Ana María Archila became co-executive director of the New York Working Families Party at a moment of seeming crisis in the party. In 2022, its gubernatorial slate of Jumaane Williams and Archila herself (as the party's lieutenant governor pick) garnered the WFP its lowest vote total in a statewide election in a decade. Governor Kathy Hochul, a centrist Democrat, was in power at the state level and demanding rollbacks to criminal justice reforms and fighting like hell to stop momentum on tenant protections. And in New York City, Eric Adams had just taken office, pursuing austerity and letting his friends and donors run roughshod over the city.
Under her leadership, and that of her codirector Jasmine Gripper, the WFP's fortunes have considerably changed in the past few years—in 2025, the group helped keep a coalition together that ultimately defeated its long-time antagonist, Andrew Cuomo, twice, and endorsed Zohran Mamdani at a pivotal moment in the mayoral primary. Elsewhere in the state, WFP candidates won their mayoral races in Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse.
But Mamdani's rise has led to a new set of issues for the party. They're sometimes in coordination with and sometimes in opposition to a rising socialist left that is determined to wield its newfound power and be the standard-bearer for the broader progressive movement. That flexing of power is creating some potential problems for WFP as it attempts to harness its newfound momentum. To wit: The two groups are on opposite sides of the contentious NY-7 congressional race to replace Nydia Velázquez, which pits DSA's Claire Valdez against the WFP-endorsed Antonio Reynoso in the Democratic primary.
DSA members have, for years, and often rightfully, pointed at WFP as sailing on the momentum created by the resurgent socialist movement, and see the stakes of the NY-7 race as one that will show who has power among New York's resurgent left.
Archila, on the other hand, doesn't quite see it that way. "My hope is that this coalition survives the NY-7 election. And that after the dust settles, we all commit to actually focusing on helping Zohran govern and deliver the agenda. The eyes of the world are on New York City," she said.
But she's not ready just yet to concede organizing on the left to the socialists.
"It would be very unwise, however, to simply reduce the forces of the left to the DSA expression," Archila said. She added, "There is a place for organizations that are made up of much poorer and less upwardly mobile people to have a role in shaping our politics, and that's a core commitment of the party."
During her final week at the WFP (she's joining the Mamdani administration as its international affairs head, where she'll liaise with the diplomatic community in New York City), Hell Gate caught up with Archila to discuss her time at WFP, as well as what people misunderstand about the political party and its endorsements, why they're sitting out this year's governor's race, and what the future might hold for the two sometimes dueling vanguards of New York's left.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Hell Gate: Looking at the arc of the WFP, you bailed out Kathy Hochul in 2022 in her surprisingly close race against Republican Lee Zeldin—what is the trade off for the progressive movement when you help mainstream Democrats like Hochul who are still deeply hostile to a lot of the work that the WFP is doing?