(image: Cuomo campaign website home page)
The digital presence of elected government officials and candidates seeking elected office – whether it’s a fledgling Instagram account with a humble following or a tweet gone viral with tens of thousands of retweets – cannot be underestimated in today’s world. Social media provides direct access between candidates and voters, and can remove traditional barriers between constituents and their elected officials.
Many, for instance, have partly ascribed the triumph of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the 28-year-old democratic socialist who upended 10-term Democratic Congressional Rep. Joseph Crowley in New York’s primary -- to her strong social media presence and digital outreach efforts. Ocasio-Cortez’s first campaign ad went viral -- it has now reached over 3.7 million views on Twitter -- as it revelled in the basics of New York life, following the first-time candidate as she rode the subway and greeted a cashier at her local bodega.
Undoubtedly, electoral success depends on a broad range of tried-and-tested campaign tactics, but internet virality, it seems, can pay off, leading many candidates to dedicate robust efforts at Facebook, Twitter, and other social media streams. Some, like Ocasio-Cortez, as well as New York gubernatorial candidates Marc Molinaro, Stephanie Miner, and Howie Hawkins, appear to largely run their own Twitter accounts, directly responding to voters, journalists, even competitors.
Interested parties can often learn a lot about a candidate from social media, however curated and stiff, or full of personality and policy the campaign presence might be.
But what about campaign websites, often the place that candidates first direct voters or that show up in Internet searches? What portrait can hopeful elected officials shape for themselves within the virtually unlimited scope of the Internet? And, perhaps more importantly, what can voters learn about candidates from those sites?
Many candidates attempt to entrance the electorate with professional videos, sharp social media posts, and flashy websites – in part to communicate their policy platforms with access that comes as easy as a click of a mouse or a tap on a smartphone.
In this election year for many federal and state offices, one key question for New Yorkers is what they can learn about this year’s candidates for governor, especially in terms of policy proposals, by looking at those candidates’ campaign websites.
Two-term Governor Andrew Cuomo faces a Democratic primary challenge this year from Cynthia Nixon, the actor and education activist. On the Republican side, there’s no primary and the party chose Molinaro, the Dutchess county executive as its nominee. Then there are the ‘third-party’ candidates such as Howie Hawkins from the Green Party and Larry Sharpe from the Libertarian Party. Stephanie Miner, a Democrat and the former mayor of Syracuse, is running as an independent with the new Serve America Movement.
In each candidate’s case, their campaign website articulates his or her policy positions to varying degrees, with some choosing to unveil lengthy detailed policy packages while others cover little or minutely describe a presented legacy of prior accomplishments with few forward-looking proposals.
Andrew Cuomo
Cuomo’s campaign website is an example of the latter. It lists many issues and few proposals, providing more of a resume that touts accomplishments, mostly in brief. The issues page -- titled with his campaign slogan “Proven Leadership” -- presents 10 subjects, accompanied by just 10 paragraphs (the longest paragraph, reciting his work for “Civil Rights and Criminal Justice Reform,” is just six sentences long) explaining his commitment to the issues and the ways he has already tackled them during his two-term tenure.
Even issues that the governor has been actively campaigning on over the last few months with specific policy goals, such as protecting women’s reproductive rights and additional gun control measures, are not listed on Cuomo’s campaign website.
Under “Fighting for Women’s Equality,” for example, it states that he “passed the most comprehensive paid family leave program in the nation, launched the most aggressive public university sexual assault policy in the country, fought for a comprehensive policy to combat sexual harassment, achieved the smallest wage gap in the country, and ensured that contraceptive coverage is not interrupted regardless of what happens in Washington.”
The section, however, lacks any mention of the Reproductive Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraception Act, two key pieces of legislation that would, respectively, codify Roe v. Wade into New York law and mandate that insurers cover birth control fees. These bills have been integral to many state candidates’ platforms regarding women’s rights in this election cycle, and many of those candidates have criticized the governor for failing to push the two bills through the Legislature.
Under a separate website page that calls for New Yorkers to sign a petition to protect reproductive rights, it reads, “Republicans in the NY Senate have repeatedly refused to guarantee reproductive health care by codifying Roe v. Wade into our State Constitution. Now, we need to vote them out.” While Cuomo’s campaign has on social media promoted his push to codify Roe v. Wade into state law, the website offers scant insight.
The same goes for the governor’s goals on gun control.
Under “Gun Safety,” the Cuomo’s campaign cites his passage of the SAFE Act and “enacting legislation that removes guns from domestic abusers,” but mentions nothing of the Red Flag Gun Protection Bill, a piece of legislation that would prevent those deemed a threat by the court from obtaining firearms, despite another petition asking for support of the bill appearing as a banner (“NY is beating the NRA. Join the Fight.”) on his website’s homepage.
Other issues his website speaks of are aimed towards the LGBTQ community (he pledges a promise to end the AIDS epidemic by 2020, without stating how), education, health care, the environment, income inequality, the state economy and the economic mobility of the middle class. But the site almost exclusively presents the Cuomo campaign’s account of the governor’s two-term record, with little clarity about where he wants to take the state if voters give him a third term this fall. In other venues, such as government press conferences, Cuomo has been much more clear about what legislation he wants to see passed in the future, which he has said he needs a Democratic state Senate in order to pass (the Assembly is overwhelmingly Democratic), though Nixon and others have accused Cuomo of supporting a split Legislature, which, they say, makes his pencient for centrism more excusable to Democratic voters.
Cynthia Nixon
Meanwhile, Nixon devotes entire pages and packed PDF files to her platform’s 12 chosen issues, which cover education, rent control, fixing the subways, the economy, criminal justice reform, government corruption, voter reform, reproductive rights, the environment, health care, immigrant rights and the legalization of marijuana.
Some pages are more exhaustive than others. “Legalize Marijuana,” for example, features a video Nixon posted on Twitter and a paragraph that calls for the legalization of recreational marijuana use. A page advocating for criminal justice reform includes a 21-page-long PDF file detailing Nixon’s plan to revamp “a justice system designed to target and criminalize communities of color and the poor.” The plan, which is divvied up into nine separate sections ranging from “Police Accountability” to “Abolish Solitary Confinement,” allows voters to discover her views on cash bail (to abolish it in all cases) or her perspective on the shutdown of Rikers Island jails (that they must be closed in less than the proposed 10 years (a view Cuomo shares)), in varying degrees of detail.
Her policy packages also at times include estimated costs. For example, her plan for revamping the educational system – which includes things like investing in universal pre-kindergarten, establishing a Deputy Commissioner for Racial and Economic Equity within the State Education Department and providing free college tuition for qualified students – estimates that it would cost about $7.367 billion, a hefty sum that she plans to allocate through the implementation of a “millionaires tax,” which would effectively increase the taxes of those with an annual income between $300,000 and $10 million at varying rates.
While their websites differ significantly, Cuomo’s and Nixon’s campaign sites do share a focus on Cuomo’s record, though they paint very different pictures of it. While Cuomo highlights legislation he spearheaded or progress he achieved, Nixon finds shortcomings and negligence. In “#SchoolsNotJails,” a bolded paragraph reads, “The Governor’s refusal to address inequity has devastating consequences,” and in “Climate Justice,” Nixon characterizes Cuomo’s announcement of an energy efficiency plan as “Too little, too late.”
The websites aren’t nearly the entirety of a campaign, of course. Cuomo has been announcing endorsements and airing TV ads amounting to $7.5 million in the last month alone, vastly outspending Nixon’s $606,000 total expenditure in that period, and the governor has appeared at a number of government events that often sound like campaign rallies. He has not done more than a couple of interviews about his candidacy with print, TV or radio journalists.
On the other hand, while Nixon’s website adopts an extensive policy platform and she has organized many events around her plans, she has on occasion struggled to discuss her proposals in detail when questioned by reporter, though she takes questions far more often than Cuomo. She has done a number profile interviews with national publications and made appearances on mostly friendly TV shows while thus far declining invitations to appear with TV and radio hosts who may ask her tougher, more detailed questions -- opportunities Cuomo has also declined.
The two are set to debate on WCBS TV on August 29, under conditions that Nixon’s campaign said Cuomo only agreed to because they were favorable to him. She has agreed to other broadcast debates that Cuomo has declined, while she has also made many appearances in front of clubs and groups to pitch her candidacy, fitting a long-shot challenger to an entrenched incumbent.
Marc Molinaro
Molinaro, the Republican nominee, also delves into a heavy critique of Governor Cuomo on his campaign website. “When this governor came into office, I had the greatest amount of hope that he’d bring with him a new day,” Molinaro said on his campaign website’s “Reforming Albany” page, “but instead we have a new normal.” A culture of corruption and pay-to-play politics has permeated state government, Molinaro argues.
Molinaro’s website doesn’t explicitly have an “Issues” page, and overall it is very light on detailed policy proposals or views. The Republican nominee, who appears to be waiting until after the Democratic primary to outline the majority of his policy plans, largely seeks to present himself in general get-to-know-me fashion as a person and career-long elected official to voters who might visit the site.
What seems to replace an issues page, at least for now, is one titled “Moments With Marc” with six subpages, where a user can scroll through a grid of videos, typically no longer than three minutes and usually with Molinaro either seated in front of a camera or speaking at a rally, rather than presented as a read-through text format. The subpages include reforming Albany, education, transportation, the opioid and heroin crisis and improving the quality of life. There is additionally a subpage that allows users to learn “More About Marc.”
Some subpages display videos with more extensive policy proposals than others. In “Reforming Albany,” for example, Molinaro said he would rid state government of corruption by asking the state Legislature to adopt a universal code of ethics, creating an independent ethics commission, expanding the Freedom of Information Act to all state government entities, restoring the state comptroller’s power to independent oversight and pushing for a two-term limit for New York governors. It is the one policy area where Molinaro has released detailed plans, fitting a top theme of his campaign, that Cuomo has not cleaned up Albany and it is time for a governor who will.
Molinaro is far less specific about resolving what he calls the “Opioid and Heroin Crisis,” where he says there is a need to provide “the right help at the right time.” In this video, which is the sole video for this particular section and is less than two minutes long, Molinaro presents his case for wanting to ensure that “the criminal justice system treats people humanely” and that those affected by drug addiction have access to rehabilitative resources, but fails to provide a more detailed proposal on how he would follow through with that notion.
On the campaign trail, Molinaro has talked about fixing the MTA and blamed Cuomo for mismanaging the state-run authority, but he has not outlined his plans for accomplishing such a turnaround, instead promising more detail in the coming weeks and months. Similarly, Molinaro has promised to propose major overhauls of the state tax system and how the state does economic development, but neither plan has been presented yet.
Howie Hawkins
Hawkins, running on the Green Party line, includes over 20 issue platforms on his campaign website. The socialist candidate presents broad policy proposals to address issues from “Guaranteed Health Care” (enact the New York Health Act, defend public hospitals from closures and privatizations) to “End the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration” (establish a Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission, as well as decriminalize hard drugs and enable access to drug abuse treatment on demand).
While some of his proposed issues are aligned with those espoused by the aforementioned candidates, like his claim to expand affordable housing or to rebuild the MTA infrastructure, others are much more radical, such as the complete decriminalization of hard drugs. His overall policy platform is an ever further left version of that put forth by Nixon, who is challenging Cuomo from the progressive end of the political spectrum. For instance, while Nixon advocates for a 100 percent transition to clean energy by 2050, Hawkins proposes that the transition should be made by the year 2030.
A key focus for Hawkins and other Green Party candidates is the “Green New Deal,” which is composed of three main tenets: revitalizing the public sector by fully funding public services and investing in clean energy infrastructure; eliminate policies of supply-side, trickle-down economics; and enact a plan of demand-side, bottom-up economics, which “will increase effective demand and stimulate business expansion and jobs to meet the demand,” according to his website.
“The historic role of third parties has been to force issues neglected by the major parties into public debate,” Hawkins states at the top of his issues webpage. “The Green Party has increasingly been playing this role.”
Larry Sharpe
For Sharpe, the Libertarian Party nominee, under his “Sharpe Policy” page, lists seven issues: “Business Matters;” “Family Law;” “Education;” “Second Amendment Rights;” “Drugs, Cannabis, and Hemp;” and “Tax Reform;” and “Digital Government.” There is a lot of language under each issue, though much of it is broad, with some specific policy plans. Fitting his status as a Libertarian, much of Sharpe’s platform is focused on reducing the scope of government and increasing individual liberties.
His platform espouses the support of certain unconventional policies, such as suggesting that traditional high school education should conclude after the tenth grade in order to “give students and parents the opportunity to choose the best path for the next two years and beyond,” and, under “Second Amendment Rights,” establishing a new firearms permit waiting period of 90 days rather than the current six months. Rolling back gun regulations appears to be a major focus of the Sharpe campaign.
Sharpe also focuses on digitalizing the state government, either through increasing the functionality of state government websites or using onlines tools to increase civic participation in regards to public projects or local legislation. According to this section, Sharpe “will bring the entrepreneurial energy, digital savvy and startup mentality necessary to make the state of New York a leader in open and effective government in the digital age.”
While Sharpe’s website occasionally presents “White Papers,” which redirect users to research documents, only two sections currently have these white papers attached, these being “Education” and “Drug, Cannabis and Hemp.” Two other sections, “Family Law” and “Second Amendment Rights,” allocate a section for a white paper but have no link that redirects the user to the document, and the remaining sections say that the white paper will be revealed soon.
Stephanie Miner
Miner, who became the first female mayor of Syracuse when she was first elected in 2010 and served two terms in the position, presents four major issues on her campaign website: “Crush Corruption,” “Upend Politics as Usual,” “Investing in New York’s Future” and “Accountable Spending.”.
Miner has vehemently critiqued Cuomo and his administration, including on its approach to economic development and infrastructure, and the various corruption scandals that have sprung up within Cuomo’s orbit of aides and donors, and she makes corruption in state government a focal point for her platform.
Under the webpage “Crush Corruption,” she advocates for the disbanding of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a state agency that investigates corruption and ethics in Albany that is composed of members appointed by Cuomo. She also argues for the provision of the state comptroller’s full oversight over economic development proposals, an authority which has been reduced over the years under Cuomo’s tenure. The argument made by the governor and Legislature for reducing State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s power is that it expedites the state’s economic development work, especially awarding contracts; critics, on the other hand, including DiNapoli, argue that reduced oversight has lent a hand to easy exploitation of the system.
In “Investing in New York’s Future,” Miner also lays out her plan on developing the state’s infrastructure, which involves resolving the MTA crisis through establishing a multi-year agreement on revenue and expenses, among other proposals, cutting property taxes and delivering universal high-speed broadband access to all New Yorkers. The remaining two issues on her website advocate for reforming the voting process, where she advocates for policies such as a non-partisan redistricting of the state and consolidation of the state and federal primaries, and the state’s budget spending, where she calls for transparency during budget negotiations and restoring the state comptroller’s oversight during a competitive bidding process.
The Cuomo-Nixon primary is September 13, a Thursday. The general election is on Tuesday, November 6.
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by Chelsey Sanchez, Gotham Gazette
@chelseynsanchez @GothamGazette>
Note: this article has been corrected to reflect that Joel Giambra is not running for governor as the Reform Party nominee, the party has backed Molinaro.
Zellnor Myrie, center, and other IDC challengers
With one month to go until primary day, candidates for state office filed their latest campaign finance disclosures on Tuesday, covering the period between July 17 and August 13 of this year.
The entire state legislature, with 213 seats, is on the ballot but most of the competitive races are taking place for positions in the 63-member state Senate, where the Republican and Democratic conferences each hold 31 seats. Republicans maintain control with the help of Sen. Simcha Felder, a conservative Democrat from Brooklyn who professes no party loyalty. The 150-member state Assembly, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly Democratic and has few competitive races.
The most closely watched primary races involve members of the former Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a group of eight Democratic senators who caucused with Republicans from 2011 until earlier this year, when they rejoined the mainline Democratic conference. All eight of them are facing primary challenges from insurgent progressive candidates.
When Governor Cuomo announced a unity deal in April that brought the rogue Democrats back into the Democratic fold, there was an agreement that the state Democratic Party and prominent unions would support the members of the former IDC. However, the shock primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th Congressional District over Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley -- who played a prominent role in brokering the unity deal -- spurred many elected officials, activist groups, and unions to support the challengers over the senators.
Six out of the eight former IDC senators were outraised in July and August by their challengers, some by significant margins. But the IDC members have significant amounts of campaign cash already and enjoy support from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Democratic Party. Senator Jeff Klein, the leader of the former IDC, was significantly outraised by challenger Alessandra Biaggi, but has over $1.6 million already in the bank.
What remains unclear is whether the former IDC members will have to return hundreds of thousands in donations from the Senate Independence Campaign Committee, a fundraising committee set up in 2016 by the IDC and the Independence Party that was declared illegal by a state Supreme Court judge in June this year. In July, the state Board of Elections’ enforcement counsel Risa Sugarman, in a strongly worded letter, called on the senators to return over-the-limit contributions received from the SICC. But the senators have refused to do so, ignoring a deadline set by Sugarman that lapsed last week. Sugarman has declined to comment on what steps she may take next.
The former IDC Senators include Tony Avella of District 11 in Queens, Jose Peralta of District 13 in Queens, Jesse Hamilton of District 20 in Brooklyn, Diane Savino of District 23 in Staten Island and Brooklyn, Marisol Alcantara of District 31 in Manhattan, and Klein of District 34 the Bronx and Westchester, as well as David Carlucci of District 38 and David Valesky of District 53, both north of the city.
Those are not the only competitive Democratic primaries, however. Senator Felder, who represents District 17 in Brooklyn, is being challenged by Blake Morris. In District 20, also in Brooklyn, Democratic Senator Martin Dilan, who was never an IDC member but who received funds from the SICC, is being challenged by democratic socialist Julia Salazar. And in District 22, also in Brooklyn, the winner of the Democratic primary contest between Andrew Gounardes, general counsel to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and Ross Barkan, a journalist-turned-politician, will face incumbent Republican Senator Marty Golden in the general.
Senate District 11
Senator Tony Avella, who represents northeastern Queens, raised $27,000 and spent about $76,000 in the latest filing period. He has just under $122,000 in cash on hand. Avella has raised a total of $268,000 and spent about $171,000 since January 2017, the beginning of his current term.
Avella’s challenger John Liu raised $202,000 and spent $13,000. He has just under $190,000 in cash on hand. Liu, the former New York City Comptroller who unsuccessfully challenged Avella in 2014, started the filing period with less than $1,000 in his campaign coffers, owing to a late start to his campaign just before the filing deadline. Liu’s supporters, including City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, facilitated a petitioning and fundraising blitz in July to get him onto the primary ballot against Avella, who at that point was the only former IDC member not to have a primary challenger.
Senate District 13
Senator Jose Peralta has appeared particularly vulnerable among the former IDC members since Ocasio-Cortez’s insurgent primary victory over Crowley, the head of the Queens Democratic establishment. Peralta’s district is situated within the congressional district that Ocasio-Cortez won and the senator has the backing of Crowley, which some observers believe could redound to his opponent’s benefit. He raised $30,000 in this last filing and spent $102,000. He has $112,000 cash on hand. Peralta has raised a total of $545,000 this election cycle, and has spent $503,000.
Peralta is being challenged by Jessica Ramos, a former aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Ramos raised $37,000 and spent about $33,000. She has $103,000 cash on hand. She was recently endorsed by the mayor, and has racked up endorsements from local leaders and Democratic clubs. In total, Ramos has raised $239,000 and spent $136,000 during her campaign.
Senate District 20
Senator Jesse Hamilton, who represents parts of central and western Brooklyn, raised $22,000 and spent just under $100,000. He has $135,000 cash on hand. Hamilton has raised a total of $506,000 this election cycle, and has spent $388,000.
Challenger Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn-based attorney, raised $43,000 and spent $53,000. He has $145,000 cash on hand. In total, Myrie has raised $308,000 and spent $163,000 during his campaign. Myrie was endorsed by Mayor de Blasio over the weekend, and has garnered support from several prominent elected officials in the district, including most recently Congressional Representatives Yvette Clarke, Hakeem Jeffries, Nydia Velázquez and Jerry Nadler.
Senate District 23
Senator Diane Savino, who represents Staten Island’s North Shore and part of southern Brooklyn, raised $8,500 and spent $59,000. She has $208,000 cash on hand. Savino has raised a total of about $795,000 this election cycle, and has spent $769,000.
Savino faces activist Jasmine Robinson in the primary, who has yet to raise significant funds for the race. Robinson only brought in $6,000 and spent $1,600 in the latest filing. She has less than $5,000 in cash on hand. In total, Robinson, who dropped out and then immediately re-entered the race after a controversy involving fraudulent petition signatures, has raised about $6,000 and spent $1,600.
Senate District 31
Senator Marisol Alcantara, who joined the IDC right after being elected in November 2016 with financial support from the SICC, raised $22,000 and spent $115,000. She has $37,000 cash on hand. Alcantara has raised a total of $476,000 this election cycle, and spent $497,000.
Though she was the handpicked successor of her predecessor, now-U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, and is the only Latina serving in the Senate, her short tenure in the body and her membership in the IDC has made her vulnerable in the election.
Robert Jackson, a former City Council member who lost to Alcantara in 2016, is challenging her again this year. He raised $43,000 and spent $49,000 over the last month. He has $152,000 in cash on hand. In total, Jackson has raised $328,000 and spent $173,000 during his campaign.
Senate District 34
Senator Jeff Klein, the leader of the former IDC and currently the deputy Democratic conference leader, raised $15,000 and spent $550,000 in just 30 days. He has $1.6 million in cash on hand, far in excess of his other former IDC colleagues. Klein has raised a total of $1.8 million this election cycle, and spent $1.6 million.
Klein, who as leader of the IDC was the fourth man in the room negotiating the state budget, is currently the Deputy Minority Leader in the Senate. Klein has been accused of sexual misconduct by former aide Erica Vladimer.
Alessandra Biaggi, Klein’s challenger, raised $77,000 and spent $49,000. She has $242,000 cash on hand. In total, Biaggi has raised $432,000 and spent $156,000 during her campaign.
Senate District 38
Senator David Carlucci, who represents Rockland County and part of Westchester County, raised $7,700 and spent $81,000. He has $368,000 cash on hand. Carlucci has raised a total of $403,000 this election cycle, and spent $398,000.
His primary opponent, Julie Goldberg, raised $16,000 and spent $12,000. She has $16,500 cash on hand. In total, Goldberg has raised about $33,000 and spent $16,000 during her campaign.
Senate District 53
Senator David Valesky, who represents part of Syracuse, Madison County, Oneida County, and Onondaga County, raised $7,000 and spent $36,000. He has $636,000 cash on hand. Valesky has raised a total of $263,000 this election cycle, and spent just under $200,000
Valesky’s primary opponent is Rachel May, who raised $25,000, spent $39,000, and has $67,000 cash on hand. In total, May has raised about $145,000 and spent $78,000 this election cycle.
Other Senate primary races to watch:
Senate District 17
Senator Simcha Felder raised about $9,600 and spent $34,000. He has $613,000 cash on hand. Felder has raised a total of $514,000 this election cycle, and has spent $195,000.
Challenger Blake Morris raised $24,000 and spent $17,000. He has $17,000 cash on hand. In total, Morris has raised $66,000 and spent $49,000 during his campaign.
Though he’s facing off a senator who is unpopular among state Democrats, Morris has not attracted as much support from city elected officials as the other IDC challengers. He has, however, been endorsed by the Working Families Party, 32BJ, and a few advocacy organizations and Democratic clubs.
Senate District 18
Senator Martin Dilan, who represents parts of North Brooklyn, raised $52,000 and spent $28,000. He has $101,000 cash on hand. Dilan has raised a total of $139,000 this election cycle, and has spent $64,000.
Julia Salazar, his primary challenger, raised $64,000 and spent $37,000. She has $93,000 in cash on hand. In total, Salazar has raised $182,000 and spent $90,000 during her campaign.
Salazar, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has attracted significant attention for her race, with many calling her the “next Ocasio-Cortez.” She has criticized Dilan for his record on housing, including his now-disavowed vote for vacancy decontrol while he served on the City Council, and has questioned past donations he received from the SICC and Sen. Klein. Salazar has been endorsed by the Working Families Party, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, the United Auto Workers union, and several advocacy organizations.
Senate District 22
Andrew Gounardes, who is running as a Democrat to replace Senator Marty Golden in southern Brooklyn, raised $23,600 and spent $35,000, and has $170,000 cash on hand. Gounardes has raised $262,000 and spent $92,000 over the election cycle.
Gounardes’ primary opponent, Ross Barkan, raised $7,600 and spent $43,000, and has $23,000 cash on hand. Barkan has raised $146,000 and spent $123,000 since he began the race.
Sen. Golden has raised a total of $782,000 this election cycle, and has spent $720,000. According to his latest filings from July, he had 485,000 in cash on hand.
The primary election is on Thursday, September 13.
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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Public Advocate Letitia James (photo: @TishJames)
With a month to go before the September 13 primary for statewide elected offices, the four candidates running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general filed their latest campaign finance disclosures on Tuesday, covering the period between July 17 and August 13. The filings, along with a Siena College poll from June, suggest that the race remains competitive as the candidates each seek to gain name-recognition among voters in the closing stretch of the race.
US Representative Sean Patrick Maloney led the pack in the pre-primary fundraising period in both contributions and expenditures. He raised about $696,000 and spent about $883,000. Maloney has about $795,000 in cash on hand. He has retained several consulting firms, including Red Horse Strategies and Canal Partners Media; he spent about $718,000 in fees for those two firms in the filing period, far in excess of any other candidate’s spending on consultants. Maloney’s largest contributor was the Durst Organization, which gave $150,000 through five real estate LLCs associated with Durst properties under the name “Dolp,” and an additional LLC related to the Helena, a building in the Durst portfolio.
Public Advocate Letitia James, who is the most well-known of the four and is the chosen candidate of the state Democratic Party and Governor Andrew Cuomo, did not raise as much as Maloney in the last month, but still has Maloney bested in total cash-on-hand: James has about $1.2 million in her campaign account, against Maloney’s $795,000. James paid $85,000 to consulting firm Hamilton Campaign Network. James raised $434,000 in the filing period, and spent about $217,000. James’s largest contributor in the filing period was the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which gave her $40,000.
Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout’s haul came in third, totaling about $370,000. She spent the least among the four candidates, dispensing just under $113,000 in the filing period, leaving her with a balance of $474,000. She spent $40,000 in fees for the consulting firm Middle Seat. Teachout’s largest contributor was an individual named Clay Kirk, who gave $15,000.
Former Cuomo and Hillary Clinton official Leecia Eve outspent Teachout, with $133,000 in expenditures, but raised by far the smallest amount in the filing period, bringing in about $42,000. She ends the filing period with $159,000 on hand. Eve paid $19,000 to Trippi Norton Rossmeissl for consulting work and $18,750 to Community Linked for canvassing; she also spent $25,000 in fees for Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, a law firm. Eve’s largest total contributions came from her own personal funds, about $8,700 in seventy-two individual donations.
James and Maloney have each received $15,000 donations in total during the race from the Real Estate Board PAC, associated with the powerful Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) lobbying group. Eve got a $5,000 donation from the group in a previous filing while Teachout did not receive any money from REBNY.
The Teachout campaign touted the fact that it had received 6,561 unique donations in the filing period from 5,410 individuals, the most among all the candidates. She had $88,000 in “unitemized contributions,” meaning that the contributor’s name, address, and amount contributed need not be filed on a disclosure report, if a contributor gives less than $99 in the aggregate of one or multiple donations. Teachout is the only one among the four Democratic attorney general contenders refusing money from corporate political action committees and limited liability companies.
Maloney brought in 1,023 individual donations, James had 374, and Eve had only 118. James and Maloney had no unitemized contributions in this filing period, while Eve had $495 in unitemized contributions.
Maloney may have significantly more funds available to him than are reported in his disclosure. He has over $3 million in his congressional campaign account that he believes he is free to spend in the state race. The legality of Maloney running both for reelection to Congress and for the open attorney general seat was challenged separately by James and Maloney's Republican opponent for his congressional seat, Jim O'Donnell. James' challenge was invalidated by the state Board of Elections, and O'Donnell narrowed his court challenge to only remove Maloney from the congressional race, leaving the congressman free to pursue the attorney general primary nomination.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Keith Wofford in the November 6 general election.
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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Note - this article has been updated to note that Leecia Eve received a $5,000 donation from REBNY in a previous filing.