Blue America just dropped 4 new Facebook and Instagram ads covering Long Island this weekend— for the open 3rd congressional district, where progressive champion Melanie D’Arrigo is facing off against 3 conservative stooges, Josh Lafazan, Robert Zimmerman and Jon Kaiman.

The winner of the August 23rd primary will go head to head with Trumpist Republican George Santos in a newly redrawn district that went from a friendly partisan lean of D+6 to D+4.

The ads are targeted to reach voters in the 3rd district, particularly women (and their allies who like and respect women) before the primary to clearly illustrate how Melanie will be a much better Representative for them and their values.

Here’s why we enthusiastically endorsed her for 2022:

Melanie D’Arrigo is a healthcare advocate, mother of three, and fierce defender of reproductive justice and universal health care. To her, health care is a human right— and health care includes the right to choose. That’s why she supports universal healthcare and is proud to have put herself on the frontline for abortion access multiple times. And that’s why, “in a race full of wealthy, conservative men, you can trust a working-class mom to fight for reproductive justice.”

Parents across the 3rd district recognize that gun violence is an epidemic— and so does Melanie. If we want to take on the corrupt and bankrupt (in more ways than one) NRA and their dark money, we cannot rely for help from politicians who also happily gorge themselves on corporate dollars.

As is true all over the country right now, Long Islanders need bold, unbought leaders and, clearly, Melanie is that candidate; a long-time Moms Demand Action volunteer and it’s why she’s the only candidate for federal office in New York to be endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety.

Melanie grew up in a union household, and organized in this district for years before running for Congress— fighting for universal healthcare before it was popular, and fighting to make unions stronger so every family has a chance to make a livable wage.

While her opponents rush to outraise each other with the help of lobbyists, real estate developers, and dark money interests, Melanie is running a corporate-free campaign. She’s running on the most comprehensive anti-corruption platform in the field because she knows that corporations have no place in Congress or our courts. Unbought and Unbossed! You can’t buy her votes, because she’ll represent working families like her own.

I want to focus on just one of the stooges right now— Josh Lafazan, a fake Democrat who switched parties to run in this race and who has run on the Conservative party line every time he has run for office.

Further, Lafazan takes money from corrupt police unions, who support taking COVID relief money meant for schools, health care, and working families and using it to further enrich police budgets. Lafazan is probably best known in the district for having championed an unconstitutional bill that would allow cops to sue protestors.

The good news is that we still have enough time to help Melanie fully fund her Get Out the Vote rollout, so we can help her beat the 3 stooges to take on the Trumpist in the general election in November.

We know she’ll be another fantastic hall of fame Blue America Better Democrat if she can overcome the 3 Stooges. If you can, please consider contributing to her campaign here, or simply tap the thermometer up on the right.

There are also lots of volunteer opportunities and you can find out more about them here.

Thanks for always doing what you can to help make this a better world,

Howie, for the entire Blue America team