Pat Ryan’s Patriot PAC endorses nearly 100 candidates across NY

Rep. Pat Ryan is endorsing a slate of local candidates statewide through his Patriot PAC – but don’t read into his decision to get involved too much, according to Ryan. Despite his name being on many lips for statewide office, he’s hoping to help steer a new generation of “service-minded” Democrats for the love of the democracy game.

This slate includes a total of 85 candidates running for everything from town council to state Senate across 26 counties. That’s up from 17 total counties Ryan’s Patriot PAC endorsed in last year, after forming the PAC in September to support candidates from “public service backgrounds” such as military veterans and teachers.  He called the efforts in 2025 “hugely successful” – three-quarters of the candidates Patriot PAC supported won their races – and said he hoped to build on the momentum this year.

“It's just been really rewarding to get to know these candidates, see them working hard and then support them in these races,” the Hudson Valley Democrat told City & State. “The goal is just to get more service-minded candidates who have... walked the walk on true community service, and almost definitionally haven't come up through the traditional political machinery.”

Interestingly, one of Ryan’s endorsed candidates is state Sen. Jeremy Zellner, who embodies the “traditional political machinery” as the longtime chair of the Erie County Democratic Party who practically oversaw his own selection by the party to run in a special election earlier this year (Zellner recused himself from the nominating process). Asked about that particular endorsement, Ryan did not explain his specific reasoning for weighing in in that race. “I think the core idea is less about the political dynamics of an individual race and more about… the individual caliber of the candidate,” he said.

Patriot PAC is indeed supporting a range of candidates Democratic primaries – some incumbents, some insurgents and some running for open seats. Ryan backed Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, for example, who is seeking to unseat state Sen. Jessica Ramos. He also endorsed Assembly candidates Ryder Kessler and Eli Northrup, both running for open seats in Manhattan. 

The PAC additionally endorsed a number of candidates running to flip Republican-held seats in the state Legislature, including state Senate candidate Lisa Kaul from Poughkeepsie and Assembly candidate Chloe Pierce in the Capital Region.

It’s an awful lot of races to get involved in, and hyper local to boot in many cases. They’re the kind of elections one might expect someone with statewide ambitions might choose to influence. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has similarly endorsed big slates in the past – though has yet to make many local endorsements yet this year. But Ryan said that’s not why he’s doing it. 

“I just think we have to fucking win right now,” he said. “It is such an existential amount of harm being done, and risk that constituents are facing. Everybody has to do the maximum that they can in this moment to win.”

The goal for Ryan, he said, is to have the Democratic Party be a big tent, which includes more moderate candidates like himself, and progressives like Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom he endorsed after the 2025 primary. 

“The way the governor (Kathy Hochul) and the mayor have operated together in broadening the coalition is a great example of that,” Ryan said. “I've tried to model that – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and I have done a bunch together… We don't agree on every single thing, but we're focusing on the things we agree on, and people have really responded to that.”

Ryan said he hasn’t given thought about the prospect of running for governor or U.S. Senate, even if he admitted his desire for expanded influence on the direction of the Democratic Party. “For me personally, I want to have the maximum influence to win these races and get the party in a better place,” he said. “I don't think that's about a seat or a position.”