Cuomo & Long Island candidates (photo: @andrewcuomo)
Having resoundingly won the Democratic Party nomination for a third term last month, Governor Andrew Cuomo is now directing the enormous campaign and party machinery that propelled his victory to focus its efforts on the New York State Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. In a break from past cycles when he has been criticized for doing too little for his party and its candidates, Cuomo has pledged to leverage the significant resources, financial and human, at his fingertips to help Democrats flip control of the two legislative chambers, one each at the state and federal levels, to better counter what he says are harmful policies of the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress.
On Monday, Cuomo stood alongside several state Senate candidates at LIU Post on Long Island, unveiling a nine-point Long Island-focused pledge to regain Democratic control of the legislative chamber -- Democrats need to pick up a net of one seat in the Senate, while in the Assembly they enjoy an overwhelming majority. Alongside a slate of Democratic Senate candidates, Cuomo signed the pledge, which includes measures he’s already put into place and others he has said he supports but hasn’t been able to get through the Republican-led Senate.
Cuomo and the battleground candidates promised to continue the state’s 2 percent property tax cap, which he says will protect Long Island residents from the federal government’s reduction of state and local tax (SALT) deductibility; he called for more funding for the MTA from New York City; he touted his $150 billion infrastructure plan, which includes modernizing the Long Island Rail Road; pledged to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into state law; backed ethics and voting reforms; promised to continue investing in combating the MS-13 gang; and pushed his proposal for a red flag gun protection bill. He also spoke of providing more funding to public schools and protecting access to clean water.
“We need the New York State Senate, because the only security we’re going to have are the laws of the State of New York as they are tearing down our rights and values in Washington,” Cuomo said.
On Tuesday, the governor made a brief stop at the Stars & Stripes Democratic Club in southern Brooklyn to publicly endorse Andrew Gounardes, the Democrat challenging State Senator Marty Golden in one of the few New York City districts represented by a Republican. Cuomo repeated many of the same talking points from his Monday speech, which he has honed for his own campaign, warning of the ills of Republican control of government at the state and federal level and painting himself and New York State as the bulwark against Trump and the many threats his administration has levelled -- against women, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, Puerto Ricans, for instance.
“Elections matter. This one really, really matters,” Cuomo said, speaking of a broad disaffection among the electorate, on both sides of the aisle. The governor and Gounardes also signed a pledge, mostly similar to the one from Monday but including a focus on New York City issues such as a promise to pass speed camera legislation for school zones and expanding rent stabilization, and not including Long Island-focused planks like the LIRR and demanding more MTA funding from the city.
The September 13 primary saw a massive increase in turnout among Democratic voters, which many have cited as evidence of an ongoing and growing “blue wave” that is similarly boosting Democratic candidates across the country and expected by some to come crashing down upon Republicans on Election Day, November 6. But Cuomo’s own interpretation has differed somewhat, including when he dismissed the notion of a progressive wave the day after he won his primary, despite the fact that his under-funded opponent received more than 500,000 votes (to Cuomo’s nearly 1 million).
“I don’t like the expression the ‘blue wave’, because the ‘blue wave’ suggests its partisan,” Cuomo said at Tuesday’s rally in Bensonhurst, “that it’s Democrats who are offended. It’s not just Democrats who are offended...What this president is doing is not anti-Democratic, it’s anti-American...This is not a blue wave, my friends. This is a red, white, and blue wave.”
Last month, in the immediate aftermath of his primary win, just as he had done a few months after Donald Trump assumed office, Cuomo rallied the troops, but to his tune. “[T]he truth is this president and his extreme conservative colleagues have declared war on the State of New York. They are attacking our rights, our values, and our economy,” Cuomo said at a September 18 Democratic rally billed as an effort to relaunch the general election campaign to swing the state Senate and help flip the U.S. House. For nearly 20 minutes, Cuomo, newly invigorated from his primary win, inveighed against the “extreme conservative freight train” from Washington running roughshod over New Yorkers, and promised “more organizing, more mobilizing” to capture the energy of the Democratic base.
“[W]e’re gonna take this energy that we now have and we’re going to build on this energy,” he said. “It’s not going away...There’s a whole new Democratic movement. They’re responding to what we did and they’re responding to what they want to do by stopping this threat in Washington. And we have to build on that energy.”
A spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign said he plans to personally raise funds and campaign for ten Democratic candidates running against sitting Republican congressional representatives -- he’s already sent each of them a maximum donation of $2,700 through a federal political action committee, Cuomo NY Take Back the House. The candidates include Perry Gershon, Liuba Grechen Shirley, Max Rose, Antonio Delgado, Tedra Cobb, Anthony Brindisi, Tracy Mitrano, Dana Balter, Joe Morelle and Nate McMurray. Politico New York reported last month that the broader effort Cuomo had promised had yet to materialize as he seemed more preoccupied with his own primary challenger, actor and education activist Cynthia Nixon. He has so far only held a fundraiser for Brindisi.
Among the Democratic state Senate candidates who have Cuomo’s support are some who are challenging incumbents and others running for open seats. He is also bolstering two Democratic Senators facing Republican challengers. They include Monica Martinez who is challenging Dean Murray in District 3; Lou D’Amaro, who is challenging Sen. Phil Boyle in District 4; Jim Gaughran, who is challenging Sen. Carl Marcellino in District 5; Anna Kaplan, who is challenging Sen. Elaine Phillips in District 7; Peter Harkham, who is challenging Sen. Terrence Murphy in District 40; Karyn Smythe who is challenging Sen. Sue Serino in District 41; Gounardes challenging Golden in District 22; and Democratic Senators John Brooks, who is being challenged by Massapequa Park Mayor Jeff Pravato in District 8, and Todd Kaminsky, who is being challenged by former Nassau lawmaker Francis Becker Jr. Cuomo’s campaign has donated the maximum primary limit of $7,000 to all those candidates, save for Gounardes and Kaminsky. If he decides to do so, Cuomo could direct another $11,000 to each candidate’s campaign for the general election.
The campaign is currently in the process of scheduling fundraisers for the congressional candidates and has already set up eight events to support the state Senate contenders, starting on Wednesday, October 3, with a fundraiser for Smythe. Fundraisers are scheduled to support Gounardes and D’Amaro on October 9; for Martinez on October 12; for Brooks and Kaminsky on October 15; for Harckham on October 21; and for Kaplan on October 22.
But it’s not only campaign cash that Cuomo will corral for the candidates. His campaign infrastructure and the State Democratic Party’s assets are being put to use to raise name recognition for the candidates and to get voters to the polls. Some of the congressional seats also overlap with the competitive Senate districts, giving Cuomo the ability to kill three birds with one stone as he also campaigns for his own reelection, perhaps without making it too obvious. The governor is facing a handful of challengers led by Republican nominee Marc Molinaro.
According to the Cuomo campaign spokesperson, there are more than 25 state party staffers in the field, training and engaging Democrats on the ground and leading Get Out The Vote efforts across the state. In congressional districts 1, 11, 19, 22 and 24 -- the five identified by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee under their ‘Red to Blue’ campaign effort -- the state party has sent campus organizers to rally young people, and in major metropolitan regions, organizers are recruiting volunteers to aid in those battleground districts. The party is also using digital and social media and data analytics to bolster outreach.
There’s also the tried-and-tested method of campaign mailers, in which the State Democratic Party has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, the campaign spokesperson said, urging voters to support candidates including Rose, Brindisi, Gershon, and Delgado. (At this point there have been no other controversies with such mailers beyond the one that has dogged Cuomo and the party that sought to falsely tie Cynthia Nixon to anti-semitism in the final weeks of the primary.)
The party and campaign together spent millions on its statewide primary ticket -- to set up field offices and organizers -- and the campaign spokesperson said they would expand on that infrastructure for the general election.
Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, who prevailed in last month’s primary over challenger Jumaane Williams, a Brooklyn City Council member, is also leading her own parallel effort to support female candidates for Congress and State Senate. “Republican control of Congress and the New York State Senate has been a disastrous disappointment for all New Yorkers, especially women and middle class families,” Hochul said in a September 28 statement, launching the general election effort. She announced her support for four Congressional candidates -- Grechen Shirley, Cobb, Mitrano and Balter -- and five State Senate candidates -- Martinez, Kaplan, Smythe, Jen Metzger and Jen Lunsford.
On Sunday, Hochul was scheduled to meet voters alongside Alessandra Biaggi, who defeated Democratic State Senator Jeff Klein in the September 13 primary, but the event was cancelled because Biaggi was sick, according to Hochul’s campaign. The planned event appeared to be a signal to Senator Jeff Klein, who Biaggi defeated in the primary, to publicly concede and bow out of the race on the other ballot lines he has for the general election. Election Day is November 6.
***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at a NY rally (photo: New York Democratic Party)
Four-and-a-half months after Donald Trump became president, Governor Andrew Cuomo held a rally in New York City with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, pledging to help take back the lower chamber of Congress by flipping several New York seats through the midterm elections, which were then well over a year out.
Those elections are now five weeks away, and, after his decisive victory in the gubernatorial primary on September 13, Cuomo held another rally recommitting himself and the state party he controls to the effort Democrats are waging across the country in the hopes of securing at least one foothold of power on the federal level.
Along with his own reelection and that of his statewide state-level slate of party-mates, Cuomo has verbally committed to working to flip the New York State Senate and several U.S. House seats in the state. There are a number of potential targets for Democrats in New York in a year that is expected to see a so-called blue wave of energy and voter turnout in many parts of the country. That notion was bolstered in New York by an explosion in turnout for the primaries, which saw Cuomo dispatch Cynthia Nixon, but several progressive challengers unseat Democratic incumbents in the state Senate.
With a reconstituted group of state Senate nominees, Democrats must flip only a net of one seat to take the majority in the upper chamber of the state Legislature, while they already enjoy a sweeping majority in the Assembly.
As for House, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees’ national “Red to Blue” districts — a list of tens of races it is focusing its resources to unseat Republicans — includes five New York congressional races. A state that Hillary Clinton won over Trump by a 22.5 points in 2016, though of course redder in the districts home to competitive races, Democrats hope New York will be fertile ground for them in November.
“I think we have to win at least two seats in New York to contribute to the overall effort to take back the house,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn and Queens told reporters after a recent event. Jeffries listed Antonio Delgado (NY-19), Anthony Brindisi (NY-22), Max Rose (NY-11), and Dana Balter (NY-24) as Democratic candidates most likely to flip seats in November.
“The progressive delegation is clear we have to play our part in delivering the House majority to Democrats, and the road to doing so runs in part through New York State,” Jeffries said.
Asked about a recent commercial from Rose’s campaign that presents the Democratic candidate as an independent-minded candidate who doesn’t align himself with the leaders in either major party in Washington and New York — and attacks Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio by name — Jeffries said that as long as they speak “affirmatively talk about pocketbook issues,” it’s fine by him if candidates running in purple or red districts keep the more liberal party leadership at arm’s length. .
“I don’t think Nancy Pelosi holds it against anyone,” he continued, “and she‘s basically indicated to everyone ‘Do what’s necessary to run the race that you have to run in your district.’”
Many races are at least in part seen as referendums on Trump, his leadership, character, and policies. In some of the swing congressional districts in New York, the new federal tax reforms signed by Trump late last year are central campaign issues. The vote split New York’s Republican delegation, but even those like Donovan who voted against it may be forced to answer for it.
Rep. Grace Meng of Queens was optimistic about the potential for New York races contributing to the Democrats effort to take control of the House in January, saying she expects Democrats to this year flip more seats than what is currently forecasted.
“The definition of viable doesn’t necessarily hold in this political climate,” she said. “I’m hopeful for a lot of these races.”
Meng went on to say there are many college campuses in the five swing district, so she is counting on young voters and campaigners to help push the candidates over the edge. “In these five districts, there are 23 college campuses,” she said, referring to the DCCC-identified “Red to Blue” candidates. “I’m hoping that our college-aged voters will make a difference.”
Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan also said she expects young voters to make a difference, based on the elections this summer and earlier in the fall.
“We saw that in the elections in New York, in the [Rep. Joe] Crowley race and some of the races that we just had in the State Senate,” she said in reference to to Crowley’s upset loss to insurgent democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the June primary and the September primary wins by state Senate primary challengers to the former members of the rogue Independent Democratic Conference that worked closely with Republicans.
But while members of Congress who spoke to Gotham Gazette were eager to help out fellow Democratic House candidates, many eyes have turned to the state’s Democratic governor, and how he is spending his immense power, including his fundraising capabilities. As Politico reported recently, several Democrats in New York are waiting for Cuomo to fulfill his promise to allocate resources to competitive 2018 House races in the state. Recently released campaign finance filings from the Cuomo and the Cuomo-controlled New York State Democratic Committee showed that the governor spent over $26 million during the primary, the vast majority on his own campaign, and the state party spent about $1 million for Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul in her primary win, and $860,000 for Public Advocate Letitia James in her successful attorney general primary bid. But the committee had spent no money on Congressional Democratic candidates as of September 25.
A Cuomo campaign spokesperson stressed to Gotham Gazette that with the state primaries now over, the governor is turning his attention to the House and state Senate races. The spokesperson, Abbey Collins, also pointed out that from his campaign coffers, Cuomo has given max donations to the Democratic nominees in 10 House races and seven state Senate races, and said that the governor has several fundraisers with candidates already scheduled and is in the process of scheduling others, that he plans to campaign with Democratic candidates over the coming weeks, and that the state party has a robust organizing effort underway.
"The Governor launched an aggressive coordinated campaign over a year ago and has laid a robust infrastructure to take back the House and State Senate to fight back against Donald Trump and Washington Republicans. As we head towards November, we will continue to build on the State Party’s dynamic field, data and mail program and ramp up fundraising and advertising efforts," Collins said in a statement. "There is no more urgent task ahead than defeating Trump and Democrats have never been more energized and united to win the day.”
As Election Day approaches, Cuomo’s efforts for both the state Senate and House will be of interest, but his role will only be a piece of the puzzle in a variety of contests that will help determine which party controls the two chambers.
In June, just after the congressional primaries, Gotham Gazette examined the congressional races to watch in New York for the general election. Since then, Democrats’ chances to gain seats in New York have only improved, by all projections. Below is an updated look at where things stand on the Congressional side, starting with the lone competitive New York City-based race, followed by numerical order by district beyond the five boroughs.
New York Congressional District 11
Rep. Dan Donovan, New York City’s sole Republican member of Congress, is facing a challenge this year from military veteran Max Rose, who is running as a middle-of-the-road Democrat in a district of diverse political leanings. District 11, comprised of Staten Island and parts of Southern Brooklyn, includes some of the city’s most conservative territory, some liberal areas, and a large portion of moderate neighborhoods full of Democrats who supported politicians like Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, and Dan Donovan.
The seat has largely been held by Republicans, and Trump is more popular in the district than any other in the city. Donovan, who defeated his predecessor, Michael Grimm in a hard-fought primary earlier this year, has touted his support for Trump, though he did vote against Trump’s signature tax reforms. The president endorsed Donovan in the primary.
In a recent ad, Rose lamented the “traffic” and “drugs,” among other problems that the “establishment” — including Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is unpopular in the district — has allowed to feser in New York-11.
Donovan is favored to win by the Cook Political Report, which places the seat he has represented since 2015 in the “likely Republican” category; Real Clear Politics is a bit more bullish on Rose’s chances, placing the seat in the “leans GOP” category.
District 1
New York’s first Congressional District, which includes most of eastern Long Island’s Suffolk County, is represented by Rep. Lee Zeldin, in his second term in the House. A President Donald Trump-supporting Republican in a district where he isn’t unpopular, Zeldin is perhaps the most likely of the “Red to Blue” districts to stay in Republican control.
Perry Gershon, a commercial real estate lender, is the Democratic nominee, and faces an uphill climb in a district where Zeldin prevailed over his last Democratic opponent by over 15 percent. According Cook Report’s ranking of the district’s partisan leanings, the district compared to the rest of the country is R+5, which means the district went for Trump by five points more than the nation as a whole.
Cook puts the seat in the “likely Republican” category as does Real Clear Politics. The race, however, was recently targeted by the DCC. And it was represented by a Democrat not long ago, noted Rep. Jeffries.
“That is a race that I think can be won. Tim Bishop held that seat for six terms as a Democrat and just lost in 2014,” Jeffries said. “Trump did win the district in 2016 but his numbers are falling. But it’s a district that can be won, particularly in a Democratic wave.”
District 2
On Wednesday, the Cook Political Report moved Congressional District 2, held for decades by Rep. Peter King from being deemed an uncompetitive race to “likely Republican.” Vying to represent the South Shore of Long Island district is Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley, who previously worked for nonprofits in global economic development and human rights as well as New York University and the United Nations Foundation.
King has been in Congress for 25 years and has a relatively moderate voting record, though he is also a prominent Trump supporter on most topics. Cook Report has the district as R+3, and it voted for Trump by nine points. Still, given enrollment numbers, a wave election could put the seat in play if turnout for Democrats surges to the degree some are expecting.
District 18
Coming off his second unsuccessful run for New York Attorney General, Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney will attempt to hold onto his seat against Republican opponent James O'Donnell, an Orange County legislator. District 18, a swing district, is currently “likely Democrat,” according to the Cook Political Report. Maloney in 2012 flipped the seat from red to blue, and has kept it in two elections since.
During his bid to become the state’s chief legal executive, Maloney donated a lot of money from his House campaign tranche to that of his Attorney General campaign, sparking criticism, as well as a suit from fellow Democratic candidate Zephyr Teachout. Maloney, holding a seat in a district that voted for Hillary Clinton by just a two-point margin, appears to remain popular, but it remains to be seen if Hudson Valley remain enamored with him in the wake of his third place finish in the Attorney General race. Democrats hope to hang on to his seat to amass a net gain of Congressional seats in New York races.
District 19
Held by Republican Rep. John Faso, New York’s 19th District, which includes parts of the Hudson Valley and Catskill region, voted for Trump by nearly a seven-point margin, but for Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008. Attempting to unseat Faso is Antonio Delgado, a Harvard graduate, corporate attorney, and former Rhodes Scholar.
The race has garnered a lot of media attention, in part because of what many regard as race-baiting ads run by Republicans, pointing to the facts that Delgado, who is black, in 2007 released a rap album and expressed certain left-wing views. A recently released ad, for example, labeled Delgado a “bit-city rapper.”
Cook Political Report rates the district R+2 and a “Toss Up,” as does Real Clear Politics.
District 22
Another Cook Political Report and Real Clear Politics “Toss Up” seat is Central New York’s 22nd Congressional District, including Rome, Utica and Cortland, and held by Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney. Running against her in the Cook R+6 district is Anthony Brindisi, a member of the state Assembly, in a race that is among the DCCC’s prime targets in November.
Brindisi is running on a centrist record while Tenney has largely leaned in to a more hard right orthodoxy, and is an unapologetic Trump supporter. They both have “A” ratings from the NRA, which Brindisi earned in part by voting against Cuomo’s SAFE Act, though that didn’t stop gun safety group Giffords from endorsing him.
District 24
Dana Balter, a lifelong educator and currently an assistant professor at Syracuse University, is running to unseat Republican Rep. John Katko, who represents the Syracuse-area 24th District. Katko, who has been in Congress since 2015, may be the most vulnerable Republican incumbent from the New York delegation.
Though she is on the DNC”s Red to Blue list, Real Clear Politics and Cook Report both rate the race likely Republican. The district, however, is a Cook D+3, and Trump in 2016 lost the district by 3.6 points.
District 27
Republican Rep. Chris Collins, who has represented Western New York’s 23th District since unseating now-Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul in 2012, was Donald Trump’s first congressional endorser for president. Collins is now running for reelection despite having been indicted for insider trading.
Nate McMurray, a Democrat and Grand Island town supervisor, is looking to unseat Collins, who had in the wake of his indictment told Republican leaders in the Buffalo area that he would work with them to get off the ballot, then reversed course, saying he will actively campaign. Real Clear Politics puts the race in its “Toss Up” category and Cook Political Report rates its “lean Republican.” Despite the district’s heavy red tilt — Trump won the district by over 24 points and it’s a Cook Political Report R+11 — Democrats have been potentially handed a gift in Collins’ legal troubles, which he is fighting.
Prosecutors in August charged Collins with using information obtained via his seat in Congress about a drug company’s board to provide a stock tip to his son. There will be a court hearing on the case on October 11.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 6.
***
by Sam Raskin
@samraskinz @GothamGazette
Gov. Cuomo (photo: New York State Democratic Party)
New York is frequently portrayed as one of the most solidly Democratic, “blue” states in the country, along with places like California and Massachusetts. And New York reliably votes for Democrats in presidential elections, has two Democratic United States senators, a majority of its U.S. House members are Democrats, it has exclusively elected Democratic governors and other statewide state-level officials since 2006, and a wide majority of its state Assembly members is Democratic.
But the state Senate is split almost evenly among Democrats and Republicans, nine of 27 members of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York are Republicans; and Donald Trump, while losing the state’s overall vote by a wide margin against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, won in more than two-thirds of the state’s 62 counties, many of which are represented by Republican county executives and other GOP elected officials.
This year, in the first statewide vote since that election, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo is seeking a third term, having won by a two-to-one margin in a hotly-contested primary where he was challenged from his left as too much of a centrist, and now facing Republican Marc Molinaro, who portrays himself as a moderate, and others in the general election.
Cuomo is widely favored to win, but Republicans express hope that they can combat national trends and Cuomo’s massive advantages to pull off an upset of a governor they argue has wide but shallow popularity and a long list of scandals and failures. In 2014, Cuomo dispatched Republican nominee Rob Astorino by a 52.7 percent to 39.2 percent margin, with Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins, who is running again this year, winning about 4.7 percent of the vote. Cuomo beat Carl Paladino in 2010 by an even greater margin, 63 percent to 33.5 percent.
Voters are now evaluating Cuomo with another term under his belt, and amid the swirl of both Trump’s relative unpopularity and major corruption convictions in Cuomo’s inner circle.
The vast “red” seen across those Trump counties, while not typically home to the state’s population centers, and New York’s large size and diversity indicate “blue” state is not the whole story. Just how “blue” is New York, really?
Cuomo has provided his own assessments of New York's politics. A day after winning the primary, he argued again that he is a liberal leader who gets things done, while also saying that the much-discussed progressive wave was “not even a ripple” in his race, despite Nixon’s 34% of the primary vote and the fact several state Senate upsets from the left, and calling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s June primary victory over Rep. Joe Crowley a “fluke.”
“I am progressive, and I delivered progressive results, and this is the most progressive state in the United States of America,” Cuomo said.
Speaking to the Business Council of New York State on Tuesday at their upstate conference, Cuomo touted his passage of a property tax cap, one of his accomplishments most frequently praised by moderates and conservatives, and stressed other aspects of his fiscal restraint and record on taxes.
While Cuomo has regularly stressed that he must govern a vast state that includes conservative, Republican areas, especially upstate, he has also made direct attacks on “extreme conservatives” who he has said have taken over in Washington, D.C. and have had a presence in New York. He’s directly targeted a handful of members of Congress from New York who he says have committed “treason” by voting for bills, like recently-passed tax reforms, that he says are bad for New York.
He went as far as to say, in 2014, that “extreme conservatives” have “no place in the State of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are,” comments that have become a regular talking point for Republicans. Still, Cuomo remains popular among Democrats, with solid numbers among independents and even decent approval ratings among Republicans (21% in a recent poll).
The Numbers
As of April of this year, Democratic enrollment statewide stood at 6,201,033 registered voters, just over 50 percent of all registered voters in the state. There are 2,823,758 registered Republicans, 22.7 percent of all registered voters, and 2,644,155 people registered unaffiliated with any party, 21.3 percent of all registered voters.
Within New York City, 68.28 percent of registered voters are Democrats, while outside the city only 37.76 percent of registered voters are Democrats. Still, Democrats still make up a plurality of registered voters outside the city, but Republicans trail by a much smaller margin, making up 31.15 percent of the non-city electorate.
Often, New York City’s turnout in general elections doesn’t match the enrollment ratio. Democratic turnout in the September primary vastly exceeded that of previous years, and the general election in November comes amid the so-called “blue wave” of Democratic activism opposed to Donald Trump.
The polling agency Gallup has found New York to be a liberal-leaning state in only 2016 and 2017; from 2008 to 2015, New York was grouped with the conservative-leaning states. The only two states that have usually been classified on the liberal end are Vermont and Massachusetts (states were only grouped as leaning liberal or conservative). Despite a reputation as a deep blue state, perhaps because of New York City’s demographics, New York consistently elects more moderate officials like Cuomo, even in Democratic primaries that include the most “blue” New Yorkers, such as Cuomo’s recent primary win by a wide margin.
Cuomo won most counties in the state in 2010, possibly owing to several controversial statements from Paladino that indicated he was racist and homophobic. Paladino only won handily in Western New York and two counties in the “Big Vermont” area. In 2014, Astorino won a wide majority of counties while Cuomo won big in highly populated New York City and the surrounding suburbs, as well as a few historically Democratic counties upstate such as Albany, Tompkins, and Onondaga, as well as Erie County.
The Democratic Divide and Voter Registration
Bruce Gyory, an attorney and Democratic political strategist unaffiliated with any campaigns, said that in primaries, progressives often do best in the eastern area of upstate, from Plattsburgh to Peekskill, which he characterized as a “Big Vermont.” The region then generally votes Republican in general elections.
He said that white progressives often fail to connect with voters of color.
“The progressives have never been able to craft a true alliance with the larger bloc, which is the minority voters,” Gyory said. This appeared to be true in Nixon’s effort to defeat Cuomo, who has remained popular among voters of color, bedrock Democrats.
Both Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout achieved their best results in “Big Vermont” in their respective gubernatorial campaigns. Teachout’s attorney general campaign also achieved its best results in this area in this year’s just-completed primary.
Democratic registration has meaningfully increased since the 2014 election, with enrolled Democrats in the state increasing by about 300,000, from 5.9 million to 6.2 million, seeming to track with claims by Cynthia Nixon and others that the Democratic Party’s reach has expanded and greater numbers of voters exist.
However, contrary to that narrative, registration has not meaningfully increased in the Democratic ranks since the election of Trump to the presidency. Records from the State Board of Elections shows that, between November 2016 and April 2018, only 21,300 new New York Democrats joined the party.
Nearly half the state’s registered voters are not Democrats. There are 2.8 million registered Republicans and 2.6 million registered independents. In addition, there are 480,000 people registered with the Independence Party, 155,000 with the Conservative Party, 46,000 with the Working Families Party, 30,000 with the Green Party, 4,700 with the Women’s Equality Party, 1,900 with the Reform Party, and 7,300 with other parties.
Despite Nixon's loss, progressives believe that the mass dislodging of former members of the state Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference shows that the Democratic electorate is indeed progressive. Six of the eight members of what was until April the IDC, a rogue groups of Democrats who shared powers with Republicans in the Senate majority, which has been Republicans’ only statewide stronghold in recent years, were defeated in their primaries earlier this month.
“The defeat of the IDC shows that the voters are tired of corporate Democrats and tired of transactional politics and want to see senators who are really going to represent them,” said Karen Scharff, the outgoing executive director of Citizen Action, a progressive organization that endorsed Nixon in the primary. “I think at the statewide level, we saw the money overwhelm the ability of progressive candidates to get her voice fully heard.”
The True Blue Coalition, a grassroots organizing effort that came out in force against IDC members, announced its support for 12 additional Democratic candidates for state Senate on Tuesday in seats that the group deemed “flippable” in the general election. The group will channel volunteers to their campaigns and promote the candidates’ events; the candidates, all of whom True Blue has deemed progressive, aim to represent districts from Long Island to Brooklyn to Rochester.
Mia Pearlman, co-leader of True Blue NY, one of the activist groups in the coalition, said that New York is a “wannabe progressive state” held back by regressive voting and ethics laws, and by corruption. Pearlman, whose group was on the front lines in the anti-IDC battle, said that the defeat of six of the eight IDC members in the Democratic primary may herald better things to come, and that rallying around IDC challengers was an effective organizing strategy.
“The IDC was a perfect crucible for all these forces, because it was such an obvious wrong that needed to be righted,” Pearlman said. Greater awareness of the IDC very well may have led to its collapse, a fact the coalition is remembering for November. “People want to be more prepared when they get to the ballot box.”
“Success for us will be when the New York State Senate has a real solid majority of not only Democrats, but with a huge majority of progressive democrats,” Pearlman said.
Like Pearlman, Scharff believes that New York is indeed a progressive state, but that “barriers to democracy” such as New York’s voting laws and campaign finance system ensure that progressive candidates are kept out of the halls of power in Albany. She cited New York City’s public election financing system as evidence that progressive candidates can win major elections when structural barriers are torn down, and that the electoral system in the state needs major reforms. Many activists have also focused on legislative redistricting, noting that a deal reached in 2012 among Cuomo and legislative leaders allowed Democrats the likelihood of greater Assembly control and Republicans an upper hand in Senate districts, likely allowing the GOP to keep the slim majority it has held onto of late.
“Money can become overwhelming in a big race like that. And I think we’ve seen in citywide races, like in the mayoral races, that progressive candidates can win,” Scharff said. “Bill de Blasio won on a very progressive platform twice. And Cynthia’s platform and de Blasio’s platform have a lot of similarities, and you would think they’d have a lot of similar appeal to voters. But Bill de Blasio was able to run in a system that had public financing, and in a system where he was able to be competitive in resources with his opponents. And Cynthia had to run in a race where her opponent was outspending her ten-to-one plus eight years of incumbency.”
‘Giuliani Democrats’
Despite the liberal reputations of both Massachusetts and Vermont, both currently have moderate Republican governors. Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, is the most popular governor in the country, according to Morning Consult.
“I live in two-to-one Democratic Rockland County and we’ve had a Republican County Executive for the last 25 years,” said Michael Lawler, a political strategist who is an advisor to the state Republican Party and campaigns. “Why? Because, again, even Democratic voters understand that high taxes are not a solution to every problem. So, when you look at Democratic voters in the suburbs, they may be registered Democrat, but you have a lot of police officers, firefighters, construction trade union members, they’re probably all mostly registered Democrat, but they vote Republican. Why? Because Republicans are much better on their issues.”
It is those voters widely credited with helping to elect both Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York City, covering the 20 years of Republican or independent leadership before de Blasio’s election in 2013.
Lawler believes that Cuomo’s lurch leftward on certain issues has hurt him among suburban and rural voters, but that the most salient issue is the poor economic performance upstate, where the Democratic registration advantage is very narrow. He noted high taxes and out-migration, and specifically cited Cuomo’s ban on fracking as a job-killing endeavor done to appease environmentalists.
"When you have a governor who's pardoning cop killers and a Democratic Assembly that stands in the way of certain reforms, then these voters are not going to vote reflexively Democratic,” he said.
He also cited corruption, which informs one of the main planks of the Molinaro campaign, with the GOP nominee arguing that it has eroded confidence in state government and led to a “corruption tax” that all New Yorkers pay due to government malfunction. It led one-third of Democratic primary voters to vote against the two-term incumbent, he and other Cuomo opponents say.
“So Andrew Cuomo, there's a reason he spent nearly $25 million in the primary,” said Lawler. “Nobody likes him." To Lawler, the specter of Trump in the minds of voters does not outweigh the performance of the state under Cuomo.
But Gyory believes that the Trump factor has necessarily negated Republicans’ chances this year, and that Molinaro would have been better off running in 2022, at which point Trump may be out of power (if he loses this year, Molinaro could of course run again).
No post-primary general election polls have been taken, but two polls over the summer showed Cuomo with a substantial lead over Molinaro, who was already on a quest to build name recognition, raise funds, and prepare for the September to November sprint. A June Siena poll gave Cuomo 56 percent to Molinaro’s 37 percent and a July Quinnipiac poll gave Cuomo 57 percent to Molinaro’s 31 percent in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups. When the Quinnipiac poll included third party candidates, Cuomo got 43 percent on the Democratic line, Molinaro got 23 percent on the Republican line, Nixon got 13 percent on the Working Families line, Larry Sharpe got 3 percent on the Libertarian line, Howie Hawkins got 2 percent on the Green Party line, and Stephanie Miner got 1 percent on the Serve America Party line.
Trump’s approval rating in New York remains very low, with only 36 percent approval versus 57 percent disapproval according to Quinnipiac in July. This could cast a shadow on any Republican chances at statewide victory, and Cuomo has been attempting to tie Molinaro to Trump for months. Democrats appear motivated to cast anti-Trump votes this November in races across the board.
The current atmosphere is in distinct contrast to New York under previous Republican governors such as Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Pataki, when the national Republican brand was not as toxic in the state and the national party did not define the state party, Gyory argues.
“Republicans have been defined by the national Republican brand, and that has really hurt them in New York State,” Gyory said. He noted that, in most instances, Republicans have no hopes of winning statewide unless they dominate the unaffiliated vote and capture roughly one-third of New York City, a particularly daunting endeavor with a moderate Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion.
***
by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette