Sarahana Shrestha is building a progressive movement in the Hudson Valley

Assembly Member Sarahana Shrestha arrived in America more than 20 years ago with her own experience of fractured politics. Her native Nepal had seen its monarch murdered at the hands of a fringe royal seeking more power. The violence only added to the air of uncertainty surrounding the country's civil war, with Maoist insurgents fighting government forces in an attempt to secure power.

Shrestha came to New York City in 2001 to attend the New York Institute of Technology. Just weeks into the semester, al-Qaida operatives crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, and her adopted home became embroiled in the global war on terror. Shrestha’s political beliefs crystallized during the subsequent anti-war movement, but she never imagined that her commitment to organizing would lead to a run for public office one day.

“Public speaking was my nightmare. I’m actually a pretty introverted person, so I thought that it was not the right fit for me,” Shrestha told City & State. “But when I really started thinking about what is needed to change the politics of this country, change the politics of this state, and where the momentum was, I felt like I should do what is needed of me, which is run for office.”

Her 2022 run proved successful as she overtook longtime Assembly Member Kevin Cahill in the 103rd Assembly District’s Democratic primary before winning in the general election. Since her victory, the left has grown its presence in the Hudson Valley, with the Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America swelling its ranks and other progressive groups ramping up their own organizing.

Other progressive primary challengers in the region haven’t been quite as successful as Shrestha, but they’ve come closer than many expected as the Hudson Valley’s electorate shifts to the left, especially with President Donald Trump well into his second term. Attempts to challenge Shrestha from the right have fallen flat as voters have embraced her canny messaging around affordability and sustainability.

Organizing around progressive ideals isn’t a new concept in the region, but until Shrestha’s win, many assumed that words like “socialism” would put off voters. Now, the opposite seems to be true, as left-wing politics become more entrenched and Shrestha builds out a progressive stronghold in the Hudson Valley.

Public power

After moving to the Kingston area, Shrestha joined the Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of the DSA, where she dug into one of her signature issues: climate change. She advocated on behalf of the DSA as part of the Public Power New York coalition during the legislative push for the Build Public Renewables Act. She got an early sense of how Albany works (or doesn’t) and saw the obstacles that often get in the way of progressive legislation, including corporate interests and ineffective representation. She wondered whether there was a better way to get involved.

“We were really frustrated with my experience with my predecessor when I met with him to talk about this bill, and when I learned how much money the insurance company donated when he was the chair of (the) Insurance (Committee), and how much money the energy sector donated when he was the chair of (the) Energy (Committee),” she said. “So these kinds of things inspired us to look into if this was a winnable seat, because in our experience, it didn’t match the district.”

Former Ulster County Legislator Phil Erner, a fellow DSA member, bore witness to Shrestha’s first dalliance with electoral politics. Shrestha and her husband led the charge on Erner’s 2021 campaign for a Kingston seat, seeing the campaign as an opportunity to prove that socialists can win in upstate New York. A graphic designer by trade, Shrestha was also eager to put her skills to political use. Erner said he wasn’t surprised when Shrestha eventually moved from behind the scenes to the name on the ballot. “I think the great thing about the left movements and organizations when they’re working well is that they can train just about anybody to be a leader, to be a representative,” he said.

But Shrestha still needed some convincing to take the leap. Even after her fellow organizers pushed her to challenge Cahill, she was hesitant. The man who will likely become the next mayor of New York City helped sway her. “I was really, really, really against it, to be honest, because I only enjoy being behind the scenes,” she said. “It took me a while to decide I should run, and I should probably name drop this person now, which is that one of the reasons I was convinced to run was after I spoke to Zohran Mamdani.”

Mamdani was then in his first term in the Assembly, still years away from becoming a famous democratic socialist in New York. But he had also organized around eco-socialist issues and was able to help Shrestha understand the value of being an organizer within the government. That simplified her decision. “I felt like I should do what is needed of me, which is run for office and run a very strong campaign, and that’s how we did it,” Shrestha said.

Her win was fueled by a mixture of tight messaging on climate and the economy as well as a ground game that saw legions of volunteer canvassers fan out throughout the district – a tactic that has become familiar in New York City DSA races and which Shrestha’s campaign proved could work even outside of dense metro areas. In the end, she defeated Cahill, who had been in office for more than two decades, by a little over 3 points in the primary.

A socialist in office

When she got to Albany, she joined a burgeoning group of Socialists in Office who have essentially become the left wing of the left wing. She is the only member of DSA’s nine-member Socialists in Office bloc to represent an upstate and partially rural constituency. Once in office, she helped push through the Build Public Renewables Act, delivering on the hopes of those that spurred her to run in the first place.

She has also advocated for tenants rights – a fight that required her to correct some people’s mistaken assumptions about the Hudson Valley. “In the state Legislature, lots of people just don’t know that we have tenants up here. They think, ‘oh, suburbs outside of New York City.’ They didn’t even know we need rent stabilization,” Shrestha said. “They don’t even know we have an appetite for rent stabilization.”

Shrestha and progressive organizers pushed for tenant protections in recent housing deals and finally got their wish in 2024, sort of. “Good cause” eviction protections, which prohibit evictions in certain cases and rental increases over certain thresholds, was included in the state budget, with the caveat that municipalities outside of New York City had to opt in to the new protections before they could take effect. Shrestha and her staff have been part of the “good cause” opt-in campaign in upstate New York, which has seen more than a dozen cities both inside and outside of her district enact the law.

Her latest mission is to create Hudson Valley Power Authority by turning Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. into a publicly owned utility company. The antipathy many in the region have toward the local utility company transcends city limits and political parties, and Shrestha has spearheaded a proposal to remove the for-profit component from the provider entirely.

These issue-specific policy priorities have given her the leeway to maintain her stances on more controversial topics like Israel’s war in Gaza. She was one of the first to call for a ceasefire in 2023 and firmly sided with protesters even when it was not politically expedient to do so. Just a few counties down, former Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s support for Palestine opened the door for his eventual primary loss. But Shrestha’s theory is that there isn’t any need to moderate your position on issues like Gaza so long as you can point to work you’ve done to address people’s day-to-day concerns. “The role I play also is to take a risk and to show that those risks are worth taking, that you can survive those risks if you have done the other things correctly,” she said.

Moderate backlash

For some, it might not matter what Shrestha does. While she has captured the hearts of her electorate, some more moderate and more established Democrats still view her with a degree of skepticism, either because they think she hasn’t lived in the area long enough or they feel her politics are too radical. Even though they might collaborate with her on district issues, there remains an old guard hoping to displace her and the progressive movement behind her. Last year, they took a shot at her – and lost.

Gabi Madden, state Sen. James Skoufis’ former deputy chief of staff, ran an aggressive primary challenge against Shrestha, backed by both Kingston Mayor Steve Noble and Skoufis, who used to represent part of her district and has tried to build his own base of power in Orange County. Madden raised more than $200,000 but was crushed in the primary, losing to Shrestha by more than 30 points.

Ulster County Democratic Party Chair Barbara Graves-Poller pointed to Shrestha’s popularity within the county party and said that at a certain point, people will just need to accept that she isn’t going anywhere. “Sarahana has won two elections here, and so I guess when you’re saying establishment, she is the establishment at this point,” Graves-Poller said.

Skoufis seems interested in having a positive relationship with Shrestha. He told City & State that his support for Madden’s primary challenge was largely a reflection of his loyalty to a former employee. He said he does not have any problem with Shrestha or democratic socialists and in fact attributed the Democratic Party’s success in the statehouse to its acceptance of a widening spectrum of political beliefs. “That’s not to suggest that we’re always going to agree on every issue, because we’re obviously not, especially if we have a large tent,” Skoufis said.

