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Rostislav Rar
Rostislav Rar (Democratic Party) (also known as Slava) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent New York's 20th Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on August 23, 2022.
Rar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Rostislav Rar was born outside of the U.S. in Novosibirsk. He earned a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Albany in 2012 and a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2019. His professional experience includes working as a nonprofit attorney focusing on immigration. Rar previously worked as a legislative assistant and a constituent liaison in the New York State Legislature from 2010 to 2016.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: New York's 20th Congressional District election, 2022
General election
General election for U.S. House New York District 20
Incumbent Paul Tonko defeated Elizabeth Joy in the general election for U.S. House New York District 20 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Paul Tonko (D / Working Families Party) | 55.0 | 160,420 |
 | Elizabeth Joy (R / Conservative Party) | 44.9 | 130,869 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.0 | 144 | ||
| Total votes: 291,433 | |||
 = 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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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 20
Incumbent Paul Tonko defeated Rostislav Rar in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New York District 20 on August 23, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Paul Tonko | 88.1 | 18,251 |
 | Rostislav Rar | 11.7 | 2,422 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.3 | 54 | ||
| Total votes: 20,727 | |||
| = 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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Justin Chaires (D)
- Cole Matthews (D)
- Jack Fallon-Underwood (D)
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Elizabeth Joy advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House New York District 20.
Conservative Party primary election
The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Elizabeth Joy advanced from the Conservative Party primary for U.S. House New York District 20.
Working Families Party primary election
The Working Families Party primary election was canceled. Incumbent Paul Tonko advanced from the Working Families Party primary for U.S. House New York District 20.
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Rostislav Rar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Rar's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Before I came to the Capital Region after finishing my sophomore year of high school, I had already lived in Russia, Japan, Germany, Alabama and Tennessee. My path was filled with contradiction, diversity and a search for belonging.
I have found belonging in the Capital Region. Whether I'm tending to our community garden, volunteering at Honest Weight Food Co-Op or attending a protest to shut down a polluting factory, the Capital Region is my home, my community, my people.
We live in a special country where a socialist, a bartender and a nurse can become the biggest change makers of the past several decades. With this campaign, we hope to embody that same energy and use it to put an end to the inequity and injustice that have crept into our society and our urgent fight against climate change.
Our vision is to build more than just a campaign. We are building a movement with the long-term goal of shifting the political and policymaking outcomes in the Capital Region for years to come.
- Green New Deal and Zero Emission by 2030.
- Education is a public good that must be equitably distributed and equally accessible at all levels.
- Create a robust social safety net and alternatives to policing that can keep us all safe.
It is unfathomable and sickening that we have essentially created a caste system within the United States where millions of undocumented immigrants live in the shadows of our society; voiceless and without rights.
I envision a world where even the most self-obsessed politicians will still do the right thing because it’s the right thing for their careers. We already have the tools and insight to create such an environment. We just have to build a coalition that can make this happen.
Full public financing of elections would make it impossible to rely on corporate money, lobbyist money, and special interest money to finance one’s campaign thereby removing the largest incentive for duplicity and double-dealing. Policies that promote voting, for example, by giving everyone who votes a $20 dollar check, would incentivize broad participation and thereby force politicians to appeal to all people and not just small, well-resourced communities. Policies that promote transparency by allowing complex legislative language to be easily accessible to the average reader will make it harder for politicians to misdirect their constituents. Policies like term limits will remove the motivation that most politicians have to hold on to their seats permanently.
Shortly thereafter I remember my parents telling me that the US invaded Afghanistan. Coming from Russia I had a very different relationship with war than my classmates. In Russia, historically, war meant you were in danger. Whether it was Napoleon or Hitler or the war in Chechnya, even at a young age I understood war as being dangerous, as being wrong.
I remember struggling to understand why my new country would want to attack and invade another country. I imagined our warplanes zooming menacingly over foreign skies.
I hadn't understood yet that in the US people had a very different relationship with war. For most Americans war meant sending troops to foreign soil: it was impersonal, distant, unthreatening.
We view climate change as both an existential threat and a great opportunity to come together as a global society.
This is one of the reasons why our campaign is youth-centered. Young people realize that they will be the most affected by the climate change crisis over their lifetimes. They recognize that the older generations have given them a bad deal by leaving a devastated planet. It's no wonder that young people have been at the center of the movement to stop climate change.
The world is changing so rapidly and the people in charge cannot change fast enough. The average age of a Member of Congress is 58 years; the average age of the Democratic leadership is 72. Only 11 members of Congress are under 35 while over 100 members of congress are over 70!
We owe a great moral debt to the many Afghanis who have believed in the promise of a better life that we had given them when we invaded their country. It's heartbreaking to watch the United States abandon this promise as it has done with so many others.
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
2022 Elections
External links
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Candidate U.S. House New York District 20 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on December 9, 2021
