Winning a Pro-Housing Majority in New York
The Abundant New York Mission
Abundant New York is the independent expenditure (IE) committee for Open New York, the state’s leading grassroots, pro-housing advocacy organization.
To complement Open New York’s legislative campaigns, grassroots member organizing, and public education work, we also must use electoral tools to support and grow a pro-housing political majority at every level of government, beginning with an independent expenditure fund.
With an immediate focus on the 2024 state legislative races and the 2025 municipal elections in New York City, Abundant New York will establish the first comprehensive statewide campaign focused on ending our chronic and extreme housing shortage.
What is at stake?
The Challenge:
New York has some of the most segregated and exclusionary zoning and land use practices in the country and is not building nearly enough new homes to meet demand, leading to soaring rents and displacement pressures.
In spite of a broad and growing consensus that we must build more homes, we are not seeing the scale of action that this urgent crisis demands.
The Opportunity:
Housing affordability is a #1 issue for New York voters—across ideology, geography and demographics.
Further, pro-housing successes in other states are proving that pro-homes reforms can be winning politics. Public pressure, sharpened by our organizing, is forging this new pro-housing coalition.
The Playing Field
Since 2019 and the flipping of the NYS Senate, Democratic supermajorities have meant the balance of power is now the majority of the majority.
During the past 3 cycles, with 2018’s primary challenges and victories, successive waves of retirements, and 2022 redistricting, the Assembly and Senate have become much younger. The turnover means only 16 Senators and 46 Assemblymembers have been in office more than a decade—leaving a unique supermajority of junior legislators in each chamber.
Over a dozen open seats, competitive primaries, and continued general election battlegrounds will only continue that larger-scale turnover—a dynamic ripe for building power on behalf of housing policy.
Goals of Abundant New York
Elect champions who will be new voices in support of pro-housing policies.
1.
Protect pro-housing incumbents facing competitive elections.
2.
Defeat anti-housing incumbents who have failed to address the crisis with urgency.