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New York Left Hits Wall in Primaries, Points to Reasons for Optimism


Jumaane Williams (photo: John McCarten/City Coucnil)


Last month’s primary election was a disappointing one for progressive Democrats in New York, as statewide and Assembly candidates lost to incumbents across the board with few consolation victories. It was a markedly different election than four years ago, when a progressive wave shifted the political landscape, contributed to a Democratic takeover of the State Senate, and helped deliver a long list of liberal policy priorities at the state level.

But even as progressives had an especially disappointing set of primaries, including in the primaries for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, they held onto several seats where their own incumbents were facing challenges from moderates and flipped one particularly notable upstate Assembly seat.

Governor Kathy Hochul and her running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, both moderate Democrats, handily won their respective primaries by unexpectedly wide margins and are headed into the general election on a joint ticket. The progressive standard bearers in the race, New York CIty Public Advocate Jumaane Williams running with activist Ana Maria Archila, both fell short. Each came second in their race, besting the centrist pair of Rep. Tom Suozzi and former New York City Council Member Diana Reyna.

But Williams received just 19% of the vote compared to Hochul’s 66.5%, while Suozzi got just 12.8%. Archila got 23.3% to Delgado’s 57%, while Reyna got 13.3%. Williams and Archila came up far below the progressives running in 2018: Cynthia Nixon got 34% against Governor Andrew Cuomo while Williams received 47% against Hochul in the lieutenant governor primary — though both of those were two-way races.

At the Assembly level, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other left-wing officials and activists worked together to support a slate of challengers against sitting Democrats and for open seats, as well as incumbent progressive Assemblymembers. While the incumbent progressives held on to their seats, most of the challengers failed.

Sarahana Shrestha, a democratic socialist, is the only challenger from that slate to win her race, defeating Assemblymember Kevin Cahill in the 103rd Assembly District. (Another race, in Brooklyn’s 54th Assembly District, where Samy Nemir Olivares challenged Assemblymember Erik Dilan, is still too close to call.)

Another Working Families Party-backed candidate (not endorsed by the DSA or AOC), MaryJane Shimsky, won in Westchester's 92nd District, beating Assemblymember Tom Abinanti in the Democratic primary.

In Queens’ 37th District, Juan Ardila, who was endorsed by the WFP and Ocasio-Cortez — but not the DSA, which typically endorses far fewer candidates than the WFP — emerged victorious in an open race to replace outgoing Assemblymember Cathy Nolan.

There were many factors at play this year that worked against progressive momentum. In the statewide races, Hochul and Delgado had the benefits of name recognition and far more campaign cash, raising and spending millions of dollars to get their message out across the airwaves to voters, while Williams and Archila’s resources were paltry in comparison. Hochul, able to fund-raise at a historic clip given the powers and leverage of the office, was also able to spend the months and weeks leading up to the primary celebrating aspects of the $220 billion state budget passed with the Legislature in April and signing bills negotiated in the post-budget legislative session, including major accomplishments on childcare, healthcare, housing, abortion care, gun control, and more.

It was also a vastly different political landscape than in 2018, the last statewide election. That year, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a rogue faction of Democrats that helped keep Republicans in control of the State Senate, was on the ballot and a major motivator for left-wing organizing. And President Donald Trump was in power. Democrats across the nation were boiling over with resentment and in New York, that meant a surge in turnout and the election of several young progressives in the State Legislature, including the demise of most members of the IDC.

With Cuomo’s resignation last year, progressives lost a villain who, for them, embodied the worst of Albany’s dysfunction and a centrist who preferred a split Legislature.

Turnout dropped significantly from 2018, though it was still above 2014, even without State Senate races on the ballot — they are set for a second, court-ordered primary along with U.S. House of Representatives primaries in August. Hochul and legislators declined to pursue combining the primaries for later in the summer, assuming that the split primary and lower turnout would advantage incumbents.

