New York's Primary Results

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On the morning after the January 6th committee, you heard possibly the most devastating testimony yet, which is saying a lot, including about Trump knowing that people in the January 6th crowd were heavily armed and he and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, dismissing that as a concern, and the Trump physically trying to grab the wheel of his car from his secret service driver to take the car to the Capitol when the driver refused to go.

Did you hear that one? Many people from Trump's most inner circle urged him repeatedly to tell the rioters to go home, but he waited for hours, encouraged them with a tweet, and said they were doing nothing wrong. We'll do our day after the hearing segment later in this hour. It's also the morning after the New York primaries for governor and lieutenant governor. We'll talk about those first, including this little piece of history, no matter who wins in November.

Kathy Hochul: To the women of New York, this one's for you.

[applause]

Brian: Kathy Hochul as the first woman nominee for governor of any major party, she also said this.

Kathy: On one side declares war, the other side has a choice. Are we going to surrender? Are we going to fight back? I know what I'm going to do. I'm fighting back.

Brian: It was a decisive win for Hochul and the long-run Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi didn't come close. If you haven't heard these numbers yet, according to the latest count, which is not a 100% count, but it's getting there, Hochul got around 65% of the vote to around 20% for Jumaane and just 13% for Suozzi. On the Republican side, Long Island Congressman and Trump loyalist Lee Zeldin also won handily in a four-way race and began his victory speech by launching right into his November campaign.

Lee Zeldin: Are we ready to fire Kathy Hochul?

[applause]

Lee: This November in the state of New York, one-party rule will end. Kathy Hochul will get fired. We will restore balance and common sense to Albany again.

Brian: It's Hochul versus Zeldin for governor of New York with their chosen running mates as well. If you were following that race, Antonio Delgado with Hochul also won big and Alison Esposito with Zeldin did not have a primary challenge. Both sides introduced their very different campaign themes in their speeches last night. We heard a little right there. We'll hear more clips as we go. One thing to note. At least to my ear, I was watching, I was taking notes.

While Zeldin spent most of his speech attacking Hochul and the Democrats on crime and the economy, he made no mention of his support for Donald Trump's stolen election claims. I don't think he said the name Trump or his opposition to abortion rights and to New York State's gun laws, including the new red flag laws, Zeldin reportedly opposes that, and no mention of immigration. With us now, Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor and co-host of the New York politics podcast, FAQ NYC. Hi, Christina. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christina Greer: Thank you, Brian. Always great to be here.

Brian: First, let's talk about what we learned from the primary results, then we'll preview the general election. In the Democratic primary for governor, were you surprised by the landslide margin of victory for Hochul and Delgado?

Christina: Not really. When we think about Kathy Hochul, first of all, she's got lots of money in the bank, but when I was looking at the numbers of Cuomo v. Teachout and Cuomo v. Nixon and each time, the progressive candidate got roughly 33% of the vote or third of the vote. If you add in Jumaane plus Suozzi, it equals a third of the vote. I know that Suozzi was running to the right of Kathy Hochul. Jumaane Williams was running to the left, but I didn't see the numbers as an anomaly when we compare it to the past two election primary cycles for the Democrats.

Brian: Have you seen any demographic breakouts yet?

Christina: I have not and I am interested because, obviously, Brian, I'm always interested in turnout. I'm curious as to, did downstate overperform compared to upstate? Are African-Americans or Asian-American and Latino voters participating in primaries? We know that on more local races, we've seen Asian Americans and Latinos be a little more receptive to Republican messaging.

I'm curious as to what their racial breakdowns are and, obviously, age breakdowns as an educator. We also have to remember. We have a closed primary system. There are quite a few New Yorkers who are registered as independents, who could not participate yesterday or during early voting because they have chosen not to identify with either the Democratic or Republican parties.

Brian: It was a low turnout election, but there might have been too much talk early in the day yesterday, including on the show about how remarkably low turnout an election it was. When I think at the end of the day, it came pretty close to the turnout in the Democratic primary from 2018, four years ago, Cuomo versus Cynthia Nixon. That was about 900,000 votes on the Democratic side. This, I think, is clocking in at about 800,000 votes, so not that much less.

Christina: True, Brian, but keep in mind, in 2018, we didn't have early voting. I think the hope was, for early voting, we would incorporate new voters so that they'd have a lot more access to the ballot. This time, we had early voting. It seems as though the same voters who typically participate before we had the early voting system are still the ones who participate in a primary. They just have more options. For us, as those who care about democracy and incorporation and inclusion, how do we get people who choose to sit on the sidelines or who honestly, Brian, did not know an election was taking place? How do we get them involved in a primary system?

Brian: We have to get them all listening to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Christina: Absolutely.

Brian: Listeners, who do listen to The Brian Lehrer Show, your questions or comments about these primary results or the November campaign to come for Christina Greer from Fordham University's political science department and the FAQ NYC New York politics podcast, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

In a low turnout election, before we leave the primary aside on the Democratic side, we might think that the motivated progressive base might carry someone like Williams or Archila, she had a lot of juice, we thought, to victory when not that many people are excited about Hochul even if they basically respect her. Would that underestimate the power of the Democratic establishment, especially the unions, to get people to the polls? Is that what happened yesterday?

Christina: Brian, I think we still need a little bit more time to sift through some of the data, but I do think that Kathy Hochul used her seven years as lieutenant governor in a role that was loosely defined or not defined at all to really establish relationships across the state, especially with unions. We saw that with her fundraising capacity. We also saw the unions who came out pretty swiftly to support her.

I also just think, even though New York State is a big D Democratic state by and large, especially during presidential election years, we have a lot of ideological diversity within the Democratic Party. We are not a royal blue state. We have a lot of different shades of blue. The progressive wing of the party represents just one faction of the Democratic Party, but by no means are they the majority of the Democratic Party, especially when we leave the five boroughs and start going north to the state.

Brian: What about the unions in particular? Why did Hochul have so much union leadership support? One could argue that Jumaane Williams with the Working Families Party co-endorsement and his positions on many issues is more of a pure labor candidate.

Kathy: Absolutely, but I think a lot of the labor leaders are strategic and it is very difficult to unseat an incumbent. They saw the fundraising prowess of Kathy Hochul. They saw the advantage that she has as a sitting governor. I think, ideologically, they may have been more aligned with Jumaane Williams on particular issues, but to take that gamble is quite a risk. I think the strength of the Working Families Party and the tension that they've received in the past is just not the same as their strength right now.

Brian: You mentioned how well-funded Hochul was and she and Zeldin on the Republican side were the most well-funded candidates on the respective sides. Therefore, they had the most advertising if that mattered. Same with Hochul's running mate, Delgado, in the lieutenant governor's race. He had a lot of funding. Is it easy enough to say who their main backers were like whose money has its hooks in these candidates on either side or would we have to look that up?

Christina: I think we're going to, over the next few months, really have an in-depth conversation about the influence of money in this particular race. I think Lee Zeldin will make sure that he talks quite a bit about all of the funding from Kathy Hochul, not just unions, but obviously corporations and certain relationships that she's had with corporations. Obviously, the Buffalo Bills stadium will be a prominent talking point for Lee Zeldin. Then I'm sure Kathy Hochul will find out what either real estate or business communities supported Lee Zeldin in his win in a relatively crowded Republican primary.

Brian: Did you notice that Hochul thanked Jumaane Williams in her victory speech? Unless I missed it, she did not mention Suozzi. Did they develop especially bad blood for some reason?

Christina: I think so. We mentioned this last night on the podcast on FAQ NYC. I gave Kathy Hochul the shade award because she genuinely thanked her twice opponent. Don't forget, she ran against Jumaane Williams for lieutenant governor four years ago and was victorious, and then ran against him again for governor and was victorious again, but I think she respects him as an opponent.

Jumaane Williams did not attack Kathy Hochul in the same way that Tom Suozzi did. I think many people who have followed Tom Suozzi's career were quite surprised by his shift in behavior, shift in tone, and shift in ideology. She did thank Jumaane Williams, but I heard crickets when it came to even mentioning Tom Suozzi. I think it'll be interesting to see where his career goes or does not go after this loss.

