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Andom Ghebreghiorgis
Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New York's 16th Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on June 23, 2020. Ghebreghiorgis unofficially withdrew from the race but appeared on the primary election ballot on June 23, 2020.
Ghebreghiorgis completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Andom Ghebreghiorgis was born in New York, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Yale University in 2007 and a master's of secondary special education from the City College of New York in 2012. Ghebreghiorgis’ career experience includes working as a teacher, activist, and children's book author.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: New York's 16th Congressional District election, 2020
New York's 16th Congressional District election, 2020 (June 23 Democratic primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House New York District 16
Jamaal Bowman defeated Patrick McManus in the general election for U.S. House New York District 16 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jamaal Bowman (D)  | 84.0 | 218,514 |
 | Patrick McManus (Conservative Party) | 15.8 | 41,094 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 482 | ||
| Total votes: 260,090 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Kenneth Schaeffer (Working Families Party)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 16
Jamaal Bowman defeated incumbent Eliot Engel, Chris Fink, Sammy Ravelo, and Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Unofficially withdrew) in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 16 on June 23, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jamaal Bowman | 55.4 | 49,367 |
 | Eliot Engel | 40.6 | 36,149 | |
 | Chris Fink | 1.8 | 1,625 | |
 | Sammy Ravelo | 1.3 | 1,139 | |
 | Andom Ghebreghiorgis (Unofficially withdrew) | 0.9 | 761 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.1 | 97 | ||
| Total votes: 89,138 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Kenneth Belvin (D)
Conservative Party primary election
The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Patrick McManus advanced from the Conservative Party primary for U.S. House New York District 16.
Working Families Party primary election
The Working Families Party primary election was canceled. Jamaal Bowman advanced from the Working Families Party primary for U.S. House New York District 16.
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Andom Ghebreghiorgis completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ghebreghiorgis' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I'm Andom Ghebreghiorgis, and I grew up in Mount Vernon, NY to parents who emigrated from Eritrea. I have a younger brother and sister and an enormous extended family scattered throughout the world.
I attended Lincoln School in Mount Vernon and then Fieldston, in Riverdale, for middle and high school. I graduated from Yale with degrees in Political Science and Economics in 2007. After working at the Robin Hood Foundation, I became a NYC Teaching Fellow in 2009 (I received my Master's in Secondary Special Education at CCNY). I taught MS special education at a renewal school in the Bronx (MS 113) and then was a SPED coordinator/ELA teacher at The Equity Project in Washington Heights. I have written a children's book (Undercover BMX), led workshops on infusing AAVE into English curricula, taught free SAT courses to low-income students, and organized against out-of-school suspensions.
Outside of education, I have been active in Eritrean human rights and Palestinian justice spaces.
I love playing basketball, flag football, & chess. I am a die-hard Knicks and Giants fan, and same goes for Rangers and Yankees (but I'm not as passionate as I was in the 90s). I also attend a lot of intl. soccer matches!- Securing economic justice for all people through a federal job guarantee, single-payer Medicare-for-All, affordable housing for all, and greater union power
- Divesting from the military industrial complex and pursuing new multilateralism necessary for Global Green New Deal
- Fighting for racial justice by advocating for reparations, ending mass incarceration, abolishing ICE and CBP, and fully-funding 3K-16 public education
- School-to-Prison Pipeline, Special Education, LGBTQ+ Inclusive Education, School Integration
- Global Green New Deal, Foreign Policy of Peace and Decolonization, Immigrant and Refugee Rights, UNSC Reform
- Federal Job Guarantee, Homes Guarantee, Medicare for All
- Reparations for Black and indigenous Americans
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
Empathy
Openness and transparency
My own personal history informed my unyielding commitment to fighting for the rights of and justice for all people. WEB Du Bois spoke about being black in America as having a "double-consciousness," and I can say growing up as the black American child of Eritrean immigrants that I felt a triple-consciousness. There can be extreme trauma and difficulty in growing up and living in America as a first-generation black person: from cultural dislocation to coming to terms with a white supremacist history of exploitation. The fact that many immigrant parents don't have language or awareness to help us navigate the problems of race and racism here can exacerbate our struggle.
Constituents need to be heard, and it is our responsibility to listen to their concerns, be present for them in the community, and develop a team to help address the needs of the district as a whole as we advocate for social justice.
Less random, and more politically significant, I remember the celebrations for Eritrea's independence in 1993. Also that same year, I remember the World Trade Center Bombing.
The power to initiate impeachment proceedings
My experiences as a teacher have prepared me well to lead my district in the years ahead. Teachers see the frontline impact that government policy can have on a classroom, a community, and student's life. Teachers are capable of anything. Not only do we manage 35 teenagers in an underfunded classroom every second of every day, but we get our young people to believe in themselves when the world has told them they shouldn't. As a special education teacher, I have had to demystify education for many of my students, who may come into my 8th grade class on a 2ndgrade reading level. They've been failed every step of the way. Their challenge is real, and our job as teachers is to create a plan in concert with them and a whole host of diverse stakeholders in the community - social workers, parents, families, sports coaches, religious leaders, community-based organizations - to ensure their success. This is exactly what I will be doing in Congress for communities that have been underserved and disinvested from for too long, communities that don't see a way out, and for a country that has as little faith in government as my students did in school.
White Supremacy
Climate Change
Income Inequality
American Exceptionalism
Education and Labor
Barbara Lee
I listened to this man and felt his pain. It was a pain that was the product of systemic neglect: pipelines and complexes that gave him little chance to escape and less reason to believe in the fairness of the system. After speaking with him about mass incarceration and job guarantees, he ended up saying he'd look into our campaign and spread the word, even though he never votes. Whomever he votes for is not what's important; what was so impactful was seeing him become willing to re-engage in a political process that has excluded him. Under 10% of people in District 16 turn out for elections because they don't believe engaging in politics will affect their material reality, and, as a result, the ruling class is able to entrench the status quo. The man whom I was speaking to, in that moment, re-entered a working-class movement that existed before and will exist after our campaign. We are happy to join him in the struggle for justice, locally and internationally.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 26, 2019
