Former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones has been accused of having “abandoned” his then-constituents in New York’s 17th Congressional District after getting some bad polling ahead of the 2022 midterms — days after he dismissed a report to that effect as a “rumor”.
Jones, 37, is running again in the 17th District this time around after passing up the chance to do so in 2022 — even after then-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney offered to pull out of a primary challenge, City & State reported last week.
The ex-lawmaker told The Post that the report — based in part on revelations from a former campaign staffer — was the work of “disgruntled, anti-Israel extremists” upset over his endorsement of Westchester County Executive George Latimer over “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the June 25 primary for New York’s 16th District.
But a source close to Maloney and House Democratic leadership told The Post that City & State’s account was “100% true.”
“Mondaire wanted to be the progressive darling. He didn’t like the polling he saw in the 17th District. He abandoned his constituents,” said the Democratic source.
The Post also confirmed another aspect of City & State’s report — that Jones didn’t like the polling in Bowman’s 16th district after an internal primary survey showed him 35 percentage points behind.
Jones ultimately ran to represent Lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn in New York’s 10th District, where he was defeated by now-Rep. Dan Goldman in the Democratic primary.
“Mondaire Jones will say or do anything to get elected again. The truth is irrelevant to him. He lied about being ‘forced’ out of the district in 2022, and he supports defunding the police, open borders, and congestion pricing,” said Chris Russell, a spokesman for the principal campaign committee of Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who will face Jones in November.
“Now he’s throwing his socialist friends and fellow radicals under the bus to try and save his failing campaign,” Russell added of the former “defund the police” proponent.
The Jones campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and other members of the far-left “Squad” attacked Jones last week for endorsing Latimer, who is backed by several pro-Israel groups to unseat Bowman.
“It’s disgusting,” Bush told Semafor last week of Jones. “Is that who he wants to be? Someone that the members can’t even trust? Someone that the members know will be your friend one day, and then as soon as it’s beneficial to him, will completely not only turn on you, but will go and support the person that is challenging you?”
Jones once referred to Bowman at an August 2020 Working Families Party event as his “brother,” and both have taken campaign contributions from anti-Israel donors this cycle.
Left-wing groups — including the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC and the New York Working Families Party — have since rescinded their endorsements of Jones.
But Jones has pushed back on attacks from the progressive left, dismissing the backlash as coming from “trust fund socialists in Williamsburg” in an interview with Politico published Monday.
“My progressive values have not changed, and I’ve yet to see anyone point to a way in which they have changed,” he also told the Albany Times-Union in an interview released Tuesday.
However, Jones will be one of 10 House Democratic candidates to accept donations from wealthy Wall Streeters via a coalition that bundles their contributions called the House Victory Project, Politico reported.
Having received the endorsement of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2022 due in part to his support for affordable housing, Jones is now renting a lavish apartment without affordable housing options, according to records filed at the Westchester County Board of Elections.
The NorthLight Edge-on-Hudson complex features stunning views of the Tappan Zee Bridge and a rooftop pool and rents 1-bed, 1-bathroom apartments for between roughly $3,800 to $5,500, according to Apartments.com
The average cost of a rental in Westchester County is around $2,000, according to bestneighborhoods.org.
The race for the 17th District is currently rated a toss-up by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, with Lawler and Jones having each raised around $3 million in cash on hand as of the end of April, according to federal campaign finance filings.