The local political conversation has largely revolved around public safety and crime over the last two years given the rise in violent crime coinciding with the pandemic, another factor that has often appeared to cut into progressive momentum, including in last year’s mayoral race won by Eric Adams. National politics also seemed to subsume the election in the closing days. With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and a gun control law in New York State, there seemed to be little appetite among voters to depose sitting Democrats from office, particularly Hochul, who has led the way on both issues since taking over as governor.

Progressives were left fighting for attention, attempting to argue they would do even more on these issues with little room for such claims, and attempting to keep the focus on issues like housing and climate where the left-wing arguments against Hochul and other more moderate incumbents are stronger, and have been the focus of many of the progressives’ campaigns.

“Statewide, I was not surprised by the poor showing [for progressives]. Hochul ran a very effective political operation from the day she was sworn in to ensure the primary wasn’t going to ever really be an event,” said Neal Kwatra, founder of Metropolitan Public Strategies, in a text message. “On the Assembly, I thought the Sarahana and Shimsky wins over Cahill and Abinatti were quite notable and big wins for the climate movement in NY. But otherwise labor and the establishment beat back most of the challenges from the Left.”

New York leftists say they don’t see the outcomes as a loss. The NYC DSA, in a message to supporters, touted the victories of incumbent Assemblymembers Phara Souffrant Forrest, Emily Gallagher, Marcela Mitaynes, and Zohran Mamdani as proof “that their 2020 victories were not just flukes, but that championing democratic socialist legislation and committing to real organizing in their districts works.” And they noted that if Shrestha should win in November, they will add another legislator to their ranks. “This is a step forward for our movement. It means that socialism is here to stay, and it is growing across the State,” the organization said.

“In the face of tremendous real estate spending and right-wing fear mongering, voters chose to keep socialist legislators in office,” said Sumathy Kumar, co-chair of NYC-DSA, in a public statement. “NYC-DSA is proud to have spent the last few months knocking on thousands of doors and talking to thousands of working class New Yorkers about the possibilities our DSA For the Many slate opens up. It’s clear that New York’s working majority is tired of politics as usual, and the only path forward is to tax the rich for universal healthcare, a green new deal, and tenants rights for all.” 

Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist and senior advisor at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, praised Archila’s campaign in particular but said it didn’t break through to the larger Democratic electorate. “I think the problem that progressives have in statewide primaries is that they can't win just by appealing to progressives,” he said. “They have to build bridges to other constituencies.”

He noted that Democrats weren’t as engaged as they were in 2018. “Voters are not feeling that these incumbents are letting them down. In 2018 there was real anger towards the IDC, that anger does not exist…I think the progressives misperceived that there was this continuing anger towards Democratic incumbents,” Gyory said.

“I think the one who kind of took it on the chin, perception wise, was AOC, who made all those endorsements,” he said, referring to Ocasio-Cortez.

Notably, Ocasio-Cortez and a number of other progressive elected leaders from Rep. Nydia Velazquez to State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris endorsed Archila but not Williams, and there appeared to be limited momentum for the gubernatorial candidate. Still, Archila failed to come close to Williams’ 2018 showing in the lieutenant governor’s race. The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Williams in 2018 against Hochul (as well as Cuomo over Nixon), endorsed Hochul this year and did not endorse in the lieutenant governor contest.

On election night, at the Williams-Archila watch party, Working Families Party spokesperson Ravi Mangla wasn’t dismayed by the results coming in. “I think this year we saw low voter turnout and we saw large spends by real estate and large money interests against many of our progressive candidates,” he told Gotham Gazette. “We saw this as a battle of working people versus big money and in many of these cases big money won out. But at the same time, we think this is just the beginning. It's a long fight and we're hoping to build towards bigger wins down the road. I think we remain pretty optimistic about the outlook of New York and our ability to continue to make gains."

As Mangla and others have noted, Williams spent less than Suozzi and still outperformed him, while Hochul spent as much as $26 million, of which about $13 million went to ads alone — Williams spent less than $400,000 in sum. And Archila too spent less than Reyna and did better.

“We're never going to have Hochul's money, her $30 million against our roughly one million,” Mangla. “But if you do a dollars-per-vote, both Jumaane and Archila's races are going to have the best return on investment. And in that terms we're just up against big money in these races.”

