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Paths to Victory for Hochul, Zeldin as 2022 New York Governor's Race Concludes


Out to vote (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


With Election Day arriving, the tightening race for governor of New York has been one of the 2022 election cycle's biggest surprises.

In the long-time calculus of New York elections, any Republican would need stars to align across the map to win statewide, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. Even party-unaffiliated voters are now a larger group in New York than registered Republicans. 

The math includes running up the score upstate, winning by a sizable margin in the New York City suburbs, and getting above 30% of the vote in the five boroughs. It means juicing GOP turnout and hoping many Democrats stay home, while pulling conservative Democrats and a large share of independents.

Though it’s been 20 years since a Republican won statewide, the whimsy of that prospect has diminished significantly in recent months as Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul's sizable polling lead, and to a lesser extent her funding lead, over GOP U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin has narrowed.

Experts say Zeldin has a chance of eking out a victory based on several factors: public attention largely focused on crime and inflation, pandemic era frustrations with government, and tepid enthusiasm for Hochul. The state’s first female governor is running for the first time for an office she has held for little over a year, but did limited campaigning until the race’s final weeks.

This appears to be the closest a race for governor has been since 1994, when Republican George Pataki – the last of his party to hold statewide office in New York – beat three-term Democratic incumbent Governor Mario Cuomo on a platform of restoring the death penalty and cutting income taxes amidst a Republican wave around the nation. That year Democratic turnout was low and Republican turnout was high, more independents voted Republican, along with a crucial number of registered Democrats.

The state has become more Democratic in enrollment since then, or even Pataki’s third and final win in 2002, but Zeldin's proximity to Hochul in the polls and the strength of Republican support throughout the country has rattled Democrats.

Democrats now make up nearly half of all New York State registered voters. Independent voters account for 23% and Republicans just 22%.

Most recent polling shows Hochul with a lead somewhere between four and eleven points over Zeldin in the final weeks of campaigning. In the most recent three gubernatorial elections, Andrew Cuomo beat Republicans by 23, 14, and nearly 30 points, respectively. In the final two races, Hochul was his lieutenant governor running-mate, but she has never been at the top of the ticket herself, and does not have Cuomo's name recognition or deep ties to voters, especially in New York City.

Election experts typically divide New York State into three distinct regions: upstate, New York City, the city’s suburbs – Long Island and Westchester and Rockland counties. New York City, which makes up nearly 40% of the state's registered voters and where Democrats enjoy a seven-to-one voter enrollment advantage, is sure to go for Hochul. Long Island and the Hudson Valley are toss-ups, and upstate typically favors the Republican.

The questions that will determine the race are: to what extent voters in each region will turn out and which direction the swing voters swing. The turnout question is also one of which constituencies each party and its state standard-bearer can motivate to the polls — part of the reason that Hochul has called in help from a long list of major Democratic Party figures in recent weeks, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Zeldin has also called in Republican governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virgina for rallies.

For Zeldin to win, experts say he would need a trifecta: strong turnout upstate, low turnout in the city while pulling his weight there, and a suburban sweep.

Observers typically say that in order to win the governor's race, a Republican needs to win a share of the New York City vote roughly proportional to the city’s share of the statewide vote. That usually means around a third of New York City voters, who typically come far short of turning out in a representative share of their percentage of registered voters.

"Zeldin has to do much better than the last few Republicans have done in the city," said Jerry Skurnik, a longtime political consultant. "Plus he has to hope that there's less enthusiasm for the Democrats and the city represents a lower percentage of the vote than they normally do."

In 2018, when then Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, ran against Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro – who now finds himself in a tight race for Congress that will contribute to the battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives – New York City accounted for 35% of the statewide vote. Cuomo won handily in the boroughs and won a third term with 60% of the overall vote. Molinaro received less than 15% of the New York City vote that year, a wave election for Democrats in the first major Trump era election.

Zeldin is hoping to win over 30% in the city, in part based on pulling moderate and conservative Democrats to his side, with a particular focus on Orthodox Jewish, Latino, and Asian voters. Even if he overperforms recent GOP nominees in the five boroughs, Zeldin will need to carry upstate New York and the suburbs by a sizable margin if he is going to combat his likely losses in the city. "Not as much as he's going to lose the city by, but he has to hope [upstate voters] outvote the city by enough of a margin to make a difference," Skurnik said.

Experts think Hochul has a chance of buffering some of Zeldin's runaway lead upstate, with the Buffalo native having a slight homefield boost and months of headlines for pumping major state and federal funding into regional development projects. That puts more pressure on Zeldin to take the suburbs, and by wide margins, and even try to gain ground in New York City, where he has held many campaign events.

For Hochul to stem his late-stage momentum, she needs to boost turnout in New York City and temper his lead upstate.

"A Democrat statewide can do very well even if they don't carry Erie, Monroe, Onondaga counties, as long as they can win big in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and keep those counties close," said Steven Greenberg, Siena College’s lead pollster, in an interview.

While greater turnout upstate relative to New York City is widely seen as a boon for Zeldin, higher turnout on Long Island – where Democrats have an enrollment advantage even as Republican candidates tend to get an outsized share of votes – and in Westchester, which has trended more Democratic recently, could be a toss-up. 

"More turnout is still a Democratic advantage," said Gerald Benjamin, founder of the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at SUNY New Paltz, in an interview. "Republicans as a general matter need smaller electorates to win.”

In the suburbs, Republicans "need to turn out their voters but real increases in turnout don't benefit them," he said.

Turnout in New York City and the swing of the suburbs may hinge on how well each candidate engaged key constituencies in the run-up to Election Day.

"Her path to victory is clear, should she choose to take it – and that means building a coalition that spans Latino voters being courted by Zeldin, progressives disenchanted after [the] primary and voters who refuse to be treated as a monolith," wrote Camille Rivera, a progressive Democratic strategist, in a recent City & State op-ed. "That also means standing firm on issues that appeal to the entirety of the Democratic tent, from passing a universal fair wage for tipped service workers to expanding health care access across the state."

But this race differs from 2018, when Democrats saw record turnout, a response to the Trump presidency and the competitive midterm elections that year. While the first midterms of a new presidency historically yield gains to the opposing party, Democrats have held out hope they could hold onto their slim majority in one or both houses of Congress, particularly given outrage over the Supreme Court ruling overturning federal abortion protections. But the election comes at a time when Biden's approval rating is low, amid frustration over inflation and questions about whether Democrats have sold their major accomplishments. And the impact of Trump as a foil appears to have dimmed without him in office.

"Is anyone suggesting voters are eager to pull the lever for Democrats this year? Absolutely not," wrote Republican City Council Member Joe Borelli, a major Zeldin supporter, in a companion City & State column. According to Borelli, Hochul has failed to keep the conversation focused on her priority issues and lacks the name recognition, "political acumen," and New York City-origin that Cuomo had.

Polling from mid-October shows strong support for Hochul among women, Black voters, and to a lesser extent, Latino voters. Zeldin is polling better among men and party-unaffiliated voters. White voters and suburban voters are more evenly divided, the polling shows.

But polling does not necessarily equate to turnout at the ballot box. "That's a completely different question. Thus campaigns have the imperative to find their supporters and get them to the polls," Greenberg said.

That could come down to several factors but elections experts are watching one in particular: how well the candidates engaged voters on the issues they care about.

"I'm not looking for waves, I'm looking for riptides and these riptides could hit different parties in different ways in different regions," said Bruce Gyory, a long-time political consultant at Manatt, a major lobbying firm, in a recent Gotham Gazette podcast, forecasting less a wave year for Republicans and more localized outcomes based on certain issues, candidates, and voter pools.

With a national, pandemic-era increase in crime, Zeldin and Republicans appear to have successfully made crime the top issue of the race in New York and beyond.

Republicans do better when crime is on the ballot and this race appears to be no exception. Voters’ anxiety over reproductive rights and the integrity of democratic institutions that dominated summer primaries and some special elections, and which Democrats were counting on, has largely ceded to crime and the economy, according to polling.

Some polling has continued to show "threats to democracy" as a key issue for many voters, and no one on either side of the aisle is discounting abortion rights as a major issue in this election.

Messaging on crime and economic woes appear to resonate among suburban voters. Whether it will be enough to win over key constituencies – like suburban white women, who have been a particular target of Democrats nationally in recent election cycles and could be essential to a Hochul victory – is an open question.

The Siena College poll of likely voters in mid-October showed Hochul leading women 61-32% and trailing overall in the suburbs 45-49%. Another Quinnipiac University poll from the same time had Hochul up among women 57-39% and nearly tied in the suburbs. The suburbs are not monolithic, which is why the race there is not a game of boosting or lowering turnout but of reaching partisans and swing voters who could be swayed by the right message.

Voters in the Hudson Valley have trended more Democratic in recent years. Long Island, home to Zeldin and a large population of law enforcement officials from New York City, Nassau, and Suffolk, disproportionately votes Republican compared to its balance of registered Democrats.

In New York City, turnout may come down to enthusiasm for Hochul in traditional Democratic strongholds, particularly communities of color. While the Siena College survey has Hochul polling 92-2% among African Americans, there are questions about how well she has made inroads in Black communities where her predecessor, Cuomo, enjoyed reliable support.

"A lot of African Americans did like Andrew Cuomo. They thought he was tough, he was a solid leader at a time of crisis," said Basil Smikle, a longtime Democratic strategist. "They might just not like the fact that he is gone and not necessarily be energized to go out and support Kathy."

He questioned whether the candidates, and Hochul in particular, have made enough of an effort to engage Black voters on critical issues.

"Have any of the candidates gone into those communities and really talked about how their rights are going to be protected going forward, what they're going to provide to provide more safety and security for those neighborhoods?" he said, adding, "Black folks care about crime, too, we care about the economy, too."

"My gut tells me that if you don't have strong Black turnout in New York City she's going to have a huge problem," Smikle said.

Some potential primary challengers to Hochul "convinced themselves that she was unbeatable because she controlled the executive branch, she controlled the budget, she could attract enormous campaign contributions," said Benjamin. "She turns out to be a candidate who doesn't come in with relationships in the population centers…And maybe there's a reason why we never nominate people from upstate – it's just harder for them to win."

Latino and Asian American voters are another factor in New York City turnout and the swing in the suburbs. While Latinos, in particular, have historically been a reliable part of the Democratic base, Democratic watchers are concerned the party is losing ground.

In heavily Latino sections of the Bronx and Queens, in particular, Trump won a larger share of the vote in 2020 than he did in 2016.

"If Zeldin can get 40% of the Hispanic vote like Pataki did against [State Comptroller Carl] McCall in 2002, that's a huge factor," Gyory said, of Pataki's last election, when he won a three-way race with 49% of the vote. "If it's closer to 70-30 in favor of Hochul, that's a major factor." 

Recent polling indicates Hochul may be less popular than Cuomo among Latinos. "It may be the case that Latinos are not happy with Hochul’s handling of crime, which typically hits communities of color harder than other demographic groups," wrote political analyst Eli Valentin in a recent Gotham Gazette column.

Her potential challenges with some Latino voters may also be the result of a lack of "sustained retail politics" in Latino communities throughout the state, Valentin wrote. He also argues Hochul has not invested enough in Latino communities in her time as governor (something Democratic City Council Member Diana Ayala disputed in a response column), and that there are far too few Latinos among State Democratic Party leadership.

"She may win their vote,” Valentin wrote, “but it’ll likely be with a smaller margin than that of any of her Democratic predecessors.”

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Loosely Allied with Hochul, Working Families Party Again Tries to Meet Higher Threshold to Keep Ballot Line


Democrats rallying (photo: @PatRyanUC)


UPDATE: On election night, results showed the Working Families Party achieve enough votes on its ballot line for Kathy Hochul to retain its political party status and ballot line in upcoming elections. In response to the New York gubernatorial election results, Director of the New York Working Families Party Sochie Nnaemeka released the following celebratory statement:

“The Working Families Party is proud to have secured more than enough votes to maintain our ballot line and continue fighting for working New Yorkers. Our grassroots volunteers mobilized voters from across the state to reject far-right extremism and vote for a New York that invests in working people by casting their ballot for Kathy Hochul and Antonio Delgado on the WFP ballot line. Against enormous obstacles—including an onslaught of spending from billionaires and dark money PACs—we once again beat the odds and showed the strength of our progressive movement. With a focus on the real issues facing working New Yorkers, we were able to turn out voters in every corner of the state. Now Governor Hochul and our statewide leaders must act—and act swiftly—to deliver for the working New Yorkers and communities of color who carried them to victory. Our state can provide much-needed relief to working families by making deep investments in affordable housing, lowering utility costs through publicly-owned utilities, investing in our SUNY and public college system, and moving meaningfully toward universal child care and health care. New Yorkers want leadership that will have their backs, and we’re ready to partner with our statewide leaders to chart a bold path forward.”

***

Leaders of the Working Families and Conservative parties are again pushing New Yorkers to cast votes for their top-of-the-ticket nominees in high enough numbers to keep their ballot lines in future elections.

Thanks to state rules adopted in 2020, every political party nominee for President and Governor must receive the greater of 2% of the statewide vote total or 130,000 votes in order for the party to keep a guaranteed spot on the ballot. Previously, political parties had to garner just 50,000 votes for their nominee for governor every four years.

This year as in other recent general elections, the Conservative Party has nominated the Republican ticket – U.S. Rep Lee Zeldin for governor and his lieutenant governor running-mate Alison Esposito, a recently-retired NYPD deputy inspector – thanks to a system called fusion voting, which allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines. The Working Families Party likewise has nominated the Democratic ticket – Governor Kathy Hochul and Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, as it has done in previous election cycles, even after backing other candidates in the Democratic primary.

"I anticipate a banner year. I would not at all be shocked if we ended up with 300,000 votes," said Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar in an interview with Gotham Gazette. "We are certainly going to end up well over the 130,000 and I feel very good about us surpassing the Working Families Party in votes too."

The party is banking on the momentum Zeldin has built over the course of his campaign, as well as many competitive races for Congress and State Senate, and frustrations with government under Democratic leadership.

The Working Families Party is hoping to remain on the ballot as a more progressive check on the State Democratic Party. According to WFP New York Chair Sochie Nnaemeka, the party is aiming to get 200,000 votes this year – fewer than in the high-turnout 2020 presidential election and more than the 2018 gubernatorial election, which also saw higher-than-usual turnout.

"We are not taking anything for granted in this moment because we have to protect our progressive party in New York State, and we have to defeat right wing extremism in New York," Nnaemeka said in a recent podcast interview with Gotham Gazette. "We are progressives. We can chew gum and walk at the same time."

In New York State, where Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one, staving off a Zeldin victory will largely come down to Democrats' ability to boost turnout, especially in downstate population centers – New York City and the surrounding suburbs. That could raise the vote threshold needed to keep the ballot line.

"We are really pushing for turnout to be higher, even if it might kind of negatively affect this threshold that was put on us," Nnaemeka said.

The new ballot thresholds are the result of a push from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, that would kneecap third parties, particularly the Working Families Party, which had become a thorn in his side. The new rules had previously been enacted by a commission, appointed by Cuomo and the Democrat-controlled State Legislature to create a new campaign finance system, and were later thrown out by a State Supreme Court judge. Cuomo and legislators adopted the rules again as part of 2020 state budget legislation to the outrage of third-party supporters and some democracy advocates.

With the higher and more frequent threshold, the state's smaller parties have had to scrape to survive. Several of them didn't make it in the 2020 general election, losing their ballot lines and relying on the vanishingly small write-in turnout to make any mark in the election. Among the now-defunct lines are those of the Green, Libertarian, Reform, and Independence parties.

The Conservative Party was the only camp outside of the Democratic and Republican parties to consistently attract voters at the higher vote threshold before it went into effect in the spring of 2020. In the general election that year, the first race under the new rules, both the Conservative and Working Families parties crossed the finish line with enough votes to preserve their place on the ballot in the 2021 municipal elections and this year's state and congressional contests.

In 2020, 296,000 New York voters for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence selected their names on the Conservative Party line. That was 3.4% of statewide votes. The Working Families Party, which nominated then-U.S. Senators Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, received 387,000 votes, or 4.5%.

That election marked an unusually high turnout year in New York, spurred in part by opposition to Trump in the heavily Democratic state. In total, roughly 8.7 million New Yorkers, or 64% of registered voters, cast ballots. This year's general election is expected to have far lower turnout overall, creating a less forgiving environment for small parties to earn big vote tallies.

The last time the governorship was on the ballot in the 2018 midterm elections, Marc Molinaro, the Republican Dutchess County Executive, received 254,000 votes on the Conservative Party line, or 4.2% of the vote – well above the current threshold. That year the WFP got just shy of 114,000 votes for Cuomo and his running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, or 1.9% of the vote. Had the new rules been in place, the party would have lost its automatic spot on the ballot by about 8,000 votes.

"Our focus right now really is to get progressives, to get young people, get voters of color maybe who might feel disengaged by the Democratic Party to put their lot in with the Democrats on top of the ticket right now and to do so while also voting their values," Nnaemeka said.

In the Democratic gubernatorial primary earlier this year, the WFP endorsed New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams for Governor and his running-mate, progressive activist Ana María Archila, for lieutenant governor. Now, there are few signs that it has built significant bridges with Hochul beyond endorsing her in the general election. There has been no unity event and no indication that Hochul’s campaign is working to help the party reach its ballot minimum, but the party is mobilizing its followers to vote for Hochul on its ballot line, which could help both survive.

"Should she be asked, she'll say that she's on the Working Families Party line," Nnaemeka said when asked what the governor is doing to support the WFP.

The WFP is pushing for state legislation to change the ballot-access rules once again, Nnaemeka said on the podcast. Under the proposal, parties would need to receive the lesser of 130,000 votes and 2% of the overall vote share for any statewide office every four years, not the current greater every two years.

"We know that we can meet these numbers, which I think is why the urgency perhaps has been lessened from a legislative standpoint. However, we believe that these laws are bad for democracy," Nnaemeka said.

Out of 13.1 million registered voters, there were 163,000 enrolled Conservative Party members and 51,000 WFP members, as of November 1. At 6.5 million, Democrats make up close to half of all registered voters compared with 2.8 million Republicans, or 22% of potential voters. Unaffiliated New Yorkers account for 23% of enrolled voters.

[LISTEN: Max Politics Podcast: Sochie Nnaemeka on the Working Families Party's Bid for Survival, Influence]

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Max Politics Podcast: High Hopes for the New York GOP


Lee Zeldin, left, and John Burnett (photo: @IamJohnBurnett)


November 4, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: High Hopes for the New York GOP

John Burnett, Executive Vice Chairman of the New York State Republican Party, joined the show to discuss the GOP's high hopes for this year's elections, especially in the race for Governor where Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin is running against Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul and appears within striking distance.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

Read more: Max Politics Podcast: High Hopes for the New York GOP



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