Skoufis noted that Shrestha’s dominance is obvious and her district is easily the region’s progressive epicenter, which wasn’t always the case. “It used to be pretty Republican-dominated at the county level, and now it’s not even competitive,” he said. “And yes, part of that is because there are now more Democrats, but a huge part of it is because the Democrats in places like Ulster County and Red Hook and Rhinebeck across the river in Dutchess County are far more active. They’re far more organized, and look, that’s a good thing.”

Growing the left

There is sometimes a tendency to treat the progressive movement in the Hudson Valley as artificial, a product of the many universities in the region – often with hippie and protest-friendly connotations – and the rapid influx of New York City residents in the years since the start of the pandemic. But between the organizing that birthed Shrestha’s candidacy and long-standing advocacy for things as simple as the Hudson River watershed, there has always been fertile ground for the left to grow – and current events now seem to be accelerating that growth.

The Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of the DSA recently grew its ranks to more than 600 members, and they expect to hit 1,000 members in the coming years. Shrestha’s success contributed to that. “Our chapter really exploded in growth when we had won the primary for the first time, and it’s continued to grow since then, not just because of that campaign and having Sarahana in office, but that’s certainly a really significant part of it,” Mid-Hudson Valley DSA Co-Chair Leanna Zilles said. “It activated people into political engagement when maybe they weren’t really thinking about that before, maybe they were disillusioned before. Now, they feel like they have something that they can be a part of.”

For The Many, a progressive political organization in the Hudson Valley with close ties to the DSA, was heavily involved in Shrestha’s first campaign victory, forming an independent expenditure committee that sent tens of thousands of mailers and contacted nearly half of the voters in the district. Since her win, the group has partnered with her by lobbying on legislation and calling for the state Public Service Commission to show its teeth in utility rate cases.

Brahvan Ranga, political director of For the Many, said the organization has adopted an aggressive electoral strategy as they seek to add to the Hudson Valley’s progressive ranks. The group backed Claire Cousin’s primary challenge against Assembly Member Didi Barrett last year, which came up short, and is busy recruiting local candidates. “We’re also working on building our bench of local candidates who can both pass transformative tenant protections at the local level or enact rent stabilization … who could also run for higher office” Ranga said. “Our political coordinator, Daniel Atonna, got elected to the Poughkeepsie Common Council with something like 80% of the vote.”

Hudson Valley Strong, the local Indivisible chapter, also counts Shrestha as an asset for her organizing talent. Steering Committee Member Larry Cox said that Shrestha, more than many others, understands the effectiveness of simplifying things for voters and promising tangible results.

Shrestha’s effect on Hudson Valley politics goes beyond just her district, because her policy aims are often regional rather than limited to her pocket of constituents in Ulster and Dutchess counties. For instance, her plan for the Hudson Valley Power Authority would affect communities from Newburgh to the Capital Region, and the REST Act, which would make it easier for upstate municipalities to opt in to rent stabilization, could have ramifications as far west as Rochester. She isn’t oblivious to the expanded reach she’s opening herself up to. “I know that I have my district lines, but I hear from people outside of my district all the time,” she said.

Shrestha’s future

It’s not always clear what Shrestha wants. What she wants to get done for her constituents? Sure. What advocates and organizers are calling on her for? Yes. What communities have communicated to her are pressing needs? Absolutely. But Shrestha’s personal interests are less apparent – which may be the mark of an effective organizer.

“It’s kind of like the chicken or the egg,” political strategist Bill Neidhardt said. “What came first, the organizer, or the movement, right? I think she does a great job of integrating herself into that movement of folks who want to see this change happen and that’s what I think gives her so much credibility, is that when Sarahana speaks, it’s not one person’s voice that you’re hearing, it’s the collective that she’s worked so closely with for years.”

Shrestha doesn’t have a clear set of goals for the future, aside from continuing to work for her district. She said she isn’t eyeing Assembly leadership, a jump to the state Senate or another post on the county or federal levels. In her eyes, focusing too much on what’s next is the easiest way to lose the plot.

“As soon as you start thinking about goals that are not immediately connected to what you’re trying to do right now, I think that’s how you lose track of what you ran for office for,” she said.