This morning, Peekskill Democratic Chair Drew Claxton sent a letter to a slate of candidates challenging Peekskill’s endorsed Democratic candidates asking that they pledge to support the winner of the Democratic Primary in June for the November general election. In the letter, the endorsed Democratic candidates made the same pledge they are asking of their opponents. The letter comes after the chair of the Working Families Party pledged at the challengers’ kickoff event that they would run as a third party in November. He stated: “Even if the slate doesn’t make it in June, they’ll still be on the ballot in November… They’ll still get another bite at the apple in November, and I think anything can happen in November.”
Such a spoiler campaign would both directly contradict pledges made by two of the insurgent slate not to do exactly that and would risk throwing the election to the Republican Party, which held the mayoralty in Peekskill as recently as 2017.
“Four years ago, our city was run by a Trump-Republican Mayor,” said PDCC Chair Drew Claxton. “We’ve worked too hard to make the progress we have to risk going back to that era. Our team pledges to support the winners of the Democratic Primary and we call on our opponents to do the same. Our opponents should immediately renounce the divisive comments made at their campaign kickoff and commit to accepting the results of a respectful, issues-oriented primary – as some of them have previously promised to do.”
“With petitioning starting tomorrow, it is essential that Democratic voters in our city know if candidates stand for themselves, or if they stand for the shared values and ideals of our Democratic Party. Governance is bigger than any one person. It would be wrong for any candidate to seek the support of the Democratic voters without being up front with them about whether they’ll accept the judgment of the voters,” concluded Claxton.