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive Democrat and longtime Williams ally who endorsed Williams and Archila, echoed Mangla’s point at the watch party. “Look, they were out-spent,” he said of Williams and Archila. “I think if you combine the two of them, 60-to-1, and still inspired a ton of people to fight to not get kicked out of their homes, and demanding that Democrats really show up on a wide range of fights. So I feel proud of them and I think they inspired an awful lot of people and that's really important.”

He pointed out, as have Williams and others during this campaign, that those fundraising inequalities may soon become less apparent as the state moves to a new campaign finance system, which includes lower individual contribution limits and a public matching system somewhat similar to New York City’s.

On Wednesday night, the Working Families Party put something of a fitting bow on the primaries, announcing that it had filed to put Hochul and Delgado on its general election ballot line.

“Following last week’s Democratic Primary, Jumaane Williams and Ana María Archila declined their designations for the Working Families Party ballot line in the General Election,” said Sharon Cromwell, Deputy Director of the New York Working Families Party, in a statement. “Our State Committee voted to fill those vacancies with Kathy Hochul for Governor and Antonio Delgado for Lieutenant Governor. Our party has never played the role of spoiler and has no intentions of doing so this year. We’re committed to ensuring the Republican nominee Lee Zeldin—and all right-wing extremists dead set on stripping us of our freedoms—are soundly defeated on Election Day.”

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

*Ethan Geringer-Sameth contributed to this piece.

Hochul Moves Ahead Slowly on Promised Review of New York's Pandemic Response


Gov. Kathy Hochul (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)


Governor Kathy Hochul has yet to hire independent consultants, or even solicit contract bids, for a COVID-19 after-action review the administration said in April was already "underway.”

After having said in March that she told her team to do a full investigation of the state’s pandemic response, in May Hochul said the state would be working with independent consultants to conduct the investigation. Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, said no contracts or requests for proposals (RFP) – the first step in the public bidding process – had come to the comptroller’s office. "We are not aware of any contracts or RFP’s related to this," he wrote in a June 28 email to Gotham Gazette.

A spokesperson for Hochul confirmed no RFPs had been issued for the review, which according to the governor's public comments would examine "every aspect" of the state's response to the pandemic.

"We will be conferring with experts across various sectors to finalize the scope of the Request for Proposal for the pandemic response review, which will be publicly posted later this summer," wrote Hochul spokesperson Bryan Lesswing in response to a Gotham Gazette inquiry. He did not respond to follow-up questions about the estimated date for releasing the RFP.

"Governor Hochul is committed to doing everything in our power to keep New Yorkers safe," Lesswing wrote. "In March, Governor Hochul directed her team to boost New York State’s COVID-19 response preparedness for a potential uptick in the fall and to explore a pandemic response review to better inform the State’s response to future pandemics and related emergencies. ​Her team immediately began working with State agencies to learn lessons from the Omicron surge and determine the objectives for a meaningful and substantive review."

The latest comments further muddle previous statements made by Hochul or her representatives to Gotham Gazette and in public appearances, which indicated the review had begun with outside consultants.

On March 18, in response to inquiries for a story on whether New York should initiate a pandemic after-action process, a spokesperson for Hochul said the governor "is exploring all options to review our pandemic response and protect New Yorkers from future public health crises." On April 22, after the New York Times reported Hochul had in late March ordered her team to investigate “the good, the bad and the ugly” of the state's response to COVID-19, a different spokesperson for the governor told Gotham Gazette the review was "ongoing." When asked to clarify whether the probe had begun or if the administration was still looking into the possibility of initiating it, the spokesperson, Hazel Crampton-Hays replied: "underway."

A month later, on May 23, Hochul told reporters at an unrelated press conference that she had a different vision for the pandemic review. “Actually, we have outside consultants who are going to be working with us to examine every aspect of the pandemic,” she said at the time. “The good, the bad, the ugly. Because I have to be able to leave future governors what was learned. Not just in the healthcare space in response to nursing homes, but also decisions that affected our economy.”

It was the first time she indicated the process would involve outside investigators, but seven weeks later, no formal steps have been taken to hire such a consultant.

On the debate stage with other Democratic candidates for governor on June 7, Hochul asked for more time to put together an independent commission after being pressed by moderators about whether the families of nursing home victims of COVID-19 deserved compensation.

"Give us time to put together a blue ribbon commission of people who are independent, not the consultants who were advising the last administration," she said. "I want to make sure we find out exactly what happened in the nursing home. I gave them an apology and I said I will look at this even further to determine what else we can do to help them."

In response to requests to clarify the apparently conflicting remarks, an administration spokesperson said the previous statements had referred to the governor's initiation of planning for the review with top officials. Asked why it has taken at least three months from the time Hochul first reportedly mentioned it to top officials, the spokesperson insisted there was no delay in initiating the formal review process and that it has taken time to determine the parameters of the probe.

The administration has never shared details about the potential after-action examination’s areas of focus, methodology, or timeline, which are still being determined.


Public health experts and transparency advocates have been calling on the state to initiate a public investigation that would examine and report findings on the details of the state's handling of the pandemic, including many of the opaque decisions made by Governor Andrew Cuomo and other state officials behind closed doors and with limited public oversight. That could include anything from the March 2020 emergency order to shut down much of public life to policies around nursing home residents to the rollout of vaccines – many aspects of which have been strongly criticized.

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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Voter Turnout in New York Gubernatorial Primary Drops Sharply from 2018 Surge


Voter turnout back down (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Voter turnout in New York City and State declined dramatically – by nearly half – from the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to the one that closed on Tuesday. 

In the race for the party's nomination, Governor Kathy Hochul won – by a wide margin – with close to the same number of votes Cynthia Nixon received in 2018 when she lost the Democratic nomination to incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo by a wide margin. The turnout this month was closer to other Democratic gubernatorial primaries over the last twenty years, which have consistently been among the lowest in the nation, though it was significantly larger than the 2014 primary.

Within that low-turnout environment, Hochul trounced her opponents, winning in a three-way race with roughly the same vote share Cuomo won in 2018. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who ran a progressive campaign to her left, came in second and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, who ran in a similar centrist lane to Hochul's but to her right on crime and taxes, came in third.

With about 98% of districts reporting results (not including some absentee ballots), Hochul won with about 67% of the vote, compared with Williams' 19%, and Suozzi's 13%. In New York City, where Williams had the home field advantage over the Buffalo native and the Long Island congressman, the gap was slightly narrower: Hochul won 60% of the vote, with Williams pulling in 28%, and Suozzi 12%.

According to preliminary data, just 865,000 registered Democrats — or 13% of the roughly 6.5 million registered Democrats across the state as of the most recent Board of Elections data — voted for governor (a number will grow slightly as final ballots are counted and reported).

That's compared to 1,558,000 Democratic primary voters, or 25%, in 2018 and the 574,000 Democratic primary voters in 2014, an abysmal 10% of registered party members.

New York City saw a similar pattern with 446,000 Democratic voters (13% turnout) compared with 913,000 (27%) in 2018 and 298,000 (9%) in 2014. The crowded, competitive Democratic primary for mayor last year had 942,000 ballots counted, roughly 25% of registered Democrats.

Democratic enrollment has increased statewide since 2014, growing from 5.9 to 6.5 million registered voters. The New York City rolls have grown too, jumping about 220,000 between 2014 and 2018, and growing a smaller 90,000 since then. Enrollment and turnout trends leading up to and during the 2018 election appear to have had several causes including the response to Republican Donald Trump’s election as president, intensifying intra-party conflict involving then-Governor Cuomo, and enhanced local attention on the balance of power in the New York State Senate, which shifted to Democratic hands after that year’s elections.

