Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party, is in a good mood these days.
Party enrollment across the state is higher than ever. The February special election victory of Darrel Aubertine (D-Oswego) was attributed in large part to the WFP’s young and energetic ground operation. And with control of the Senate up for grabs in November, scores of candidates across the state are vying for the party’s endorsement.
This could help the party, which generally cross-endorses rather than fielding its own candidates, continue to augment its power far beyond its Brooklyn headquarters.
But he and the WFP are not magicians, Cantor insisted. They are simply following what he believes is common sense.
“It’s not like we’re brilliant new thinkers,” he said. “This is Social Democracy 101.”
The WFP originated in 1998 as a coalition of labor unions, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) housing activists and other community organizers. After a decade of involvement in New York City and some local races across the state, the party is now working overtime to pump up its operation beyond the Big Apple in the hopes of helping deliver the Senate for the Democrats.
State chapters will be screening candidates through May, with endorsement decisions to follow based on candidates’ answers to a 20-page questionnaire and performance in an in-person interview. The party will likely back at least some candidates in contested Democratic primaries.
Cantor would not comment on which candidates, or how many, the WFP was likely to endorse, but said he expects the party to be active in races in every corner of the state.
A WFP endorsement can generate support in two ways: some voters simply prefer to support candidates on a line other than the Democratic or Republican, some are simply drawn to candidates because they see the endorsement as a signifier of a commitment to progressive, pro-union policies.
Those who get the nod will be at a major advantage, said Aubertine, looking back on the party’s role in his own win. Not only did the WFP help generate interest and financial support for his candidacy, but the ballot line gave him 2,016 votes in a race with a 2,842-vote margin.
“They’re certainly recognized as the party that’s carrying the issues of working class people here in the state,” Aubertine said. “They’ve been a real asset.”
Even though the WFP has the stated goal of giving Democrats control of the State Senate, Cantor said that the party will not necessarily back only Democratic candidates—especially after Senate Democrats failed to back up Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) on the WFP’s plan to increase taxes on millionaires.
“We were very disappointed with the Senate Democrats’ failure to stand up for solving the budget crisis the only way that’s fair, by rolling back a fraction of the massive tax cuts the super-wealthy have enjoyed in this state over the last 10 years,” Cantor said.
The death of the tax plan was music to the ears of Mike Long, chairman of the New York State Conservative Party, which holds the Row C ballot line the WFP would like to claim for itself.
That would take a stronger showing than the Conservatives in the 2010 statewide elections, which, Long says, they might just have the organizational ability to achieve.
“I don’t like to admit this, but I think they have an edge on us,” Long said. “They actually put labor unions in the street to go to work, door-to-door. They have a pretty well-financed operation.”
The ability to tap union members to go door-to-door and work the phones during campaigns is at the core of the WFP’s canvassing operation, said election campaign director Emma Wolfe.
For the Aubertine race, party members mounted an ambitious and expensive campaign strategy in collaboration with big upstate unions like the United Auto Workers and the Communication Workers of America, as well as the New York State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
In the Aubertine race, WFP-organized volunteers knocked on over 14,000 doors, dialed almost 7,000 phone numbers, handed out over 350 signs and sent out more than 1,700 letters. All told, the WFP spent $145,000 on the Aubertine campaign. The State Democratic Party spent over $1.1 million.
Wolfe said the WFP helps provide the framework for the unions to be most effective.
“We’re involved in a lot of campaigns, especially upstate, where we have close relationships with a lot of big unions,” she explained. “Part of our voter mobilization is helping big unions deploy their members out into the field.”
The ground operation is where the differences between campaigning in the city and upstate are most pronounced, said Mike Boland, the party’s buzz-cut-sporting canvassing director. To cover rural districts spread out over many miles, the WFP mostly recruits college-aged volunteers, while maintaining a reserve unit of about 100 dedicated supporters for last-minute activities. Unlike in other political organizations, every member is asked to help, Boland said.  
But as the WFP makes a bigger play in races beyond New York City, its union roots and the policy those promote may resonate as much as the party believes, warned E.J. McMahon, director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
“The Working Families Party finds its fullest expression in the day-to-day legislative agenda of the New York City Council,” McMahon said. “That’s pretty markedly to the left of the political mainstream in New York.”
By favoring big government programs and higher taxes, policies that even the Assembly Democrats are often unwilling to support, the WFP is doomed to fail in attempts to broaden its reach.
“They favor very heavy regulatory policies,” he said. “I don’t think they’re fated to be anything other than marginal.”
But the WFP’s enrollment continues to grow across the state: there are currently 37,000 registered members, up from over 15,000 in 2002.
Today, chapters exist in New York State’s western, central and southern tiers. Nascent groups are starting in Ithaca and Utica, while longstanding chapters continue to operate in New York City, the Hudson Valley, Long Island and Albany, for about 17 active chapters. The party is also attempting to gain a foothold in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon and California.
Michele Iannello, an Erie County legislator seeking the Democratic nomination for the seat being left vacant by retiring State Sen. Mary Lou Rath (R-Erie/Genesee), said she is seeking the WFP’s endorsement not just because the party’s agenda mirrors her own, but because she believes they could put her campaign over the top.
“They’re an organization that, once you get their support, they go all in,” Iannello said.
A WFP endorsement has been known to tip the scales in tight races. State Sen. David Valesky (D-Onondaga/Oneida) pulled off a surprise win in 2004 with the help of a WFP endorsement, and this year, with Republicans targeting his seat, is hoping to get the party’s support again.
In 2004, the party helped David Soares (D) score a stunning primary victory against Albany District Attorney Paul Clyne. This year, he is aiming for the WFP endorsement again in what may be a tough re-election battle.
“A line I like to use is, ‘You walk in and it’s WFP and you walk out and it’s WTF,’” Soares said, referring to what happens when the party gets involved in a race. “They create upsets in places where people are never expecting it.”