Brian: Well, how do you explain as somebody who's followed Suozzi in his decades in public life? He was the mayor of Glen Cove in Nassau County. He was the Nassau County executive. He's been in Congress for a while and had, I think, a pretty good reputation across the Democratic Party, though he was more center-left. He was in that-- what do they call it? Coalition builders. I can't remember the name of it, but a bipartisan across-the-aisle group. He still had a lot of progressive cred and he gave up a seat in Congress to run this very long-shot campaign, which failed as badly as it might have. Why did he even make that gamble? Any idea?

Christina: I don't know what's in the mind of Tom Suozzi, but I think it was interesting, Brian. It's one thing to run to the right of a candidate. It's another thing to double-down on certain ideologies and become almost unrecognizable to the people who initially supported you. When we watched the debates and he sounded as though that he was a quasi-Lee Zeldin, the fear-mongering, the somewhat Republican talking points about how dangerous the city and the state are and how Kathy Hochul has done nothing.

There's a way that you run in a primary against an incumbent where you can articulate your ideas and possibly failures of your opponent, but you also have to articulate a vision. I don't think that Tom Suozzi was effective in doing so. I do think a lot of Democrats were off-put by some of his more, I would argue, draconian, Republican-sounding policy perspectives.

Brian: He even invoked the dog whistle of political correctness. He had his TV ad that said it's about doing the correct thing. It's not about being politically correct. We know that that's often used as a dog whistle for not respecting the feelings or the positions of women and people of color. Tom Suozzi's career, now in question as to what he does next after that.

By the way, my producer, Mary, reminded me that it was the Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress that I was groping for the name of that Suozzi worked with and was a leader in across the aisle. His congressional term will expire at the end of this year. Well, let's look to November. Here's another clip from Zeldin's victory speech in which he lays the groundwork for appealing to different racial and ethnic groups. Of course, from the right, he is a Republican, but he name-checks different groups here in this minute-and-a-half clip from last night.

Lee: Right now in Flushing, Queens is a loyal, liberal, Democrat Asian-American parent, who is concerned about one of their own getting pushed in front of an oncoming subway car and being killed. Stabbed to death in their apartment in Lower Manhattan, beaten to death on the streets because of anti-Asian hate. In Brooklyn, there's a young Jewish boy who may be walking to their yeshiva or leaving prayer who may become the next victim of a violent anti-Semitic attack.

I hear about the Sikh community telling me stories about how one of their own is attacked with raw violent hate for that Asian-American mom and dad who prioritizes their son and daughter's education above all else. They recognize that we should be challenging our students to go as far as possible in recognizing what success and hard work is. There's that young Hispanic family in the city and that young Black family in the city stuck in multi-generational poverty. Their kids stuck in poor-performing public schools. They should have access to a quality education just like everybody else.

[applause]

Brian: Republican Lee Zeldin, the Eastern Long Island Congressman and now the nominee for governor of New York. From his victory speech last night, he emphasized public safety and New York's high taxes and being a balance to one-party rule and, as you heard there, tried not to sound like Mr. White Supremacy. How do you see the Zeldin approach, Christina?

Christina: I think it will work with some. We've seen Asian Americans and Latino slowly but surely moving towards the Republican Party in various places across New York and also across the country when we think about schools, when we think about violence. It's a great talking point. The issue is this. Kathy Hochul needs to remind voters, especially Democratic voters, who would either cross over and switch party lines or stay home. She needs to remind them that this is a Congressman.

Although he may sound that he's of right mind and body, but he refuses to recognize Joe Biden as the rightful president of the United States. He refuses to say that January 6th was more than just some enthusiastic supporters coming to Washington, DC. I think she really does need to link the more extremist views of Congressman Zeldin to his desire to lead the state of New York. I do think the federal government and what's going on in Washington, DC, and with the Supreme Court will figure quite largely in a lot of the narratives of Kathy Hochul linking Zeldin to what is going on with his party in Washington, DC, in a way that we can't afford to have New Yorkers bring that into our state.

Brian: Kate in Amityville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kate.

Kate: Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I was really interested to hear you guys talk about the turnout because I had been thinking about that this week as I walked in to vote. I had a conversation with my father on Sunday and he was asking whether I was planning on voting. We were talking about what was going on in the news and how important it is to vote locally. I was embarrassed because I didn't realize that the primary was quite so soon as a person in her 30s who is perpetually online, almost an embarrassing amount, and who is really keyed into what's going on.

I think that turnout might have been lower or been a problem because there just hasn't seemed to have been a lot of messaging about the primary. I think that as someone in her 30s who spends a lot of time on Twitter and who doesn't have cable, a lot of the focus that we have these days is on what's going on nationally. I think that what's going on locally is getting brushed aside. I am very enthusiastic about local voting and it's important to me.

The fact that I, someone who is paying keen attention to what's going on, didn't even realize I think speaks to how overloaded we are with everything that's going on and how even people who are enthusiastic about wanting to be involved in the process just might not have even the reminders versus where they're getting information every day. Like Twitter, like TikTok, like not having cable, I'm not sure what the answer is to how to have those things accessible to people who aren't spending time watching local news. Anyway, so that was just my thought on it.

Brian: No, that's really interesting. In fact, let me ask you a question. I'm curious.

Kate: Sure.

Brian: As somebody who is as news-conscious as you described yourself as being, is it that the national stories that are so big right now, the Supreme Court, Ukraine, January 6th, overtook the news aspects of your social media feeds and other places that you go online and the local primaries didn't break through or is not even that other stuff hitting you enough in your opinion?

Kate: I think it's probably a little bit of both, but I do think that as someone who's on that perpetual scroll, there would have been other circumstances when I certainly would've seen comments from candidates or news outlets who were posting articles about what was going on locally. I just really didn't see them. I think that that didn't remind me to go out, do my research on who I was going to vote for, and remind me that the polls were open on Tuesday. It didn't come across my feed. I just didn't see it.

Brian: Kate, thank you. Call us again. Please call us again. Christina, thinking anything after that call?

Christina: Yes, I have quite a few thoughts for Kate actually. First thing's first, we don't want to guilt people into voting, and so there's no need to feel embarrassed, right? We all have a lot going on. Keep in mind, we're still in the midst of a global pandemic. For people who feel embarrassed that they missed this particular election, it is okay. Why? Because you can vote again for a totally different set of candidates on August 23rd, and then you can go back to the polls on November 8th, so you still have opportunities to participate.

I would say for people who are really-- well, not your hyper-educated listeners when it comes to political education because they listen to your show, but for their friends and family members who aren't as active, there are a few things they can do. One, they can make sure they follow The Brian Lehrer Show, FAQ, Gotham Gazette. They can follow more local folks on Twitter or Instagram so that it does pop up in their feed a little bit more.

Then, and this is what I ask my students to do, instead of doomscrolling, spend five minutes a day to work on your own civic education. It's just five minutes during the commercial break if you still watch commercials on Hulu or whatever it may be, where you are investing in your own civic education. If you don't know who your state senator is, you might want to find that out because you'll be voting for them on August 23rd in a primary.

If you don't know who your state legislator is, you might want to find that out because the election was yesterday. You may have someone new coming in possibly on November 8th because, for many of these races, they're completely non-competitive. The primary essentially was the real race. There are a lot of ways that you can educate yourself in a very low-stakes, easy way for just a few minutes a day.

Brian: Christina Greer with us, sounding like she's in Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport. Listeners, that is not a plane coming too close to your house. That's just in the background, wherever Chrissy is today?

Christina: Brooklyn.

[laughter]

Christina: Sorry about that, everyone.

Brian: JFK flight path. Okay, we'll continue in a minute, including on what Lee Zeldin conspicuously did not say in his victory speech last night. Stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we break down last night's New York primary results and look forward to the general election, primarily between Governor Kathy Hochul and her Republican challenger now, Congressman Lee Zeldin from the East End of Long Island, with Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor and co-host of the New York politics podcast FAQ NYC. Let's get a couple of more calls in here. Andrew in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Hey, Brian. Hey, Christina. I just wanted to say super briefly. I voted for Kathy Hochul because she's a woman and I'm a white male union member. I'm probably more aligned with Jumaane Williams. If you remember her, Andrew Cuomo went out and Jumaane had some sexual assault charges. I don't agree with everything with Kathy Hochul, but I don't regret my vote and that's why I voted for her.

Brian: Thank you very much. Christina, you think he represents a lot of people?

Christina: I think he represents some people who think that it's time for a different type of leadership, especially since the last two governors of New York State have had to resign for impropriety. Some people, I think, just want to change. I do think that that may have been the calculus for some analysts who thought that Ana María Archila was going to do better than she did. This idea of two brilliant women at the top of the ticket, but that clearly was not something that the voters went for. I think a lot of voters, even though Antonio Delgado ran separately, technically from Kathy Hochul, I do think that people linked the two together. If you voted for Hochul, you most likely voted for Delgado as well.

Brian: The call is referenced to sexual assault charges. I'm not sure that it was clear the way it came out. I assume he was referring to Andrew Cuomo.

Christina: I made that assumption, so we will see.

Brian: Just that. All right, yes. On Kathy Hochul being a woman, this comes up over and over again. It came up with Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders. We could look at other races where being the first woman is really important from a historic standpoint, from an equality standpoint. Then there's a progressive movement candidate who seems like they outflank on the issues or out-history. Some people saw Obama versus Hillary out-historying Hillary. It almost got lost in this primary, the fact that this would be such a huge first and probably with policy implications.

Christina: Yes, and I think the reason why it wasn't such a prominent factor in the race is because Kathy Hochul has technically been governor for quite a few months. When she had to step into the role in the midst of COVID, in the midst of rising inflation, and what we're seeing as far as a possible recession or depression coming through the state, I think that she leaned less into the historic moment and really just rolled her sleeves up and got the job done.

I do think, though, we will hear a little bit more of that narrative as we get closer to November 8th to make sure that women turn out and hopefully men as well because they recognize the historic importance of this particular moment, especially for a state like New York who has led, in particular, left-leaning or progressive value ideas when it comes to marriage equity or when it comes to protecting a woman's right to autonomy over her body. I think this is where we'll see Kathy Hochul really step into that narrative of, "As a woman, I want to lead the women and their families of this state into a more just direction," as opposed to what's going on in Washington, DC, and the Supreme Court.

Brian: Let's get some Zeldin voters in here. Barak in Rockland County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Barak.

Barak: Hi there. Good morning. I just wanted to share the dilemma that an ideological conservative has in voting in this election as well as in the upcoming presidential election. It's a similar kind of problem in that while the Republican candidate most likely adheres to the points of view that I hold, the ideology that I hold and would promote legislation that I would support. At the same time, the candidate for governor has this wacky view about the election being stolen. What does somebody do in a case where their ideology is consistent with a candidate, but their behavior just seems so bizarre that it doesn't seem like someone you can really trust?

Brian: How do you think you'll resolve that for yourself?

Barak: Well, it's a tough one. I really identified with Bill Barr and he got so much flack for describing how difficult it was for him dealing with Trump and how wacky Trump's behavior was to him but, at the same time, that he would vote for him again. Why? Because the Democratic Party in his view and in my view and the view of, I think, many Republicans has really been hijacked by the left. It really puts people in a no-win situation. I haven't yet decided and I really don't know. I have to wait and see how much this gentleman's view about the bizarre stolen election idea really dominates his agenda or whether he really will govern as an ideological conservative.

Brian: Thanks for laying out that dilemma for us. Call us again and let us know how you resolve this for yourself and other things you might want to contribute. Christina, that refers to what I mentioned in the intro that I thought was conspicuously absent from Zeldin's speech last night. He did not mention Trump. He did not mention guns. He did not mention immigration. He did not mention abortion, these Republican hot-button issues.

Even though he refuses to this day, as the caller indicates and as you said before, to say Biden won the presidential election, he voted not to certify the election results on January 6th. Even after the attack on the Capitol, he was one of those members of the House. He has come out against the state's new red flag law. This may be now moving into policy positions that that caller agrees with.

Still, there are things that Zeldin avoided last night in his victory speech that he's come out against the state's new red flag law, unless I missed it, to more easily remove guns from people considered too dangerous to themselves or others. He wants a judge to have a dangerousness standard to impose with respect to bail, but not with respect to gun possession. He said this at a campaign appearance during this campaign about his position on abortion rights.

Lee: It's been many, many, many decades. I don't even remember the last time New York State had a pro-life governor. It's been a very long time. We're talking about generations past.

Brian: As a self-declared pro-life governor after Roe v. Wade, he promised in that speech that even if he can't get the legislature to undo abortion rights in the state, he could do some things as the executive, including to appoint what he calls a pro-life health commissioner. Listen.

