for statewide office, he\u2019s hoping to help steer a new generation of \u201cserivice-minded\u201d Democrats for the love of the democracy game.<\/p>\n
This slate includes a total of 85 candidates<\/a> running for everything from town council to state Senate across 26 counties. That\u2019s up from 17 total counties Ryan\u2019s Patriot PAC endorsed in last year, after forming the PAC in September<\/a> to support candidates from \u201cpublic service backgrounds\u201d such as military veterans and teachers.\u00a0 He called the efforts in 2025 \u201chugely successful\u201d \u2013 three-quarters of the candidates Patriot PAC supported won their races \u2013 and said he hoped to build on the momentum this year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s just been really rewarding to get to know these candidates, see them working hard and then support them in these races,\u201d the Hudson Valley Democrat told City & State. \u201cThe goal is just to get more service-minded candidates who have… walked the walk on true community service, and almost definitionally haven’t come up through the traditional political machinery.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, one of Ryan\u2019s endorsed candidates is state Sen. Jeremy Zellner, who embodies the \u201ctraditional political machinery\u201d as the longtime chair of the Erie County Democratic Party who oversaw his own selection by the party to run in a special election earlier this year. Asked about that particular endorsement, Ryan did not explain his specific reasoning for weighing in in that race. \u201cI think the core idea is less about the political dynamics of an individual race and more about\u2026 the individual caliber of the candidate,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patriot PAC is indeed supporting a range of candidates Democratic primaries \u2013 some incumbents, some insurgents and some running for open seats. Ryan backed Assembly Member Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, for example, who is seeking to unseat state Sen. Jessica Ramos. He also endorsed Assembly candidates Ryder Kessler and Eli Northrup, both running for open seats in Manhattan.\u00a0<\/p>\n The PAC additionally endorsed a number of candidates running to flip Republican-held seats in the state Legislature, including state Senate candidate Lisa Kaul from Poughkeepsie and Assembly candidate Chloe Pierce in the Capitol Region.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an awful lot of races to get involved in, and hyper local to boot in many cases. They\u2019re the kind of elections one might expect someone with statewide ambitions might choose to influence. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has similarly endorsed big slates in the past \u2013 though has yet to make many local endorsements yet this year. But Ryan said that\u2019s not why he\u2019s doing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI just think we have to fucking win right now,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is such an existential amount of harm being done, and risk that constituents are facing. Everybody has to do the maximum that they can in this moment to win.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal for Ryan, he said, is to have the Democratic Party be a big tent, which includes more moderate candidates like himself, and progressives like Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom he endorsed after the 2025 primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe way the governor (Kathy Hochul) and the mayor have operated together in broadening the coalition is a great example of that,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cI’ve tried to model that \u2013 Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and I have done a bunch together\u2026 We don’t agree on every single thing, but we’re focusing on the things we agree on, and people have really responded to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan said he hasn\u2019t given thought about the prospect of running for governor or U.S. Senate, even if he admitted his desire for expanded influence on the direction of the Democratic Party. \u201cFor me personally, I want to have the maximum influence to win these races and get the party in a better place,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t think that’s about a seat or a position.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rep. Pat Ryan is endorsing a slate of local candidates statewide through his Patriot PAC \u2013 but don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":814159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,13260,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,257380,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-814158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-campaigns-elections","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-pat-ryan","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116617245310750287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}