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With Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul enjoying a sizable lead in her primary on June 28, the Republican contest for governor appears to be more uncertain.
Enter the first GOP gubernatorial debate.
Tonight will be the first time all four Republican hopefuls will be together — albeit not on the same stage. Since Andrew Giuliani is not vaccinated for Covid-19, CBS isn’t allowing him in the studio due to the company’s vaccine-mandate policy.
So he might be on virtually.
Nonetheless, so long as the debate is a go at 7 p.m. tonight, it will be intriguing because the race has been without firm polling and there are a lot of dynamics — Rep. Lee Zeldin’s perceived lead and party support; businessman Harry Wilson’s personal campaign ad spending; former Westchester County executive’s Rob Astorino’s previous run for governor in 2014; and Giuliani’s famous name.
Here are four themes to watch for:
Taking the Trump mantle: Giuliani has embraced former President Donald Trump’s platform more than the other candidates, hoping to win support among the former president’s base even if a Trump endorsement is unlikely. Zeldin was a staunch Trump backer in Congress. How the candidates handle the Trump factor will be vital — both for the primary and the general election, when Democrats will link whoever wins in two weeks to Trump, who lost his native state badly twice.
Differentiating themselves: It’s easy for them to knock Hochul and Democrats. They all agree on that. But the GOP hopefuls haven’t done much with the general public to differentiate themselves. Wilson is the only pro-choice candidate among them, but he doesn’t highlight it much — focusing instead on the economy and crime. Will he try to be the moderate of the bunch and make the case he’s the most electable in November?
Attack mode: Wilson has taken some shots at Zeldin, and there are barbs here and there. But the candidates haven’t really attacked each other’s positions or records. How much will that change tonight? There’s plenty of fodder: Giuliani’s dad, Rudy; Zeldin’s tenure in Congress and the state Senate; Astorino’s recent election losses; Wilson’s inexperience in government.
Electability in November: We noted this could be Wilson’s best argument as a moderate in the mold of George Pataki, who is the last Republican to win statewide office in 2002. But Republicans haven’t picked a moderate since, going with conservative candidates John Faso over former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld in 2006 and Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino over former Rep. Rick Lazio in 2010. Astorino in 2014 was more moderate and so too was Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro in 2018, but they were both pro-life and hit with the conservative label by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and he cruised to re-election both times in a state with twice as many Democrats than Republicans.
IT’S MONDAY: We hope everyone had a nice weekend, and such great weather! Thanks for joining us for Playbook PM as we keep you up-to-date on the latest New York news from the campaign trail, in Albany and in City Hall. Summer is near, but the news is still heating up!
HOCHUL SIGNS ABORTION BILLS: “We don’t wait. We get to work.” That was the message today from Hochul as she signed a package of bills into law to strengthen abortion rights in New York — among the first to do so ahead of an expected U.S. Supreme Court decision that would toss Roe v. Wade.
The state’s first woman governor said the issue is personal and vowed New York would be a “safe haven” for people who want abortions, saying “The women of New York will be never be subjugated to government-mandate pregnancies.” Read more on what the package will do, from Anna Gronewold. — Joseph Spector
A BLUE-RIBBON PANEL: When faced with a vexing problem, what to do? Form a blue-ribbon panel, of course.
Mayor Eric Adams and Hochul said they appointed 56 leaders from across New York City’s business, labor, academic, nonprofit and philanthropic sectors to join the “New” New York blue-ribbon panel, which will examine the city’s future and its economy as it looks to rebound from Covid. The group will be headed by Robin Hood CEO Richard Buery and former Sidewalk Labs CEO Daniel Doctoroff, a top aide to former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
“The 56-member panel will develop actionable strategies for the recovery and resilience of the city’s commercial districts, challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, and longstanding and systemic challenges facing New York City and the region,” the mayor and governor said in a release.
ADAMS ON GUNS: Adams, who promised as a candidate to reverse the rise in crime across the city, applauded the beginning of progress on gun reform in Washington, D.C. following a spate of mass shootings.
“I take my hat off to Senator Schumer and 10 Democrats and Republicans,” Adams, whose own poll numbers have faltered as crime persists, said on Good Day NY this morning.
“There are many rivers that feed the sea of violence, particularly gun violence in our city and our nation and this is just damming one river. We have so many more rivers to dam and if we don’t, we’re going to see the continuation of this violence,” he said. Adams also continued to blame changes to bail laws, enacted in Albany several years ago, for a rise in shootings, telling the show’s hosts: “Too many guns on our streets, too many dangerous people returning to our streets after shooting guns and just the willingness to shoot without fear of reprisal or repercussion from the criminal justice system.” — Sally Goldenberg
BUDGET FIGHT CONTINUES: Council Members Charles Barron and Kristin Richardson Jordan, along with education advocacy groups and Black Lives Matter of Greater New York co-founders Chivona Newsome and Hawk Newsome, took to the steps of City Hall hours before the City Council was set to vote on the city’s budget to protest cuts to the Department of Education and the Department of Homeless Services as well as blasting the amount of funding allocated for the Police Department.
“We say to the Council members, before you vote yes for this budget or before you vote for this budget, remember the people elected you to protect the people, not the Adams family,” Barron said. “With a $220 billion state budget, a $101 billion city budget and we still got poverty and crime going through the roof in our communities.”
“We cannot stand out here with advocates and protest things around this budget and then vote for a budget that does not meet the people’s demands,” Jordan said. “You have to ask yourself why is this process being rushed? Why so quickly? We have time.”
Education advocacy groups like Alliance for Quality Education, Parents Supporting Parents New York and NYC Coalition for Educational Justice blasted the $215 million in cuts to school budgets that will go into effect next school year. “This budget is anti-poverty,” Hawk Newsome said. “It is anti-education. It is anti-Black. It is anti-brown. So how is it that you have Black leadership for the first time in New York City and they come up with a Republican conservative budget?” — Madina Touré
HEALTH CARE: NYC Care, a program that aims to connect indigent and uninsured people to primary care before their health declines and requires an emergency room visit, saw enrollment decline to 110,377 people, from 114,496 total enrollees, according to a presentation for NYC Health + Hospitals’ board members this afternoon.
“We are able to track some of it, if it happens in our system or with our financial counselors,” Matthew Siegler, senior vice president for managed care at NYC Health + Hospitals, said when asked whether those patients are enrolling in health coverage. “I don’t think we have granular detail on every single person.” The program was a key initiative launched by former Mayor Bill de Blasio ahead of his ill-fated 2020 presidential run. — Amanda Eisenberg
EDUCATION: The Citizens Budget Commission is urging Hochul to veto legislation that mandates class size limits in New York City public schools. A companion bill to legislation that extends mayoral control of city schools for two years mandates class size limits anywhere from 20 to 25 students, depending on the grade. The mandate will be phased in over a five-year period.
“Linked to the approval to continue Mayoral control of New York City’s schools, this bill would mandate significant new spending, require one specific strategy rather than an accountability system that focuses on outcomes, treat New York City differently than the state’s other districts, and be unlikely to deliver the desired improvement in learning outcomes,” Andrew Rein, CBC’s president, wrote in a letter to Hochul today.
The city has said the cost estimate for class size reduction for kindergarten through fifth grade is roughly $500 million and has pointed to capital costs to build more schools and classroom seats. — Madina
LOBBYING: Hey look, it’s JCOPE! The moribund ethics commission, nearing the end of its existence, fined top Albany lobbying firm Bolton-St. Johns for violating the Lobbying Act by not filing hundreds of lobbyist statements of registration bi-monthly reports in recent years.
Bolton, the politically connected firm, agreed to pay $97,417 to settle the violations. JCOPE’s rocky tenure — to say the least — is set to end this summer. — Joseph Spector
— A new list of most dangerous cities for pedestrians includes both Albany and Schenectady.
— A Syracuse landlord accused of exposing kids to lead poisoning has been banned from owning or managing residential properties in New York state after a lawsuit from AG Tish James.
— State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli announced the New York State Common Retirement Fund is committing another $350 million to two investment funds.
— The town of Fishkill unveiled a statue of Daniel Nimham, a Native American warrior who was killed while fighting the British during the American Revolution.
— A self-serve “beer wall” is coming to Central New York.
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