Lee: Go out and make sure we're getting the most qualified person to be the health commissioner who is also pro-life.

Brian: Christina, what do you make of those omissions? Unless he said some things and I missed them.

Christina: Oh no, Brian, you don't miss a beat. First things first, there's no such thing as pro-life when we're talking about this policy issue. He is an anti-choice. He does not believe that grown women or young women should be able to make the best choice for their own reproductive future and their families.

Brian: Just to be clear, I don't use pro-life as a matter of journalistic reportage. I was quoting him describing himself, but go ahead.

Christina: Absolutely, right. He's saying that he's pro-life and he'll promote someone who's pro-life. Lee Zeldin, there is no such thing as pro-life. That's a talking point. I think it's not surprising that it was missing from his speech last night. I thought what was really shocking, Brian, first, is that he came out and the first thing he said was, "Are we ready to fire Kathy Hochul?" That, to me, just tipped off the vitriol that we are going to see in the next few months. I do think that it is imperative, though, that Kathy Hochul reminds voters.

As you mentioned, this is a man who refuses to recognize the president of the United States. This is a man who refused to certify the election. This is a much more complicated and insidious conversation that we need to have about someone like Lee Zeldin because If you have someone who's anti-choice, if you have someone who-- When it comes to guns, we have to think about police unions.

Police unions don't want more people with guns to say nothing of communities like Buffalo and so many communities in New York City who are dealing with not just mass shootings but also gun violence. Kathy Hochul has an opportunity to present who Lee Zeldin is and to link him to more extremist views that he has held and he has articulated them in the past. The conversation about Joe Biden and the reason why this is so important, I keep bringing it up, is because it is about the future of our democracy.

It is about the future of this nation. If we have someone who is the governor of a state, especially a state like New York, we're not talking about Mississippi or Alabama. We're talking about New York State. If we have someone like that as the leader of our state who does not believe in a woman's right to choose, which, obviously, we know will trickle into birth control, it'll trickle into undoing marriage equity.

We know these things. We're analysts. We can see it coming down the pike. He will make guns more accessible and then he will de-legitimize what American democracy means. We cannot have that type of ideology in a state like New York. We shouldn't have it in any of the 50 states. In a state like New York, I think he's so out of step with a vast majority of voters, both Democrat and independent and even a significant portion of Republicans.

Brian: I guess we're in for a campaign targeted to the themes of taxes, crime, and one-party rule. He also said he wants to restore fracking for natural gas in the state, which Cuomo bans statewide. That's a jobs pitch to certain upstate communities and maybe a nod to Republican climate change denial in certain parts of a voting population. He'll say, I imagine, that his position on abortion doesn't matter in New York State because he can't change much and neither does his position on Trump and will try to marginalize those issues while the Democrats try to center them, right?

Christina: Absolutely, but he absolutely does matter if he's the executive of the state. We've seen what Gavin Newsom is doing in the state of California. Kathy Hochul has promised to do the same thing. Having an executive actually is quite important. No, I don't think Kathy Hochul should focus solely on Donald Trump and solely on Washington, DC, but it is about the values of who we are as New Yorkers. If this is someone who has draconian policies towards immigration or draconian policies towards women or laissez-faire policies about guns, that is a very direct question that we should have as a state.

Also, obviously, when it comes to tax benefits and tax breaks in a growing recession/depression, I think it's really important to have that conversation. I also do think, Brian, that the fear-mongering of the Democrats have made the state incredibly unsafe will be a conversation that will gain quite a bit of traction because so many Democrats are feeling unsafe, because so many Democrats are feeling like there are too many guns and the city is off the rails.

The country just feels like it's off the rails right now. That will definitely be a conversation between the two candidates where Kathy Hochul will, at one point, need to recognize and acknowledge how so many people are feeling in the state of New York, but also make sure that she doesn't succumb to the fear-mongering, which is there's a gunman on every street that's coming to take your wife and your children.

Brian: Just to button up this point about Zeldin and abortion rights, the promise that we heard in that clip of him to appoint a health commissioner who opposes the abortion services aspect of health care for women, what power does the health commissioner actually have to restrict abortion without an act of the legislature? Do you happen to know?

Christina: No, I don't actually know the ins and outs of that, Brian. I do think what's important about having a governor who is pro-choice and believes in a woman's autonomy is that there are certain funding streams that can happen within the state to make it easier for a woman to have an abortion, whether it's a life-saving procedure or if it's a procedure just because of their own family planning.

We have to remember that for a lot of women, abortion is a form of health care and we have to respect the fact that that is the choice that some women want/need to make. The danger of having an executive of New York State who does not believe that it is a woman's choice to make that important decision is the real crux of the conversation.

Brian: Here's another clip from Hochul's speech last night, where she made sure to mention that topic.

Kathy: No matter what the Supreme Court thinks they can do, New Yorkers, you are protected, protected from concealed weapons, protected from concealed weapons in our subways, in our schools, and places like this. We're protected from politicians and judges trying to control women's bodies, resulting in government-mandated pregnancies. That's what they want to have. Abortion rights aren't going anywhere as long as I'm your governor.

Brian: Here's another Zeldin voter calling in. Frank in East Norwich, you're on WNYC. Hi, Frank.

Frank: Hey, good morning, Brian. Two days in a row. Wow, I'm a lucky gentleman. How are you today?

Brian: Doing all right. What you got for us today?

Frank: Well, I just want to congratulate Mr. Zeldin. We have, finally, a politician that's out there for the parents, parental choice. He was pro-parental choice during this entire ordeal with the "plandemic" and the mask nonsense. I'm so happy that we have someone that's going to fight for us. That's my real push. The parental party is backing him. Wake up, parents. These politicians are not our friends, but this guy might be. Let's hope so.

Brian: When you say "parental choice," are you also referring to schools and LGBT references or education in schools?

Frank: Parental choice, my body, my choice. The same narrative that we've been parroting for how long, right? If you wish to wear a mask, well, then God bless you. Wear one. If you wish to take an experimental gene therapy shot, which they're calling a COVID vaccine, well, then God bless you. Go ahead. Take one.

Brian: Oh boy.

Frank: It's true, Brian. Come on.

Brian: It's not true, but you're talking about it in the context of the pandemic, not in terms of sex or gender education, correct?

Frank: Not in sex and gender education. I don't understand what that means exactly, what you're trying to say. Normal biology, Y chromosome, X chromosomes, male, female. We don't need to get into that, nor should our children have to worry about gender identity at such a young age. It's ridiculous to introduce that to a non-sexualized being. Don't you think that's silly, Brian? Let's be honest.

Brian: Frank, thank you very much for your call. Christina, it actually reminds me of another thing that I guess I excluded from the list that Zeldin did not mention in his victory speech last night, and that was that aspect of parental choice that I was referring to in my exchange with the caller, which is, of course, one of the ways that Glenn Youngkin won the Republican governorship of Virginia, right? We see it going on in Florida, so-called "Don't Say Gay" law, and things like that. Zeldin did not go there last night.

Christina: No, not last night. First thing's first, Brian, you were just brilliant. I just loved that you're a public servant to the city of New York in so many ways. No, he did not go into that last night, but I think that there are a lot of ways that Republican candidates skirt the issue in a debate. When they're with their folks, they're very explicit. I think it will be incumbent upon Kathy Hochul to not parrot Republican talking points in having this conversation. Governor Youngkin was successful in Virginia because his Democratic opponent tried to go toe-to-toe using terms like "CRT" as opposed to saying, "We're teaching American history."

In Florida, there are so many Democrats who were falling into the rhetoric of Republicans without contextualizing why it is so necessary to have conversations and comprehensive sex education in middle school and high school, or having the democratic freedoms to have real discussions with children across the board, or actually just debunk the myth that there's indoctrinization of K-3 teachers who are "making children gay." That's just straight-up not happening. I think the Democrats have to be a lot more aggressive as to what's a talking point, what's a flat-out lie, and actually what needs to be debated and discussed.

Brian: All right. Game on. After the New York primary for governor and lieutenant governor, we'll see if it becomes a competitive race even in blue New York toward November. We thank Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham and co-host of the New York politics podcast, FAQ NYC. Christina, thanks as always.

Christina: Thank you, Brian, as always.

 

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