This week, democrats from across the country made their way to Chicago for the party's National Convention.

Just a few weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive democratic nominee following president Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the race.

Since then, support for Harris from within the party has continued to grow and the convention highlighted the energy around her campaign.

Elected officials representing New York on both the state and national level also joined in on the festivities.

Governor Kathie Hochul delivered a speech highlighting her New York roots while making parallels to the candidates at the top of the party's ticket.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz grew up with those same values.

[ Cheers and Applause ] and those values have always defined the people of my state.

And in addition to the democratic support, the Vice President has also secured the endorsement of the working families party.

To unpack the party's support for Harris on the national and local level in New York state, we sat down with Jasmine Gripper, codirector of the New York working families party.

[ THEME MUSIC ] Thank you so much for joining us today, Jasmine.

Thanks for having me.

Now I know the working families party has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in her run for presidency.

So can you help us understand how the New York delegates, in particular, came to the decision to support Harris and why?

Yeah.

The working families party is national, and we are growing.

We have more and more states that are part of the party.

And so the national working families party led the process.

New York sent two delegates to the National Convention.

We had our own convention here in New York state where we chose to, at the time, we actually chose to endorse the democratic candidate, and that was because we understood there was a lot at stake in this election.

We're talking about two different realities, under a Trump presidency or a Harris presidency.

So the working families party understood this was important.

We can't sit this election out and we need to get behind the democratic nominee, and we're proud to be supporting Vice President Harris.

What are some of the policy stances that the Vice President currently has that really stood out to the party?

How do you see those stances impacting New York?

Yeah.

We're really excited around her commitment to young children.

She's talked about the child tax credit.

She's talked about making bold, huge investments in child care, and these are the things that working families in New York absolutely need.

We need access to high quality, affordable child care.

It's something that the state has been struggling to fully invest in and an infusion of resources from the federal government will put us on the right track.

New York families need support and I'm happy to hear that Vice President Harris is priortizing this.

And what are some of the issues that the party may not be in lockstep with the Vice President on, and how is the party hoping to work with the Vice President should she, you know, be elected to come to a compromise on those issues?

Yeah.

We have been talking to our folks over and over again is there are no perfect candidates.

And we have been saying over and over again that endorsements are about a strategy and not a love letter.

We do not love everything about Vice President Harris, but strategically this is the right person to endorse in this election cycle, and so that is why she's getting our endorsement, and our plan is that we get her into office and then we work to continue to push her on the issues where we disagree.

Every time we won big on advocacy in this country is because people have mobilized are.

People have put public pressure and public demand on public officials to deliver.

So election day is just the beginning of our democratic process.

It continues after people are in office and we hold them accountable, and we absolutely will hold her accountable.

What is the party's position on Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Tim Walz?

Yeah.

We're really excited.

She made a great decision.

So clearly seeing her make great decisions very early in picking Tim Walz.

He's a public school teacher, a Governor who invested in universal school bills, something that the Governor of New York has yet to do, someone who prioritized taxing the ultra wealthy to invest in children and pay family sick days and pay sick days.

So really think she picked the right person as her running mate.

Someone that actually offers progressive values and has delivered for working families in his state.

Happy to see him taking the helm with her to set progressive policy on a national agenda.

And the party has been encouraging voters to cast their ballot on the working families party line.

So can you help me understand what type of impact you're hoping this will have on the race?

Yeah.

The beautiful thing about New York is that we have fusion vote computing and so we've been mostly dominated by a two-party system.

But in New York, you can vote for other parties and candidates are allowed to be listed on more than one party and the votes fuse for their vote total.

So what we're asking voters to do is when you go to the ballot on election day, vote on Row D, the working families line and vote for Vice President Harris and Tim Walz on the working families party line.

This is a way to say we're going to vote our values.

It's a way to send a message to democrats that not any blue will do.

We want to support democratic party.

We want to support the democratic nominee, but we also want to send a message that we want them to fight for progressive values.

We want them to fight for working families.

We want them to prioritize our children and our education.

We want them to prioritize reproductive justice for women, and so we want to prioritize ending the war and having a cease-fire.

This is a way for New Yorkers to vote, participate in our election and also send a message at the same time.

And you know, historically, New York has been a blue state when it comes to presidential races.

So what role do you see New York playing in ultimately securing the presidency for Harris?

Yeah.

I think it will continue to be a blue state in the presidential election, but New York actually has a really huge responsibility in terms of the congressional delegation.

Two years ago when people were worried about a red wave across the country, there was no red wave anywhere except for New York and it was quite embarrassing for our state.

We lost the house because New York sent the largest Republican delegation to Washington.

And so the reality is we want to take back the house and taking back the house is through New York and the congressional races, and so we're really excited about battleground New York.

New York has had a chance to determine who is going to be in leadership in the House of Representatives and the congressional races are extremely important and New Yorkers have a role to play, and I think people are not used to seeing us as a swing state but clearly, this is on the line.

Will Republicans or democrats control the house will be determined by New York.

I'm glad you brought up those competitive congressional races.

There's also a slew of downballot races and even races for the state legislature.

Can you tell us about some of the endorsements that the working families party has made in those races, and how you plan to garner support amongst voters?

Yeah.

We're talking to the congressional delegation and the candidates actually this upcoming week to make sure we're coordinating a strategy to win.

So we're going to meet with John Mannion and Josh Riley and pat Ryan, and we're going to also talk to the Senate and assembly candidates that overlap with those races.

We plan to work really hard in those districts to deploy resources, deploy capacity and be a part of a winning strategy to take back the house through central New York and Hudson valley.

And what are some of the geographical areas across the state that the working families parties may see as vulnerable?

How are you hoping to mitigate that challenge?

Yeah.

I mean, we're in all of the purple districts from Long Island to-- and there are even some parts of New York City, central New York and Hudson valley, we're talking to voters and we want to make sure that they're coming out and they're participating.

New Yorkers are worried about the high cost of housing.

That's true.

Not just in New York City but across the state.

New Yorkers are worried about the high cost of child care.

We see that over and over again.

Families are spending too much of their money on child care.

It costs more than the tuition at CUNY and SUNY at this point.

It's a huge financial burden to parents.

We're listening to the issues that matter to voters and we want to make sure that they understand where the solutions are going to come from, and the Republican party is not delivering any of those solutions.

And how receptive, would you say, the candidates you mentioned are to those issues from what you are hearing from voters?

Yeah.

They, too, want to step up and meet the needs of their constituents.

That's why they're running for office.

That's why they want to step up and be a part of our democracy and represent their communities.

We feel we have solutions.

There's ways we can make our communities better and government is meant to work for all of us.

Not just the wealthy and the one percent.

Lastly, you know the working families party was super ecstatic about the funding provided in the state budget for campaign finance initiatives that really helped to boost small donors in races.

What impact are you hoping that will have on races this year as well as races in the years to come?

Yeah.

We've already seen the impact of campaign finance reform in the primaries.

That people were able to run who probably thought they didn't have a path to running because they didn't have access to wealth and resources.

So publicly financing elections means that your small dollars are your mom, your aunt, your uncle, your neighbor can go much further and go a long way.

What we see that doing is that candidates are now spending more time talking to their neighbors, talking to their constituents, and courting small dollar donations.

That's what we want.

You should be accountable to the constituents who vote you in and not to the people who are wealthy and well connected.

We have already seen it shape the field if our democratic primaries.

I remember meeting a candidate who was considering running and our first conversation was like, I'm not sure if I can raise enough money.

This was a young woman, a woman of color, who felt like maybe this democracy isn't meant for me to participate at this level.

But because of campaign finance, she was able to run and she was able to win her democratic primary here in Albany in AP109, so really excited about public financing of elections.

Now in the general, we see everyone taking advantage from progressives, to democrats, to Republicans.

Everyone is using the new system and we do believe just creates a level playing field that your wealth or your personal connections don't determine if you can run for office, but if you have a connection to the community, that's enough to get you started and to have a credible race.

And are there any other reforms that the party is hoping is put forth when it comes to campaign finance that you will be working towards in the next Legislative Session and beyond?

I think we're going to talk to candidates and see how they felt about the system across the board from incumbents to new candidates who are using it.

Were there any hiccups in I'm sure there are ways to improve it.

Number one priority is that the system continues to be funded and continues to be expanded and that's the most important thing that we continue to do.

Absolutely.

Well, certainly a lot to look forward to as we head into the final days of this election season, but we thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Thanks for having me.

We were speaking with Jasmine Gripper, codirector of the New York working families party.

Thank you.

[ THEME MUSIC ] And for more information about the work of the working families party, heading into election day, you can visit our website.

That's at NYnow.org.