With G.O.P. Primary on Staten Island Over, Enter the Democrat

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/nyregion/max-rose-staten-island-congress.html

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For months, all the political oxygen in Staten Island was being consumed by the Republican showdown between Representative Dan Donovan and Michael Grimm, the former congressman and convicted tax felon.

But all the while, Max Rose, a 31-year-old Army veteran and health care executive, was waiting in the wings — if waiting can mean corralling votes with the tenacity of a sheepdog, out-raising and out-canvassing his five Democratic challengers.

On Tuesday, his steady crusade paid off, with Mr. Rose winning 65 percent of the vote in the primary in the 11th Congressional District, which takes in all of Staten Island and a chunk of South Brooklyn.

Mr. Rose, who happily answers to progressive, moderate, liberal — even “blue dog” — refuses to concede that the borough is inherently conservative, and thus unwinnable. President Trump won Staten Island by 17 points, but Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district by a five-to-three ratio.

“I’m tired of this misconception of Staten Island as a conservative place, a red place,” Mr. Rose said while nursing a Bud Light at a favorite Irish tavern on Forest Avenue. “No. This is a place that votes for the person, not the party.”

Because of redistricting, comparisons are hard to draw between the most recent presidential election and previous ones. Until 2013, the 11th District consisted entirely of Brooklyn neighborhoods, with a mostly African-American population. But in 2012, President Barack Obama narrowly won Staten Island in his re-election bid, besting Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, by 1,100 votes.

The district is viewed as one of the most competitive in the country, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wasted no time attacking Mr. Donovan, releasing a 30-second negative ad, hours after the primary results were known.

Some Democratic strategists were hoping that Mr. Rose would face Mr. Grimm, believing that a felon would be easier to beat. With an 11th-hour endorsement from President Trump, Mr. Donovan won by almost 28 points.

But Mr. Rose, who grew up in Brooklyn and moved to Staten Island a few years ago, seemed unconcerned about his foe in November. “I’m going to beat either one of them,” he said earlier this week, before the results were known.

“They are so irrelevant to me because they are two sides of the same coin,” he said. “They both had a chance to do something. They both failed. They both have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate PAC money. And they both have spoken to — I think — the worst side of politics in this race.”

With a shaved head and a squared jaw, Mr. Rose looks every bit the former Army captain. After completing officer training school, he became a platoon leader in El Paso, Tex., before shipping off to Afghanistan. There, he led a small combat outpost with 30 American soldiers and scores of Afghan National Army soldiers. He was only 26.

“That’s the thing about the military,” he said. “They give very young people experiences and levels of empowerment that you could never find anywhere else. It’s astounding.”

He earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star after he suffered injuries — a cut to the head and a torn knee tendon — when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. He said he was grateful not to lose any soldiers during his 10-month deployment.

Still a captain in the National Guard, Mr. Rose somehow retains the aura of the cerebral history major at Wesleyan University, where, he said, he “became deeply committed to academics,” while also getting involved in community organizing. It was then that he had his first taste of politics, interning for Cory Booker, then the mayor of Newark and now a United States senator.

In Newark, Mr. Rose dove into criminal-justice initiatives and gun policies, continuing to work remotely during his senior year of college.

Though only a teenager, Mr. Rose made an impression on Mr. Booker’s policy adviser, Matthew Klapper, who is now the senator’s chief of staff in Washington. The two have stayed in touch.

“He was one of these very low-drama, selfless, public service-oriented people,” Mr. Klapper said. “He was there at an important time as my work moved into a priority lane. He was so central to that work that he briefed the mayor on one or two occasions. When he ended up going into the military, it was no surprise. He was always seeking the best way to make an impact.”

After Wesleyan, Mr. Rose earned a master’s degree in philosophy and public policy at the London School of Economics. “It’s fascinating how all of these issues we deal with boil down to fundamental questions: What is freedom? W hat is the role of government?” he said.

His first job in government came in 2014, when he took a position as special assistant to Brooklyn’s first African-American district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, who died of cancer two years ago. Mr. Rose’s portfolio centered on a program called “Begin Again,” designed to resolve low-level warrants tied to summonses.

“We set up little courthouses in churches to erase these warrants that were effectively concentrated in low-income communities,” he recalled. “You get one of these summonses and, if you don’t pay it off, you have a record. It provided them an opportunity to pursue a better life.”

From there, he became chief of staff of Brightpoint Health, a nonprofit provider with 800 employees and clinics in all five boroughs. The role convinced him of the importance of preventive and integrated medicine. “It’s not just the right way to provide social services and health care,” he said. “It’s also incredibly cost-efficient.”

In January, he left to campaign full time for Congress, managing to squeeze in a wedding to Leigh Byrne, a fashion stylist, in March. His brief, but peripatetic résumé has informed his stump speeches, which are peppered with calls for bold reform.

Mr. Rose frequently invokes the Apollo space program and the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act — even the liberation of Europe from the Nazis — as examples of the type of response needed for today’s problems: opioids, gun violence, crumbing infrastructure and, yes, the long commutes plaguing Staten Island and Brooklyn.

His wonkiness seems to resonate with Democrats in the district. “He’s impressive,” said Betsy Greene, a retired interior designer and campaign volunteer. “We desperately want to get a Democrat in there and flip the House, and he’s definitely the best candidate to do that.”

As for November, Mr. Rose remains bullish about his prospects. But, he says with a grin, “win or lose, the beauty of my situation is that I’m going on a honeymoon.”