New York’s progressives are not all concentrated in the city. They exist all over the state, particularly in upstate New York cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Ithaca, and Binghamton. Dan Livingston (he/him), a millennial former city councilmember, dropped out of college during the Iraq War in the early 2000s and hitchhiked across America and Canada for two years. Dan’s despair over the war turned to resolve, and he returned to college and became politically active. He founded a Habitat for Humanity chapter, organized relief trips to hurricane-hit Louisiana and Mississippi, and worked for several organizations which provided meals to the hungry. In later years he protested at the Occupy Wall Street and Standing Rock protests.

On the Binghamton city council, Dan advocated for collective bargaining rights, creating apprenticeship programs in public schools to encourage young people to go into the trades, and he successfully fought back against a privatization scheme at a wastewater treatment plant, keeping the workers there unionized. Today, his platform is fourfold: taxing the rich, providing clean water for all, ensuring affordable housing, and protecting immigrants from ICE. Dan is running on the Working Families Party ticket, and he has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders.