2026 NYWFP State Questionnaire Logo
  • 2026 New York Working Families Party State Questionnaire

  • Anyone who aspires to represent New Yorkers at any level of government will have the challenging responsibility of advancing solutions that make life more affordable, while simultaneously using the levers of government to protect New Yorkers from the dangerous attacks of an emboldened Trump regime. 

    The vast majority of New Yorkers are living paycheck to paycheck, and confronting a worsening affordability crisis. New Yorkers are deeply frustrated with a political system that keeps asking everyday people to keep waiting for relief that never comes. And they are tired of politicians who promise to deliver safety and material gains for working class New Yorkers, and instead use the levers of power to help their friends and donors. 

    For decades, the state has balanced its budget on the backs of poor and working class people, defunding public goods such as schools, healthcare, housing, and infrastructure, while investing in corporate giveaways, luxury development, and prisons and jails. 

    What must be on the table for 2026-2029 — and beyond — is a transformative vision for who the government serves and what the government can do for everyday people. Now is the moment to commit to a new set of guarantees that enable working families to have economic stability: universal childcare and care for older adults, single-payer healthcare, statewide rent stabilization and a new social housing authority to build permanently affordable housing, protections for immigrant New Yorkers, safer neighborhoods through deep investment in community resources, economic development programs that actually create good union jobs, and a just budget that raises revenue from the wealthiest through comprehensive income, wealth and corporate taxes, and much more.

    This moment requires grounded, honest, courageous leaders determined to make New York City a bulwark against an aggressive and dangerous Trump administration, and equally committed to making sure that New York City is a place where working families can live and thrive. 

    We want our candidates to help build our alliance of voters, constituencies, organizations and social forces to win governing power so that we can deliver real material victories for our people, build trust in public institutions, and transform power structures in 2026 and beyond.

    The best WFP candidates run on our issues, build our larger governing bloc, deploy winning teams and strategy, demonstrate their commitment to co-governance and accountability, and work with us to build the WFP. If we hope to overcome the influence of real estate and corporate money in Albany, we must elect more Working Families champions who will represent the interest of everyday New Yorkers, not simply those of the wealthy and well-connected.

    If that’s you, please tell us about yourself by filling out this questionnaire.

    Note: Our endorsement process is intentionally open and transparent. Please know that our chapter members and affiliates will have access to this document and will use it to evaluate your candidacy. Please fill it out accordingly. 

    This questionnaire contains 14 issue sections that outline the WFP’s priorities for 2026. Your answers to our questions don’t have to be perfect — just honest. Candidates are encouraged to provide additional thoughts on any of your answers; there is a space for optional comments provided next to each response. Candidates will also have an opportunity to expand on your responses during candidate interviews.

    If you are unable to complete the questionnaire in one sitting, you can pause and continue by clicking on the "Save" button on the bottom of the screen and clicking the "save without logging in" link underneath the "login" prompt.

    You will then be able to enter an email address where you will be sent a link to access your saved questionnaire at any time.

    The sections of this questionnaire are:

    1. Contact & Candidate Info
    2. Candidate Demographics
    3. The Working Families NY Guarantee: The Promise of a Better New York
    4. Your Campaign
    5. Workers' Rights
    6. Climate
    7. Supporting Public Schools & Higher Education
    8. The Caring Economy
    9. Dignified Housing for All
    10. Economic Development
    11. Public Safety & Decarceration
    12. Infrastructure
    13. Ending the Failed War on Drugs
    14. Ethics & Good Government
    15. Strengthening the Working Families Party

    To download a blank PDF version of this questionnaire, click here.

    • Contact & Candidate Info 
    • Candidate Demographics 
    • The Working Families NY Guarantee: The Promise of a Better New York 
    • New Yorkers no longer believe the myth that hard work will afford you a stable, prosperous life in this state. The fact is that working families are doing everything they're asked to do and still struggling to afford life in New York. The economic policies of the last 50 years have hallowed the public infrastructure and left millions of people one health crisis away from economic devastation. 

      A society in which insecurity is the norm is a society that's bound to fail. And the economics of insecurity and scarcity breed a politics of hoarding, polarization, and disconnection that dooms us all.

      New York is one of the richest states in the country, but also one of the most unequal. This is the result of decades of policy and political choices balanced the budget on the backs of poor and working class people, while investing in corporate giveaways, luxury development, and prisons and jails

      We cannot continue to ask working families to endure lives of economic instability and chaos. We must recommit ourselves to the idea that New York is a place where working families can afford to live stable, feel safe, and thrive. The Working Families Guarantee represents our firm commitment to stay the course until New York guarantees universal childcare, healthcare and affordable housing for all New Yorkers, and protections for immigrant families. 

      Will you use your time in elected office to win protections for immigrant New Yorkers and deliver guaranteed childcare, healthcare and affordable housing for all New Yorkers?

    • Tax the Rich

    • Lower Housing Costs

    • References:

      S4659A Kavanagh / A4877A Shrestha

      S5674 Cleare / A6365 Gallagher

      More information on the SHDA

    • Health Care For Every Single New Yorker

    • References:

      S3425 Rivera /A1466 Paulin

      More information on the New York Health Act

    • Universal, Free Childcare

    • A Welcoming State for Immigrant New Yorkers

    • References:

      S2235A Gounardes/ A3506 Reyes

      S316 Salazar / A4181 Reyes

    • Your Campaign 
    • References:

      A helpful guide on talking about race, class and inequality

  • In your answers to the policy questions that follow, please incorporate your experience with the issues, including direct impact, related advocacy, legislation passed, and your plans to address the issues in office:

    • Workers' Rights 
    • The pandemic highlighted essential workers and how everyday people keep our economy, hospitals, schools, and grocery stores running. NYWFP strongly believes that all workers deserve to exercise their right to organize a union and collectively bargain for fair wages, benefits, and working conditions.

    • References:

      MIT's Living Wage Calculator

      More information on the Fix Tier 6 Campaign here

      S448A Hoylman-Sigal / A4278A Simon

      More info on the EMPIRE Act

      A1200A González-Rojas / S415A Jackson

      S988 Brouk / A701 Gonzalez-Rojas

       

    • Climate 
    • With multiple extreme weather events in just the last few months, it is clear that the climate crisis is no longer a future event, but has arrived and is impacting New York. We've reached the point where the climate crisis presents a very real and imminent threat to communities all over the state — from Queens and the Rockaways to the Southern Tier and our Northern borders. New York must serve as a model for other states and help lead the charge against climate change. We need to meet the climate crisis head-on by moving our economy to 100% renewable energy and to make the necessary investments in the infrastructure and long term resilience of our neighborhoods across the state.  In doing so, we can create thousands of new living wage jobs and protect communities most vulnerable to climate impacts. 

    • Supporting Public Schools & Higher Education 
    • Politicians of every stripe express support for families. Yet in practice, public investment in the ways that all of us - and especially women, women of color, and immigrants - take care of each other has shrunk. Care work is egregiously underpaid, in significant part because it is performed disproportionately by women of color. The New York State legislature must continue to fully fund public education, must adequately fund our public colleges and universities, which have long provided a path to the middle class for hundreds of thousands of aspiring New Yorkers, must adequately fund our adult education system, and make child care universal and free. New York State also needs to reduce school suspension rates and eliminate the biases in school discipline policies.

    • References:

      S134S1040 Jackson / A118A5691 Solages

      More info on Judith Kaye School Solutions Not Suspensions Act

      S3458 Stavisky / A5457 Solages

      More information on the New Deal for Higher Education campaign

    • The Caring Economy 
    • Healthcare is a basic human right. As the federal administration slashes funding for public healthcare across the country, state legislators must take bold action to ensure healthcare in New York is protected and expanded for all.

