Case Study: Dianne Morales for New York City

The 2021 New York City Democratic Primary for Mayor was a particularly unique one. With more than a dozen candidates on the ballot, it was harder than ever before for candidates to distinguish themselves to voters as the right choice for the next Mayor of New York City. Due to New York City’s demographics, it is almost guaranteed that the winner of the Democratic primary would go on to win the general election and become the next Mayor of New York City. So with the stakes higher than most primary elections and a competitive field, Dianne Morales’s campaign managed to stand out from the rest in the most bizarre manner.

Campaign Launch

Dianne Morales launched her New York City Mayoral campaign in August 2019 in an email to supporters. The campaign bid was met with an immediate surge of public interest. Many popular New York City news outlets began coverage on Morales and her campaign upon the announcement of her bid. A City & State article by Jeff Coltin was published less than a week after Morales announced her candidacy. The article describes Morales as running an outsider campaign. Along with detailing her experience, the article highlighted that if elected, Morales would become the city’s first female Mayor. A plethora of other news outlets wrote profiles on Morales and her campaign between her announcement in 2019 and the summer of 2020. Some of these popular New York City news outlets included Bklyner, the Gotham Gazette, NY Mag, and multiple City & State articles.

Dianne Morales’s campaign platform was essentially based upon the ideas of unity, inclusion, and humanity. The three cornerstones of her platform Morales laid out were dignity, care, and solidarity. On her campaign website Morales laid out her platform in a statement. Part of this statement reads “Dianne Morales’ policy platform is built on the belief that politics should work for all the people and that we are stronger and better positioned to grow when every New Yorker is prioritized, oppressive systems are eliminated and barriers are removed.” The platform section of her campaign website defines each cornerstone of her campaign. For dignity, it is defined as “being responsive to multiple crises by undoing oppressive policies and ensuring all New Yorkers have the basics: safety, shelter, healthcare, a job and opportunity.” Care is then defined as “valuing and scaling a care economy to serve dual roles of service and employment.” Then finally, solidarity is defined as “ a unified city measuring growth beyond revenue, but in how well the city serves the most vulnerable and how swiftly we deepen equity.”

Campaign Strategies

From the beginning, Dianne Morales tried to be a candidate of the people. Morales was no stranger to political protests and rallies, which she marketed as a strength in her candidacy; she interacted with the people of New York City on a personal level. The New York Times described her campaign persona saying “From the beginning of her campaign for mayor, Ms. Morales set out to establish herself as the activist-candidate-next-door, the person riding the bus instead of advertising on the side of it.”

Outside of attending political protests and rallies, Morales held unique campaign events aimed at connecting with the community. In May 2021, a month out from the Democratic primary election, Morales’s campaign participated in various community events. An example of one of these community events was the Politics for All People Block Party in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. At this event, the Dianne Morales campaign set up a tent with catering from a local restaurant to reach out to supporters and undecided voters. The campaign set up similar Block Party events in various other neighborhoods around New York City including Bushwick, Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, and Lefferts Boulevard, Queens all throughout the month of May leading up to the primary election in June. Another official campaign event was the Politics for All People Tour Eid Celebration in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn which featured food, performances, guest speakers, and a speech from the candidate, Dianne Morales. On May 22, the Dianne Morales campaign hosted a Lower East Side day of action to knock on doors and talk with residents about the issues that matter most to them. The campaign also held incredibly unique campaign events such as a breathing/meditation class in Harlem on May 16.

These distinctive campaign events were used as a method of connecting with and reaching out to specific communities of voters within New York City. Specialized campaign events like the ones the Morales campaign set up can help to reach certain voters who are either uninformed about local politics or just apathetic when it comes to politics. However, having a conversation at an event in one's local neighborhood with the candidate themselves or even just a very knowledgeable campaign staffer creates a more personal connection that could help to influence a decision on whether or not to vote and then in turn to vote for that candidate who did outreach in your community.

Staffing Problems

In May 2021, a month out from the primary election, Dianne Morales’s campaign began to essentially fall apart at the hands of her staffers. The trouble began when two high-level staffers were made to resign following allegations of misconduct. One of these staffers was Ramses Duke, a senior campaign staffer accused of sexually harassing other campaign staffers. The other staff member was Amanda van Kessel who faced accusastions of discrimination, manipulation, and coercion. Upon these two senior staffers' controversial departures, the campaign hired the consulting firm Think Rubix to help come up with new campaign strategies. Several part time staffers were also promoted to full time salaried employees in an effort to pick up some of the slack created by the two senior staffers’ departures. Although the two staffers facing controversies resigned from the campaign, the accusations lead to several more resignations from senior staffers. One resignation came from the campaign’s manager, Whitney Hu who resigned on May 27, less than a month before the primary election. In her resignation statement, Hu stated that she stood in solidarity with the team and felt she could no longer continue to work with the campaign until bad actors were removed. Another subsequent resignation came from a senior policy advisor who was only referred to as Ifeoma. In a statement on Twitter, Ifeoma stated that although she was proud of the work the campaign had accomplished, she was formally resigning from the campaign since it no longer aligned with her values.

Another major staff issue the Dianne Morales campaign faced was a staffing effort to unionize. Morales publicly claimed she supported her staffer’s efforts to unionize while downplaying the campaign’s unraveling in the press. However, despite Morales’s supposed support of her staffer’s efforts to unionize, many staffers who participated in these unionization efforts ended up resigning from the campaign in late May and early June. In their attempts to unionize, staffers shared some of the concerns they wanted to be addressed. Staffers said many campaign staff members experienced racial aggressions, sexual harassment, exploitation, and manipulation. The staffers accused Morales for taking a zero-tolerance stance against sexual abuse and harassment on the campaign trail and in public yet the same standard was never upheld when it came to the campaign’s internal issues. In Whitney Hu’s statement, she mentions her support for the unionization effort and saw a need to hold bad actors from the campaign accountable for their harmful actions.

While Morales claimed to support the unionization of her staffers, in early May the four women leading the unionization efforts were fired over email prior to a staff meeting. A few days later, more than twenty staffers were holding a rally outside Morales’s midtown office in support of the four women who had been fired.