Voting rights advocates hoped that syncing state and congressional primary dates, as state lawmakers did in 2019, would help boost turnout. But that couldn't be tested this year, after a state judge postponed congressional and State Senate primaries to August after ruling newly drawn district lines invalid. This was the first gubernatorial primary held in June, rather than September in years. Governor Hochul and lawmakers then decided not to pursue shifting the June statewide and Assembly primaries to August, in a move that appeared to help incumbents. 

The Democratic race for governor was in some ways a rematch of the 2018 lieutenant governor primary between an incumbent Hochul and Williams, but with the addition of Suozzi and a vastly altered political landscape stirring the electoral calculus.

In 2018, the Democratic primary for governor was a two-candidate field with Nixon running against a second-term Cuomo on a progressive platform challenging the entrenched political ethos he cultivated. Williams, then a City Council member, was offering a progressive alternative to then-Lieutenant Governor Hochul. While Cuomo received roughly 66% of the Democratic vote against Nixon, Hochul beat Williams with just 53%.

The Nixon-Cuomo primary was also the first major election since the 2016 presidential contest and was widely seen as a referendum on the Trump era, where progressive and more moderate Democrats, alike, were galvanized to vote. It also contained a series of heated State Senate primaries, in which progressive insurgents challenged (and mostly beat) the breakaway group of Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference, or IDC, – another unique draw to the polls.

The Lieutenant Governor's race was slightly closer, with Antonio Delgado, Hochul's chosen running-mate and a former congressman, receiving about 57% of the Democratic vote. Progressive activist Ana María Archila, Williams' running-mate, received 23% of the vote, and Suozzi's running-mate, former City Council Member Diana Reyna, got 13%. Again, in New York City, the margin between the Democrats was narrower, with Delgado's 56% compared to Archila's 30% (Reyna's share was virtually the same).

Archila in some ways ran a more spirited campaign than Williams' and cultivated some high-profile progressive endorsements that he did not, including Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and Nydia Velazquez, and State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, among many others. Both were far outspent by their incumbent rivals, Williams by many millions of dollars.

The Republican Primary
The Republican gubernatorial primary was a four-way race won by Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin with 44% of the vote. Andrew Giuliani, a former White House aide to President Trump and son of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, garnered 23% of the Republican vote, according to preliminary data. Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the 2014 nominee for governor, and businessman Harry Wilson received 18% and 15%, respectively.

Republican primary turnout from 2010, the last time New York had a GOP gubernatorial race, between Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino, declined slightly overall and even increased in New York City. Statewide turnout was 447,000 (16% turnout) so far, compared with 480,000 (17%) in 2010. In New York City, 50,000 Republicans cast ballots for governor, 10% of registered voters, compared with 44,000, or 9%, in 2010.

Republican voter enrollment is up from 2010 in New York City but down overall statewide. Independent voters now outnumber Republicans statewide, and by a large number in New York City.

Over a fifth of registered voters, roughly 1,155,000 New Yorkers, are not affiliated with either major party and did not vote for nominees for governor and lieutenant governor.

Upstate-Downstate, Urban-Rural
According to an analysis from the CUNY Mapping Service, Democratic turnout tended to be higher in urban centers like Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany. It also saw a boost in the Hudson Valley, where Delgado hails from and in the Finger Lakes region. The latter is the home of Tompkins County, a liberal bastion in upstate New York that candidate Zephyr Teachout, a lawyer and activist, won in her unsuccessful 2014 primary against Cuomo.

The Seneca Lake region of the Finger Lakes is also ground zero for the battle over fossil fuel-powered crypto-mining. Williams and Archila spent some of the campaign criticizing Hochul’s and Delgado's reticence to opine on legislation to place a two-year moratorium on reopening closed fossil fuel plants -- and the generous sums crypto-currency industry leaders have donated to them or spent on their behalf.

Republican turnout, as a percentage, was highest in rural upstate regions and in Suffolk County on Long Island, where Zeldin received a major home-town boost. Zeldin won on Long Island and across much of upstate, while Giuliani did particularly well in the five boroughs where Republican regard for his father is still quite strong, Astorino did well in his Westchester base, and Wilson performed strongest in the upstate area near where he grew up.

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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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