Alessandra Biaggi celebrates (photo: @Biaggi4NY)
Hit the ground early. Educate the electorate. Reach new voters. Go viral.
Those are a few of the strategies that propelled insurgent candidates to victory in last week’s primary elections, wherein six challengers prevailed over sitting Democratic state senators who were once members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a breakaway faction that caucused with Republicans for seven years, creating or padding the GOP majority in the chamber.
The upsets in the state Senate races instantly shook up New York politics and painted a picture of a more engaged Democratic electorate that would no longer tolerate party officials who don’t pass a particular purity test imposed by a progressive base angered by the election of Donald Trump and a lack of action on favored legislation in Albany.
The eight-member IDC, which dissolved in April amid mounting criticism of its role in keeping the state Senate in Republican hands, saw six of their own defeated on Thursday despite outspending their opponents and leveraging broad institutional support. Their conventional campaign tactics failed to overcome a coordinated crop of candidates backed by a vast network of grassroots activists who employed guerilla tactics to get their message heard and were, in several instances, bolstered by key established players.
In early 2017, in the aftermath of Trump’s election, a disparate movement focused on the IDC had begun to take shape. Under a Trump presidency, the IDC members and their power-sharing agreement with Republicans became unacceptable to these activists, who insisted on being represented by “true blue” Democrats. After a raucous townhall in early February 2017 where IDC Senator Jose Peralta met the fury of some, one grassroots group, Rise and Resist, began to hold regular protests against IDC members. Then, in May 2017, the incipient anti-IDC movement held simultaneous rallies across New York City, protesting outside the offices of the senators. By then, only one candidate had emerged, Robert Jackson, who beat Senator Marisol Alcantara in Manhattan’s 31st District by a wide margin. “The beginning of the real grassroots energy behind getting rid of the IDC started then,” said Lisa DellAquila, an anti-IDC activist turned campaign manager for John Liu, the last of the challengers to declare and who handily defeated IDC Senator Tony Avella in the primary.
It was the first volley in a broader, longer game that crescendoed to a fever pitch ahead of primary day. In interviews, the organizers, activists, and strategists behind the effort portrayed a campaign that laid the groundwork long before other candidates had even emerged. “Our strategy from day one was run nine challengers against nine traitors,” said Gus Christensen, chief strategist for No IDC NY, a grassroots group, referring to the IDC senators and Senator Simcha Felder, a rogue Brooklyn Democrat who was not part of the IDC but votes with Republicans. The activists eventually coalesced into the True Blue coalition, made up of about 60 groups, many local ones based in the districts represented by IDC senators, where organizing and education efforts increased awareness of the IDC over the course of 2017 and into this year. The coalition marshalled its resources, encouraging candidates to run while informing voters more broadly about the existence of the IDC.
“What the IDC did violated the public trust in a visceral, almost biblical way,” Christensen said. “The cynics of the political establishment could never see that, because caucusing with the other party isn't illegal, while Albany is full of actual illegal activities about which voters don't seem to care. But once enough voters understood that the IDC really did caucus with the GOP, that it wasn't ‘fake news,’ they were revolted, and they voted that way.”
Hitting the ground running
“One really important piece of this was just good old-fashioned organizing,” said Heather Stewart, co-founder of Empire State Indivisible, who later went on to work for Liu’s campaign doing communications. Stewart said the coalition began educating voters about the IDC last year through town halls, leafleting, phone banks, and on-the-ground outreach. “So there was a good deal of tracks laid through the education piece. This was over a year ago...it was a coalescence of great candidates, good organizing, people who wanted more than anything from the bottom of their heart to oust the IDC.”
The groups gathered every month to discuss strategy, and began to circle possible candidates who had expressed interest while actively recruiting others such as Liu, who entered the fray at the eleventh hour after having lost to Avella four years ago but with stronger name recognition in his district than most of the other challengers had in theirs at the start of their campaigns.
The groups also partnered with The Creative Resistance, a volunteer collective of documentary filmmakers, and released a video, titled “Lulu Land” and narrated by actor Edie Falco, about the IDC and its highly scrutinized arrangement for its members to inappropriately receive extra stipends. The video raised much-needed awareness for their effort. “By and large, people were enraged about the IDC,” said Stewart, who has acknowledged she only learned of the IDC in recent years, spurring her to action. “They were mad that they had voted for a Democrat who wasn’t upholding Democratic values.”
Different groups were assigned to different districts under one umbrella. “We borrowed a strategy from Virginia activists who flipped the House of Delegates,” Stewart said, “which was basically that each group adopted a campaign and a candidate. So then, each group could begin to engage their members in one consistent campaign...It worked very well...There was essentially a captain who captained the grassroots efforts in each campaign that talked with other captains of the grassroots effort.”
The overall effort was bolstered by the likes of the Working Families Party, Make the Road Action, and Citizen Action of New York, some of the organized left’s longer-standing infrastructure, groups that share similar progressive goals and sent hundreds of volunteers into the nine districts, relying on a robust ground game to activate voters.
“We started working as far back as spring of 2017, way before there even were candidates running, to start organizing in the districts of the IDC members, doing really aggressive voter contact and community organizing to help people understand what was actually going on,” said Joe Dinkin, WFP’s campaign director. “That helped till the soil, build a grassroots base of anger and energy and a volunteer base from which it was a lot more appealing for candidates who would think about running to be able to get into the race.”
Dinkin said the WFP, which endorsed all the candidates, provided campaign expertise, helping them strategize, hire staff and consultants, and dispatch volunteers. By February and into March of this year, the WFP had endorsed the full slate of challengers to the IDC senators, establishing clear battle lines within the Democratic Party and setting the stage for the essential stretch of the primary campaign well in advance.
The WFP was also behind the two insurgent statewide candidates who failed in the primary -- Cynthia Nixon lost to Cuomo by a wide margin and City Council Member Jumaane Williams failed to unseat Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul in a closer race. Zephyr Teachout, who the WFP said it was supporting along with eventual winner Letitia James in the attorney general Democratic primary, was unsuccessful in her race but amplified anti-IDC sentiment. Nixon was vocal about the IDC and when Cuomo moved to reunite the faction with the mainline Senate Democratic Conference, she claimed credit.
“Cynthia Nixon was able to broadcast in a way that the entire media and the political class and voters noticed about the problems with the IDC and how they were roadblocking progressive legislation,” Dinkin said.
The candidates themselves had also been beating the anti-IDC drum in their districts. “Typically campaigns run a eight-week, sometimes 12-week field operation,” said Andre Richardson, campaign manager for Zellnor Myrie, who defeated former IDC Senator Jesse Hamilton in Brooklyn. “We’ve been canvassing, paid and volunteer, and candidate canvassing for eight months. In politics, folks have these archaic strategies of ‘this is too soon, this is too early.’ We proved all of that to be inaccurate and we proved that if you run a consistent and aggressive ground game, you can win.”
Each of the candidates managed fairly robust fundraising operations, and focused mostly on individual small donors throughout their campaigns as they critiqued their opponents for receiving funds from corporate donors. There was, of course, a fair share of spending by the coalition groups to augment each campaign’s own operations. No IDC NY formed its own multi-candidate campaign committee and tapped hundreds of small donors as well, and spent nearly $150,000, across the Senate races.
Depending on digital
In order to build name recognition against the IDC members, some of whom have been incumbents for several terms, the broader coordinated campaign, individual candidates, and activist groups decided to focus their efforts on digital and social media, hyper-targeted to specific populations within each district.
All the campaigns and their allies outspent the IDC senators on Facebook, said Jim Casteleiro, digital director for No IDC NY, who coordinated efforts with The Creative Resistance to craft ads across all the campaigns.
“We started early in the summer conceiving of a plan to run digital ads in all the districts that we were targeting,” Casteleiro said. “Our sort-of guiding principle in this whole process was, ‘Yes, people are outraged about what’s happening with Trump. Yes, people are outraged about the IDC. But if we don’t talk to them about what this actually means for their lives, then no one’s gonna care’...All of the content that we created, it was all issue-focused.”
The ads focused on everything from the state’s housing crisis, immigrant protections, and health care to education funding and abortion rights, while introducing the slate of progressive challengers as individual people. Another round of more negative ads portrayed each of the IDC senators as a gas station tube man, full of hot air. All told, the 38 videos they created received more than a million views.
“Obviously, digital isn’t new necessarily,” Casteleiro said. “But what I say is kinda unprecedented is this: you have an all-volunteer organization that raises $250,000, we partner with an all-volunteer group of creative professionals who create agency-level content, and we deploy that across the state in a coordinated fashion…That has to be absolutely unprecedented in New York State.”
Activist Sean McElwee, writing in HuffPost, noted that grassroots group Vote Tripling got 474 volunteers to convince three friends each to vote for the IDC challengers, and national group Postcards to Voters sent 283,857 handwritten notes to get out the vote in those districts.
Eric Rockey, co-founder of The Creative Resistance and director of the “Hot Air” ads, said they were inspired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s viral campaign ad when she beat Democratic giant Joe Crowley in a June congressional primary that shocked the city, state, and country. The ad was like a “short documentary film about a candidate and less like a slick political ad,” he said, noting that his group skyped with the makers of that ad and also consulted with the team behind Cynthia Nixon’s campaign launch video.
“The strategy was really to find those unique issues that would be wedge issues between our candidates and IDC members and really hammer on those,” Rockey said. “It was really burnishing the progressive bonafides of these candidates. But also trying to show them as people.”
Convincing Candidates
No message is complete without its messenger and the anti-IDC movement was no different. The candidates they backed, most of them young progressives running for the first time, presented an alternative to the calcified establishment to a Democratic primary electorate that showed it was hungry for change.
By and large, the candidates were charismatic, energetic, and able to talk policy -- some with youthful exuberance, some with seasoned perspective.
Some were also backed by prominent elected officials, including City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Comptroller Scott Stringer, both of whom brought organizing and fundraising with them. Myrie, in particular, received tremendous support from city, state, and federal elected officials, including many in Brooklyn. The powerful labor union 32BJ also played a prominent role in a few races, especially where Alessandra Biaggi defeated Klein, who once led the IDC and was, until Thursday, one of the state's most powerful elected officials. Stringer and Johnson and their teams were also all-in for Biaggi.
“We proved through heart and hustle and just organizing that it was possible,” she said in a phone interview. “I worked tirelessly and I’m unrelenting, and also a fighter and I’ve always been that way. And every time that somebody told me ‘no’ I worked double as hard and every time somebody told me ‘yes’ I worked triple as hard.”
Klein spent more to try to push back Biaggi’s challenge than Nixon did in her statewide race against the governor. “This race proved that the political currency is people, not dollars,” Biaggi said.
“They were all really great. They were easy to work for and easy to get people excited about. And that’s where the magic was if you ask me,” said Empire Indivisible’s Stewart about the IDC challengers.
In July, once Liu declared he would challenge Avella, the district was ready to hear from him. “A lot of work had already been done in his district. We already had boots on the ground there who were really fiercely committed to the IDC resistance and so it was essentially bringing in a great candidate,” Stewart said.
While Liu, Jackson, Biaggi, Myrie, Jessica Ramos, and Rachel May were successful in defeating former IDC members, other former IDC Senators Diane Savino and David Carlucci held onto their seats. Felder defeated Blake Morris. (Another insurgent leftist, Julia Salazar, unseated Senator Martin Dilan, though that race was not a focus of the same progressive, anti-IDC coalition.)
The primary winners are all-but-certain to win their general elections, if they have an opponent. The main remaining question is whether the anti-IDC efforts that toppled rogue Democrats can now help flip Republican-held seats and give the next Senate Democratic Conference, infused with new blood, an elusive majority. That answer will be known on November 6.
Again in the general, candidates and campaigns will both matter greatly.
Richardson, from Myrie’s campaign, explained some of the energy behind his candidate’s success. “Zellnor is in the top five of the most fearless candidates I’ve ever worked for,” he said. “In terms of his aggressiveness to talk to a voter, to hear a problem, his ability to immediately respond or to follow through, is pretty phenomenal…We had a pool of over 400 volunteers. And some of that was outreach. A lot of that was just organic because Zellnor was such a great candidate. Folks would just walk in the door or read an article about him and just wanna help.”
“We were really inspired by these candidates,” said Rockey. “It wasn’t a stretch for us. We were genuinely inspired by them. It felt like something new in New York politics...It was really about these personal connections with these candidates and our passion for these candidates.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Note- This article has been updated to note the correct name of the True Blue coalition, which is distinct from True Blue NY, a grassroots group that is part of the coalition.
Note- This article has been updated to reflect the early role of Rise and Resist, a grassroots groups, in the anti-IDC movement.
New York City Hall
What to watch for this week in New York politics:
This week will start with a lot of focus on continuing the primary election analysis and pivoting to the general election matchups for statewide and legislative seats. Some of the focus will surely be on how the winners pulled their victories off and why the losers lost, but also whether and how those who lost Democratic primaries but have other ballot lines for November will vacate those lines. Chief among them are Cynthia Nixon and Jumaane Williams on the Working Families Party line, but also Jeff Klein and other former members of the Independent Democratic Conference who lost their Democratic primaries but have ballot lines from small parties like the Independence Party or Women’s Equality Party.
As the general election quickly swings into gear -- as of Sunday there were just 50 days until Election Day, November 6! -- the race for governor turns into a contest among Governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican nominee Marc Molinaro, Howie Hawkins of the Green Party, Libertarian Party nominee Larry Sharpe, and Stephanie Minor, running on her newly created Serve America Movement line. Nixon may also be on the ballot, but she is very likely not to campaign if she is. Or, she might be moved off the WFP line, possibly replaced by Cuomo if the warring factions can agree that they will work together to avoid creating a better path to victory for Molinaro or another candidate.
The governor and lieutenant governor nominees of the different parties now run as a ticket, so after Kathy Hochul survived her challenge from Jumaane Williams, she can now work with Cuomo to win in November. There were no statewide primaries beyond three in the Democratic Party, with the lone exception of a Reform Party primary for its Attorney General nominee, which will be Nancy Sliwa.
The Attorney General race is now among Democratic nominee Letitia James, Republican Keith Wofford, Green candidate Michael Sussman, and Sliwa of the Reform Party. The Comptroller race features incumbent Democrat Tom DiNapoli, who did not face a primary challenge, as well as Republican nominee Jonathan Trichter, and Green nominee Mark Dunlea.
Control of the state Senate will be on the ballot this November, with races in New York City and elsewhere determining which party has the majority come next year. And, competitive New York races for the House of Representatives will help determine which party controls that chamber come January. There is also the race between New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and her Republican challenger Chele Farley, as well as various state Assembly race, though that house of the Legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic and will remain so regardless of how a few competitive races may go.
There’s also government happening this week, as well as other interesting events not directly related to this year’s elections. For example, the 2019 Charter Revision Commission held its first public hearing this past week and has two more this week, and the City Council has a variety of hearings this week. See our day-by-day rundown below.
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The run of the week in detail:
Monday
On Monday morning, Mayor de Blasio will speak at at the Fifth Annual Brooklyn Dems Post Primary Breakfast Reception at Junior's. In the evening, the Mayor will appear on NY1’s Inside City Hall in the 7 and 11 p.m. hours.
At the City Council on Monday:
--The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m.
--The Committee on Technology will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed laws relating to agency data, including the “digitization of historic data,” as well as laws relating to protections for cable subscribers.
--The Committees on Immigration and Youth Services will meet jointly at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “LGBTQ immigrant youth in New York City,” as well as a proposed law requiring the city to “create a plan of action to protect children who qualify for special immigrant juvenile status.”
--The Committee on For-Hire Vehicles will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss several proposed laws relating to, among other things, benefits for FHV and taxi drivers, “addressing the problem of medallion owner debt,” financial education for drivers, creating an “Office of Inclusion” in the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and “deductions from certain for-hire driver earnings.” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will deliver opening remarks.
--The Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Maritime Uses will meet at noon.
--The Committee on Parks and Recreation will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “the state of the City’s jointly operated playgrounds.”
--The Committee on Fire and Emergency Management will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “EMS respond to the opioid epidemic,” as well as to discuss a proposed law relating to “creating online applications for fire alarm plan examinations.”
--The Committees on Aging and Civil & Human Rights will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “age discrimination in the workplace.”
--The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 2 p.m.
The New York State Board of Regents will meet on Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday morning, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli will release his annual report on Wall Street performance and compensation.
At 10 a.m. Monday in City Hall Park, “Two New York City unions representing more than 4,700 Emergency Medical Service professionals will stand in the shadow of City Hall...to demand that Mayor Bill de Blasio support unlimited sick leave for EMS responders who suffered health ailments as a result of serving at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks. Local 2507, which represents 4,200 Uniformed Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, and Fire Inspectors, and Local 3621, which represents 505 Uniformed EMS Officers, including Captains and Lieutenants, then will testify at a hearing at 250 Broadway about the need for State legislation that will grant affected EMS workers unlimited sick time due to their work in the recovery operation after 9/11.”
At 10 a.m. Monday, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will deliver remarks at a Vital Brooklyn playground opening, at The Winthrop Campus School. At 2 p.m., Hochul will announce the recipients of the New York State Police Officer of the Year Award at Yonkers City Hall.
At 11 a.m. Monday at City Hall, “First Lady Chirlane McCray, Chair of the Mayor’s Fund, Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Bitta Mostofi and Commissioner of the Department of Social Services Steven Banks will be joined by the City employees who have returned from volunteering to provide pro bono assistance to immigrant children and families in detention in Dilley, Texas. The delegation, which was made possible by funding from the Mayor’s Fund, includes lawyers and licensed clinical social workers. This event is open press. There will be Q-and-A.”
At 11 a.m. Monday on Long Island, “Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan...will be joined by the Senate Majority’s Long Island Delegation at a press conference...at the Bethpage Train Station to call for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to put any proposed 2019 fare hike on hold until it makes measurable improvements in service, equipment failures and delays. The press conference will introduce legislation sponsored by Senator Elaine Phillips...and Assemblyman Dean Murray...to protect commuters from facing even more disruptions due to the LIRR’s loss of any revenue. The delegation, led by Senator Phillips, has also established a petition drive that enables their constituents to voice their disgust that the LIRR would increase fares while they continue to suffer from delays and cancelled trains.”
At 11 a.m. Monday, the state Senate Standing Committee on Civil Service and Pensions will hold a public hearing “to investigate the use of 9/11 line of duty sick leave, to determine whether the program is working and to discuss any changes that need to be made to the program.” The hearing will take place at 250 Broadway in Manhattan.
At noon Monday, the New York City Economic Development Corporation will host the “Development Finance Conference 2018” at Convene in Midtown. Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will deliver keynote remarks. Other speakers will include EDC President James Patchett, City Planning Commission Chair Marisa Lago, Citigroup vice-chairman Raymond McGuire, and Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball.
At 6 p.m. Monday, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will be honored at Vocal-NY’s annual gala at Roulette in Boerum Hill. Also being honored will be Emcon Pharmacy in Park Slope, and Vocal-NY leader Asia Betancourt.
At 6 p.m. Monday, the 2019 Charter Revision Commission will meet in Brooklyn at Medgar Evers College to hear public testimony.
At 6 p.m. Monday, the governor’s Regulated Marijuana Workgroup will hold a listening session at the South Bronx Community Charter High School in Morrisania on the legalization of marijuana in New York.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, NYCT President Andy Byford and City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg will hold a town hall meeting at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, discussing the upcoming shutdown of the L train. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will deliver remarks.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, City & State will host its “Westchester Power 50” reception at the Radisson Hotel in New Rochelle. County Executive George Latimer will give keynote remarks.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, the Museum of the City of New York will host historians Terry Golway and Peter Quinn for a discussion on the rocky relationship between Al Smith and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, two of New York’s most famous governors.
At 7 p.m. Monday, City Comptroller Scott Stringer will hold a public hearing on the city’s lead crisis at the Frederick Samuel Community Center in Harlem. He will be joined by U.S. Rep Adriano Espaillat, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, State Senator Brian Benjamin, Assemblymembers Inez Dickens, Robert Rodriguez, Al Taylor, and Carmen de la Rosa, and Council Members Bill Perkins, Ydanis Rodriguez, Diana Ayala, and Mark Levine.
Tuesday
Yom Kippur will begin on Tuesday evening and end on Wednesday evening.
At 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Association for a Better New York will host U.S. Reps Hakeem Jeffries, Carolyn Maloney, and Grace Meng for a discussion on the midterm elections at the Roosevelt Hotel. MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki will moderate.
Wednesday
There are no Wednesday events on our radar as of Sunday evening.
Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
--The Committee on Juvenile Justice will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding an “update on New York City’s implementation of raising the age of criminal responsibility.”
--The Committee on Women will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “abortion and reproductive rights,” as well as to discuss a resolution calling for the legislature to pass, and the governor to sign, the Reproductive Health Act.
--The Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding an “update on the City’s organics collection program.”
--The Committee on Land Use will meet at 11 a.m.
--The Committees on Education and Public Safety will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “school emergency preparedness and safety,” as well as to discuss several related laws.
--The Committee on Small Business will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding business improvement districts.
--The Committees on General Welfare and Mental Health will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “shelter accommodations and services for those with disabilities.”
At 8 a.m. Thursday, U.S. Reps Hakeem Jeffries and Jerrold Nadler will join Crain’s New York Business for a “Business Breakfast Forum” at the New York Athletic Club, discussing “how New York is faring under Trump, their take on the midterm election and their agendas in Washington.”
At 6 p.m. Thursday, the 2019 Charter Revision Commission will meet at Queens Borough Hall to hear public testimony.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, the governor’s Regulated Marijuana Workgroup will hold a listening session at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on the legalization of marijuana in New York.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, there will be a public scoping meeting at PS 133 in Gowanus to discuss the mayor’s plan to place a new jail in Brooklyn, as part of the replacement plan for Rikers Island.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, the Panel for Educational Policy will hold a public meeting at the High School for Fashion Industries in Chelsea.
Friday and the weekend
Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show on Friday at 10 a.m.
Starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, the New York Civil Liberties Union will host “The Museum of Broken Windows,” a “pop-up” museum dedicated to documenting the history of broken-windows policing in New York City. The pop-up will stand at 9 West 8th St in Greenwich Village until September 30.
***
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***
by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette
Gov. Cuomo voting in Thursday's primary (photo: @NYGovCuomo)
The Democratic gubernatorial primary between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon saw a significant surge in voter participation, but turnout still stood at only 27 percent of active registered Democrats.
Compared to the 2014 primary election, when Zephyr Teachout challenged Cuomo, who was then seeking a second term, turnout more than doubled, according to preliminary numbers. And, turnout spiked slightly more in New York City than elsewhere. Specifically, 28 percent of registered Democrats in New York City voted in the 2018 primary while 24.5 percent voted outside of the city — 2.8 and 2.3 times as many voted in 2014, respectively, when around 10 percent of those eligible cast a ballot.
“As far as the race for governor goes, turnout was greatly improved in the city and throughout the state. That was very impressive,” said Steven Romalewski, director of the Mapping Service at CUNY’s Center for Urban Research, in an interview Friday. “It wasn’t just a modest increase compared with the somewhat anemic turnout statewide in 2014.”
“The number of voters went from 575,000 to 1.5 million,” he added. There were 5,621,811 million active registered Democrats across the state as of April 1, according to the State Board of Elections. Turnout was likely aided by a number of factors, including the high number of competitive races, including three statewide positions and the challenges to former members of the Senate Independent Democratic Conference and Democrats’ post-Trump awakening.
Cuomo won this year’s primary with 978,138 votes to Nixon’s 512,585, as of the preliminary count, for 65.6 percent to 34.4 percent. In 2014, Cuomo received 361,380 votes (63 percent), and Teachout earned 192,210 votes (33.5 percent); comedian and activist Randy Credico picked up the remaining votes and about 3 percent.
In Cuomo’s win, he captured broad support across the state, earning about 67 percent of the vote in New York City and 64 percent outside the city, with the exception of a few geographic regions. He performed particularly well in majority-black areas of the city, especially in the Bronx — he won 83 percent in the borough overall — Harlem, and Central Brooklyn. Nixon, for her part, received a good share of votes in whiter, gentrified parts of Brooklyn, competed better with Cuomo in Manhattan, where she earned 41 percent of the vote, her best borough, and the Queens waterfront, posting her best numbers, like Teachout four years ago, in areas of the city home to many white progressives. Nixon also performed fairly well in some upstate areas, such as Albany County, and also beat Cuomo in counties surrounding it, along with Tomkins and Lewis counties to its west and north, respectively.
Turnout was so much higher that Nixon earned 320,375 more total votes than Cuomo did in 2014, but still won about the same percentage as Teachout did that year.
Cuomo’s win was so solid, and the city’s share of the vote so significant, that the governor’s total votes from Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens eclipsed Nixon’s statewide total.
The other two statewide Democratic primaries, for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, followed a similar pattern, with incumbent Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul again winning the party’s nomination and New York City Public Advocate Letitia James prevailing in a four-way Attorney General race with no incumbent.
Specifically, James’ base was predictably in the city; Zephyr Teachout performed well in the Hudson Valley as well as parts of Brooklyn home to many white progressives, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village (places Nixon received a large share of votes); and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney performed best further upstate and in Western New York.
In total, James won 40.6 percent of the vote, Teachout 31, Maloney 25, and Eve 3.4.
Teachout’s and Maloney’s combined votes totalled 800,398 — 221,016 more votes than what James received, perhaps suggesting had only one of the candidates been in the race he or she would have had a strong chance. Given their similar voter base and James stranglehold on New York City, neither was likely to be able to pull off a victory given the other’s presence, as Gotham Gazette last week reported looked likely.
In the Lieutenant Governor race Hochul unofficially received 733,591 votes, or 53.3 percent, to Williams’ 641,631 votes, or 46.7 percent.
Williams received the lion’s share of his votes in New York City, particularly Brooklyn, where he is from and represents a City Council district. Twenty-six percent of his total votes were cast in his favor in Brooklyn, but he was defeated by Hochul nearly everywhere else save Manhattan, and Tompkins and Columbia Counties. In New York City, Hochul received more votes than Williams in the three other boroughs, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island, and she did slightly better than Williams throughout most of the state.
Vote totals were slightly lower in both the Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor primaries than the race for Governor, as evidently some voters chose Cuomo or Nixon but left their ballots blank in one or more of the two other statewide races.
In unofficial totals, 1,375,222 votes were counted in the Lieutenant Governor race and 1,428,418 votes in the Attorney General race, compared to 1,490,723 in the gubernatorial race, leaving roughly 115,500 who voted in the Governor's race but did not pick either of the major candidates in the Lieutenant Governor race (some may have done write-ins), and about 62,300 who did the same in the Attorney General race.
But while Nixon lost by a large margin, and fellow insurgents Teachout and Williams lost as well, the progressive energy appeared to have a massive effect down-ballot, as six candidates challenging former members of the Senate Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight breakaway Democrats who caucused with Republicans in the state Senate, ousted the incumbents, and another insurgent, leftist candidate unseated another sitting senator representing part of the city.
Challengers Alessandra Biaggi, Jessica Ramos, John Liu, Zellnor Myrie, Robert Jackson, and Rachel May defeated IDC Senators Jeff Klein, Jose Peralta, Tony Avella, Jesse Hamilton, Marisol Alcantara, and David Valesky, respectively. One-time IDC Senators Diane Savino and David Carlucci fended off their challengers. Five of the districts where the incumbent IDC senators were beaten are fully or mostly in New York City. Julia Salazar also beat Senator Martin Dilan, who is not an IDC member, in Brooklyn. The progressive energy did not push Blake Morris to victory over Senator Simcha Felder, a Democrat who is a member of the Republican conference.
Turnout in those Senate primaries varied somewhat. Senate District 34, represented by IDC founder and former leader Jeff Klein, had 23.2 percent turnout for Biaggi’s win, while in District 22, where Salazar ran a scandal-plagued but winning race against Dilan, turnout was 24 percent. Biaggi won with an unofficial 53 percent to Klein’s 44.5 percent. She did very well in the western portion of the district, including Riverdale, while Klein did well in the eastern section, including parts that overlap with soon-to-be U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district.
Salazar, meanwhile, won with an unofficial 54 percent to Dilan’s 39 percent. She performed best in areas of the district that have seen widespread gentrification, like Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint, while Dilan performed best in the comparatively lower-income eastern part of the district.
Myrie beat Hamilton by roughly 20 points in District 20 in central Brooklyn and parts of Park Slope, relying heavily on votes from areas home to more white progressive. In Queens, Liu received 53 percent of the vote to Avella’s 47 percent, reversing the outcome of their 2014 primary race, and Ramos earned 55 percent of the vote to Peralta’s 45 percent.
Jackson beat Alcantara on the west side of Manhattan with 53 percent of the vote to her 36 percent, while two other candidates combined for 5 percent. In that race, which includes parts of the always-active Upper West Side, turnout was an above-average 30 percent.
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by Sam Raskin
@samraskinz @GothamGazette
Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max contributed to this article.