Running for Office During a Pandemic

Published: June 15, 2020, 4 p.m.

The need for social distancing has upended most of the ways that candidates have traditionally put themselves before voters: gathering crowds, shaking hands, kissing babies. Eric Lach has been following the race in New York’s Seventeenth Congressional District to learn how Facebook Live, e-mail newsletters, and Zoombombs are shaping the race. “There’s no question that people are in pain, and they’re worried and they’re distracted,” Allison Fine, a candidate with a background in digital organizing, said. “So we’re not going to be able to break through all that noise . . . . But all the metrics of engagement are going up.”