    • References:

      S7880 Rivera / A8470 Paulin

      A1991 Paulin

      S7954 Rivera / A8355 Paulin

      S2237A Rivera / A3020A González-Rojas

    • Dignified Housing for All 
    • New York faces an unrelenting housing affordability crisis that is felt most acutely by renters, people of color, and low-income/working class New Yorkers. Millions of renters across the state live without basic protections against tenant harassment, price-gouging, and discriminatory evictions. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers are homeless and the number is steadily growing in the face of decades of poor public policy. Legislators in Albany must stand up to the influence of the real estate industry and pass meaningful housing legislation that protects tenants and keeps New Yorkers in their homes.

    • References:

      S5674 Cleare / A6365 Gallagher

      More information on the SHDA

      A6100 Mitaynes

      More information on the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act

      S2507 Salazar / A597 Gonzalez-Rojas

      S6772 Jackson / A4469 Solages

      More information on the Statewide Right to Counsel for ALL New Yorkers facing eviction

    • Public Safety & Decarceration 
    • We are in a moment of national reckoning around the role of policing, criminalization, and incarceration. The status quo is simply not working. We need real solutions to issues of public safety in our community, including gun and other interpersonal violence, that are both effective and grounded in racial justice. We must end the scourge of mass incarceration in New York, whether in local jails or in state prisons. We believe we must dramatically increase resources supporting our communities by funding schools, housing, healthcare, and jobs and shift resources away from policing, jails/prisons and detention centers, and other agencies that separate families and destabilize communities. We believe anti-poverty work is the best anti-violence work.

    • References:

      S159 Salazar / A127 Weprin

      S454 Hoylman-Sigal / A514 Davila

      S3998 Parker / A7722 Walker

      S2513 Salazar / A3251 Forrest

      S3670 Brouk / A4617 Bronson

      Sentencing reform package from the Communities Not Cages coalition

      S158 Salazar / A1283 Walker

      S342 Cooney / A1085 Kelles

      S1209 Myrie / A1297 Meeks

      S551 Brisport / A1234 Walker

      S141 Hoylman-Sigal / A270 Cruz

    • Resources: 

      Justice Roadmap

      Releasing Aging People From Prison Campaign

      Communities Not Cages

    • Infrastructure 
    • After decades of austerity budgeting, disinvestment and privatization, infrastructure across New York is in desperate need of major upgrades and democratization. The climate crisis and increasing economic inequality has only exacerbated these problems. We must finally make serious investments in infrastructure so that NY's transit, agriculture, energy, and communications systems lead the nation.

    • Ending the Failed War on Drugs 
    • For over 50 years, our nation’s “war on drugs” has led to mass incarceration, mass death, homelessness, poverty, deportations, family separation, and more. Despite more than $50 billion in annual spending, there has been no meaningful reduction in drug use. In fact, our nation’s overdose crisis is at an all-time high, surpassing 100,000 preventable overdose deaths in the last 12 months. New York is at a crossroads, and we must turn the tide on the overdose crisis by ending our failed criminalization policies and investing in harm reduction and other evidence-based policies.

    • References:

      S7617 Rivera / A4916 Rosenthal

      S3600 Rivera / A4929 Meeks

    • Resources: 

      Overdose Prevention Centers

      Drug Policy Alliance on fentanyl policies

       

    • Ethics & Good Government 
    • Albany needs a major ethics overhaul, accountability, and culture change to end the scourge of sexual harassment and abuse in state government. We also need to re-balance the powers between the legislature and the executive, particularly in the budget process, and ensure the legislature develops clear processes and opportunities for vetting of administrative appointments to ensure there are no conflicts of interest and other forms of dangerous corporate influence.

    • Strengthening the Working Families Party 
    • References:

      S426 Liu

      S2454 Gianaris

      S413 Gounardes / A293 Cruz

      S945 Jackson / A8009 Lavine

       

    • Should be Empty: