New York's Gubernatorial Race Heats Up

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we'll do our first segment on the race for governor of New York. We'll focus mostly for today on the Democratic primary, candidates are getting in, including State Attorney General, Letitia James, and New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, they share a Brooklyn political base, so that's one political tension right off the bat. Governor Hochul wants to run for a full term after taking over for Andrew Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio shows signs of getting ready to run.

Then there's Queens and Nassau County Congressman Tom Suozzi who would so far be the most conservative Democrat in the race, though he is progressive on many things. In an odd twist on Friday, most of you probably haven't heard this, Mayor-Elect Eric Adams reported they said he wants to hire Suozzi as a deputy mayor for the city, and Suozzi reportedly said he's considering it. On the Republican side, names include Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin and Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy.

We will also touch in this segment on the new New York state assembly judiciary committee report that just came out this morning, Michael just mentioned it in the newscast, supporting the major allegations against former governor Andrew Cuomo. The report concludes Cuomo did engage in multiple instances of sexual harassment. Did use state resources to work on his $5.2 million advanced payment book and was not fully transparent representing the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID. With us, for all this is Juan Manuel Benitez, NY1 political reporter, and host of Pura Política on their Spanish language station, NY1 Noticias. Hi, Juan Manuel. Welcome back to WNYC.

Juan Manuel: Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian: Listeners, which candidates for governor are early standouts to you as we look ahead to the June primary. Is it too early for you to have an opinion or a question about any of them, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @brianlehrer. What's the best way to view the democratic field? Is it from left to right?

Juan Manuel: I'm not sure that would be the best way to do it. I guess as political reporters and commentators, we try to box candidates into specific categories to make it easier for people to understand where every candidate might stand on specific issues. At the end of the day, we are going to have an extremely exciting and competitive primary race in the Democratic field in seven months. Now we see some candidates with a lot of experience are-- Two of them are women. The top two candidates, the current Governor Kathy Hochul, and the attorney general in the state, Letitia James. According to a recent poll that was released this morning from Data For Progress, they both lead the field of candidates.

Maybe instead of trying to put these candidates into different categories of who is more moderate or leftist or progressive, we might want to look at it as, well, Kathy Hochul would make history if she gets elected as the first woman governor elected in the state of New York. The same with Letitia James, who would also become the first Black politician elected governor in New York or the first Black woman elected governor in the country. I think looking at it as a historic characteristics of these candidacies that might be a better way to explain to our listeners how this feel is shaping up right now.

Brian: I'm always looking for policy differences between candidates who may be roughly, they're from the same party, they may roughly agree on the issues. One that has broken out in the last few days, or the last few days of last week was that Kathy Hochul and Jumaane Williams were different on going back to the office. Hochul urged New York's workforce back to their Manhattan offices as part of the city and state's recovery from the pandemic, William's criticized this saying it's backward-looking and not friendly to the workforce of today. Why are they staking out these positions? I assume they have something to do with running for governor.

Juan Manuel: Correct. They are really different positions. For those of us who work and live in Manhattan, we've seen how everything has been so slowly coming back, after the pandemic or during the pandemic, the pandemic we're still in. These are different positions, when it comes to Kathy Hochul saying we should all go back to the office and the economic activity that, that entails needs to come back in full force while Jumaane Williams is saying, "Listen, that is not really the way we should be looking at this because things changed," and a lot of people want to have hybrid schedules, or there's a lot of New Yorkers who are going to be working from home forever.

We should be thinking about other ways of bringing back the economic activity that we still don't see in certain parts of the city that are highly dependent on office workers.

Brian: While Hochul suggested that this would get things back to "normal", Williams pointed out that normal, the old normal didn't work for everyone. I think that's a telling potential, at least positioning difference, that will probably come out more in specific policy differences where it's one thing to be interested in getting back to the pre-pandemic world which might've been better for most people, but Williams has more of a progressive, I think it's fair to say is more aggressively for more structural change, that would point out the deficiencies before the pandemic.

Juan Manuel: Sure. At the same time, we can also say maybe all those working-class New Yorkers, who are highly dependent on office workers, they need everybody coming back to the office full time, five days a week. At the end of the day, Brian, these are really early positions, we've learned in the last couple of years that things change really quickly when it comes to an election, when it comes to the main theme, or the main concern voters might have at one specific time, and maybe in six months, we're going to be talking about something totally different because companies might be realizing that the hybrid schedules or people coming to the office once or twice a week might not be working for them either.

They might want everybody back five days a week. They are early positions, they are candidates trying to insert themselves into the conversation. We'll see how that pans out in the next few months.

Brian: We should remember that this isn't the first time that Jumaane Williams and Kathy Hochul will have faced off in an election. Jumaane Williams ran for lieutenant governor in a primary against Hochul in 2018, when she was Andrew Cuomo's running mate, and he was Cynthia Nixon's running mate, although those are separate primary elections for Governor and lieutenant governor. He came within a few points of Kathy Hochul, which even though she was Cuomo's running mate, considering that she was Cuomo's running mate was closer than a lot of people expected it to be. Jamaane Williams, at least downstate has a lot of name recognition and starts in an interesting position in that respect.

Of course, there was no Letitia James running against him at that time, and to some degree they share a political base in Brooklyn, right?

Juan Manuel: That's right. The important part also about the Jumaane Williams candidacy is that he is now running for governor even before he takes the oath of office for the office is just one. He just won reelection as New York City public advocate. He didn't even wait to the swearing in on January 1st. He just went straight in running for governor, he hasn't even had a full term as New York City public advocate. To the other point that you just made, yes, he came close to beating Kathy Hochul, but Kathy Hochul won. We have to remember that when it comes to Democratic voters and the primary voters in the state, most of the votes come from the city, from New York City. Also, most of those votes in the city, they come from Brooklyn.

Jumaane Williams has been an elected official for many years as a city council member, and then as public advocate, so he's well-known and he has a solid constituency in Brooklyn. Now like some experts are saying, he's going to have to compete for those Black votes in the city or in Brooklyn with Letitia James. They might have wider electorates. At the end of the day, when it comes to New York state Letitia James has an advantage over Jamaane Williams. She's been elected to statewide office as the state attorney general, so she might have a better chance at winning the Democratic primary for governor and Jumaane Williams.

Brain: Listeners, who has an early preference or a question about the Democratic field for Governor of New York in the primary that will be voted on in June of next year, but for which candidates are getting in and starting to stake out positions, 212-433-WNYC with Juan Manuel Benítez political reporter for NY1, 212-433-9692 or tweet your comment or early preference or a question @Brianlehrer.

I want to get to the Tom Swasey story in a minute because it's really interesting and really intriguing that Eric Adams has offered him a deputy mayor possession, guy doesn't even live in New York City, but before we get to Tom Swasey, we gave the one example of a policy difference between Jumaane Williams and Kathy Hochul on how aggressively to push people to go back to their Manhattan offices. Can you see other ways that the governor's race as far off as it is that the actual voting will take place is already affecting policy at the city or state level?

Juan Manuel: Well, we have to remember that right now the most harmful New Yorker in the city is the Mayor-Elect Eric Adams. Any candidate running for governor is going to try to appeal to his favorite. They're going to try to get his endorsement. We can expect the new mayor coming in January 1st to be pretty popular for the first few months and that's going to be an really interesting dynamic to watch. New York City is so dependent on Albany, but for the first time in a long time, we're going to have a mayor of the city with a lot of leverage when it comes to statewide policy.

With our current governor, the incumbent running for re-election, Kathy Hochul, trying to get the support of Eric Adams and maybe trying to do whatever he wants to get from Albany and that's going to be extremely, I guess, positive for New York City voters because they're going to get many things, and normally they wouldn't get from Albany in regular times, so I think policy-wise, that's going to be a very influential dynamic that we're going to see in the next few months.

Brain: Let's see. Do we have a call already? Let's try Karen in Bethpage on Governor Hochul. Hi, Karen, you're on WNYC.

Karen: Hi, there. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say that I was hopeful when Governor Hochul came into the administration, put in new leadership for OPWDD and the Department of Health, but right now I am looking for other candidates because she recently called for a flat budget for OPWDD on--

Brain: Remind people what stand OPWDD stands for.

Karen: Sure. It's the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities.

Brain: Thank you.

Karen: They provide the services like group homes and they have and supported employment for people who have intellectual disabilities or autism things like that. All those services have been really underfunded for many, many years. Under Governor Cuomo, many houses are closing down, there's a 25% vacancy rate among the support professionals who give the services to the people. The system is collapsing, basically. To call for a flat budget when there's a surplus and when they're getting federal matching funds and all the money has been given by the federal government to New York, and it goes into the general funds and not for the people whose services it should be providing for. I'm really looking for another candidate at this point.

Brain: Karen, thank you very much. Alan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Good morning. Hold on. I had a concern about these scenarios that are being set up right now. Not really an objection to one of those candidates, but the way things can play out if we have both Williams and Leticia James running in the primary against a white incumbent governor there's chances they're going to split that vote, so they'll first raise the expectations of Black voters in the primary and dash them by likely handing the nomination over to a white candidate and that would set up the possibility of the Black turnout being lowered. That would make it more likely with someone like Andrew Giuliani, could win the governorship.

If one of those candidates wins, we have the possibility that we'll just have a Black governor, head of the Senate, Head of State Assembly, Mayor, Manhattan DA, and several congressmen and Republicans could do that as an advertising line in '24 about reasons that might arguably justify in their minds the kinds of Black voter repression or suppression that they're engaged in because look what happens in states that are more liberal, they allow the entire government to be taken over by minorities. I don't object to that. I'm saying that they could argue that in a way that could make it easier to win in 2024.

Brain: I understand. They probably have to do some of that with dog whistles so they don't come right out and say, "It's too many Black people in positions of power in New York State." But that's an interesting set of scenarios that he lays out, Juan Manuel, have you thought about them in those ways?

Juan Manuel: Sure. At the same time, we can also say that some people believe that Jumaane Williams, even though he says he wants to be governor, he's just trying to get into the race to push Letitia James to the left and once that's done, he will be dropping out of this race. Just because you are a Black candidate, that doesn't mean that you're only attracting Black voters. You can form a really wide-ranging coalition of different voters that might propel you to win a very crowded Democratic primary. Let's remember that this is not a head-to-head only three candidates, we're expecting more than three candidates running in this primary.

One more thing that I would say, Brian, about budgets that your previous caller mentioned is that that's going to be an early test for Kathy Hochul. She is governor and she's running for election as governor and at the same time, she needs to come up with a budget before April 1st. Those budget negotiations are normally really contentious. They are going to be even more so this year, so we're going to see what Kathy Hochul's priorities are when we see her numbers, when she makes it her budget presentation in the next couple of months.

Brain: The caller put it somewhat in the context of upstate voters, let's say more predominantly white upstate voters who might have more fear of Black leadership triggered by the ultimate Republican candidate, whoever that is. Talk more about the potential upstate downstate dynamic, just in the Democratic primary. Letitia James, when she debated on NY1 for her current job, Attorney General your colleague Errol Louis asked if she had ever had a garbage plate, and she had no idea what that was, and neither did I. As it turns out, a garbage plate is a dish associated with the city of Rochester, usually consisting of potatoes, baked beans, or macaroni salad, plus meat and sauce.

Will any upstate downstate campaigning and familiarity with places outside the city play out through cultural touchdowns like that?

Juan Manuel: Of course. We're going to see how these candidates are going to be touring the whole state and they're going to try to learn from every New York state voter, and they're going to try to appeal to their interests. Also, it's not only about white and Black, it's only about upstate downstate. If Letitia James runs a campaign based on union support, she can make an appeal to working-class voters all over the state and it doesn't matter if you're in Rochester, or you are in Montauk, on Long Island, you're going to appeal to the same kind of New York state voter, even if geographically they are in different places.

Then again, I think we need to look at this beyond just racial differences or geographical differences because I think that's the model that mayor-elect Eric Adams took here in the city. He tried to form a really wide-ranging coalition, different racial-ethnic groups, and also different income groups. That's what got him to win the very competitive, crowded Democratic primary last June.

Brian: Here's a Hochul fan in Manhattan. Jeanette in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in.

Jeanette: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, everyone. I am thrilled with Kathy Hochul being governor, and I think we should elect her. Sorry.

Brian: That's all right. The other candidates might say, "How do you even know yet she just got there?"

Jeanette: She has all this experience. Eight years of being lieutenant governor. Why should we waste that? She's got so much energy. She's been to every-- What did you call it? Municipality in the state, she's got heart. I think we should definitely go with her. The others, Letitia James, she should stay in her lane. She's a lawyer. She should be doing that. Jumaane should just wait. Everybody else should wait and just let Kathy do it. Then I was wishing that Eric Adams would hire Kathryn Garcia to do something. I was hoping he would pick her as the deputy mayor.

Brian: You know that Kathy Hochul hired Kathryn Garcia to be a lead policymaker and an operations person at the state level, right? That probably would make you like Kathy Hochul even more, but she did hire Kathryn Garcia for a top state job.

Jeanette: Wonderful. Wonderful. These are capable people with experience and heart and they get their feet on the ground. This is wonderful. Not because they're women. That's not part of the issue. It is a capable experience, people with heart, down to earth. That's my opinion.

Brian: Jeanette, thank you very much. I'm sure Letitia James would say she's a capable experienced woman with heart. About Letitia James, Juan Manuel, does she have to give up her position as Attorney General in order to run in the gubernatorial primary?

Juan Manuel: The answer is yes. Just to clarify to your previous caller, Jeanette, Kathy Hochul is also a lawyer. We have Letitia James, obviously, she's the state attorney general and Kathy Hochul went to law school as well, and she worked at a law firm for some time.

Brian: Cuomo and if you're going to say stay in that lane because you're a lawyer. Of course, Cuomo was the State Attorney General before being elected governor. Eliot Spitzer was the state attorney general before being elected governor. It's a common path.

Juan Manuel: Correct. Yes, Letitia James, she's given up her reelection chances as state attorney general to run for governor. It's not that she's trying to run for a different office while staying in her current position. She has given up the state attorney general race and moving up to become the governor of the state. We know that one of the people who would like to try to run for state attorney general is the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez who's shown to be interested in that job and might run in the Democratic primary for that position.

Brian: Juan Manuel Benitez, political reporter for NY1 and host of NY1 Noticias, their Spanish language station program Pura Política with us for another few minutes. I want to get to the Suozzi story in a little bit of this new report that just came out from the State Assembly about the charges against Cuomo. Congressman Tom Suozzi, another likely entrant in the gubernatorial primary represents for those of you who don't know him, Northeast Queens, and a lot of the North Shore of Long Island. He's a former Nassau County Executive.

He'd be running a little bit to the right of most of the rest of the field. He was the one in Congress just now who is most dogged about getting the state and local tax deduction restored, which he got at least in the House version of the bill up to $80,000 of state and local taxes will be tax-deductible again at the federal level. Suozzi has endorsed the incumbent mayor of Buffalo for his run as a write-in candidate against the Democratic socialists who actually won the Democratic nomination.

Suozzi is a little bit to the right of others who would be in that field. Here comes the intriguing and I thought a little bit weird story, Juan Manuel, and tell me if you can confirm it. I saw in the post that Eric Adams has offered Tom Suozzi a position as Deputy Mayor of New York City and Suozzi has said he'll seriously consider it. Can you confirm that?

Juan Manuel: It's confirmed and Tom Suozzi, the Congressman has said that he's really flattered that Adams would like him to help him in a big way to tackle the challenges in New York City, he said. Apparently, they've been friends for a long time. Let's remember that Tom Suozzi also tried to run for governor many, many years ago unsuccessfully. Listen, Eric Adams [crosstalk]

Brian: There could have been a whole series of, "Don't blame me. I voted for Suozzi" bumper stickers if anybody had thought to do that because some of our listeners will remember but most probably won't that he was the Democratic primary candidate against Eliot Spitzer back in I guess that was 2006 when Suozzi was Nassau County Executive and obviously, Spitzer won and we know how that turned out. He ran for governor once. Now he may do it again. Why would Adams pick Suozzi, another relatively conservative Democrat to be deputy mayor?

Juan Manuel: Eric Adams is going to start rolling now all those announcements about the people he would like to have in his administration. I'm sure many of them are going to be out of the box, or they're going to places like this one specifically. Why not? Why wouldn't you get a seasoned politician who was being an elected official for some time who is your friend, and who caters to some constituency in the city because his district covers a little bit of Queens? Why not having him as a deputy mayor?

Again, we're going to be really surprised. Eric Adams, I believe is going to pick people from a wide range in the political spectrum, not only more moderate, or conservative Democrats, but also more progressive. He's going to try to have a very inclusive administration. We'll see. One thing that I'm curious to know is whether he's going to have enough Latinos in his administration. If Latinos, since they are 29% of the New York City population, are going to have their fair share when it comes to top positions in the Adams administration.

Brian: There are a number of deputy mayor positions to give out before we even get to commissioners. With respect to Suozzi, doesn't he live in Nassau County?

Juan Manuel: Yes, he does. I don't know if that would be a problem when it comes to this. Again, I think that we're going to get a lot of headlines from Adams in the next few days. He's going to try to dominate every single news cycle with a drip-drip of announcements of people who he would like to serve in his administration.

Brian: We could wind up with a mayor of New York who half the time lives in New Jersey and a deputy mayor who lives on Long Island.

Juan Manuel: We still don't know what's going to happen with where the mayor-elect is going to decide to live full time. He said he would like to be in Gracie Mansion maybe some of the time. Yes, still up in the air, where the incoming mayor of the City of New York really lives and whether New Yorkers care about that.

Brian: Yes, whether New Yorkers care about that is definitely a question if he's doing the job. Would Suozzi have to give up his current congressional seat in order to run in the gubernatorial primary?

Juan Manuel: No, he doesn't have to because-- Actually, that's a really good question, Brian. Suozzi, maybe not, but yes because we have elections.

Brian: That's right. If he gets a primary, he would have to be on the ballot for both things, for congress, and for governor in the Democratic primary next June.

Juan Manuel: Correct. I'm sorry that I didn't know that off the bat that there are so many different elections, primaries that we've had in the last two years. We don't even remember what year we are in. Yes, in 2022, he will have to give up his congressional seat if he were to run in the Democratic primary for governor. I would assume, yes.

Brian: Let me touch before you go on this breaking news this morning. The State Assembly Judiciary Committee report on the Cuomo scandals. This would have been playing into an impeachment proceeding if the former governor was still in office. Did you get a look at it yet? Do you have a headline?

Juan Manuel: Yes. This report basically says what we thought it was going to happen. That the governor engaged in multiple instances of sexual harassment including by creating a hostile work environment and engaging in sexual misconduct. Also, the report found that the former governor utilized state resources and property to write his book on how he managed the COVID-19 crisis. Also, the report says that the former governor was not fully transparent when it came to the number of nursing home residents who died as a result of COVID-19.

Brian: It seems to me from very casual first glance that the sexual harassment portions of this, and it was really those things and Latisha James report on those things that led Cuomo to resign, but the other things here might be more damning. If this report is covered at all because it might be seen largely as moot since Cuomo is out of office, but if it's covered at all that the more damning things here might be evidence of Cuomo withholding the true number of nursing home deaths from COVID and also the report references a text message from senior state officials saying that work on the book was compromising that official's ability to work on COVID-related matters. Those are life and death implications.

Juan Manuel: That's correct. Now one thing is clear, Brian, this assembly committee is saying, "We're cooperating with law enforcement." There's a possibility that the former governor has to face criminal charges in the future. This report today makes it even more difficult for the former governor to really throw his hat in the ring like many see he could do if he tries to run for his own position again because there is a possibility that former governor Cuomo tries to run in the Democratic primary for governor to regain his position. This report makes it really difficult.

Brian: Or for attorney general, that's also been rumored. Didn't he himself drop a hint that he might not run in the gubernatorial primary, not seeing a path to victory, but might run for New York State attorney general if Latisha James abandoned that?

Juan Manuel: That's correct. This report is going to make that option even more difficult. However, given the poll numbers that we've seen this morning in that Data for Progress report, that poll, the governor is still popular and he's still the number one option of a significant number of New Yorkers when it comes to the Democratic primary for governor.

Brian: Juan Manuel Benitez is a political reporter for NY1 and host of Pura Política on their Spanish language station, NY1 Noticias. We always appreciate when you come on, Juan Manuel. Happy Thanksgiving,

Juan Manuel: Happy Thanksgiving, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

 

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