Gov. Hochul discussing COVID-19 (photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)

The state is soliciting bids for outside consultants to conduct a long-awaited review of New York's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday.

The governor is seeking a consulting firm that was not involved in the state's response to do a comprehensive assessment of the steps New York took to curtail the virus and develop an action plan to correct response systems for future emergencies. The announcement came two weeks after Gotham Gazette reported the governor's office had not yet issued a request for contract proposals for the study that she and spokespeople had previously indicated was already "underway." That revelation set off a new round of scrutiny of Hochul’s promise to conduct a thorough independent review and a firestorm of criticism from editorial boards, political opponents, and others.

"It's not mandated by law but it is something I feel is important because New Yorkers deserve the best from their government," Hochul said at a press briefing Wednesday as she announced a request for proposals and key details of the review plan. "They need to identify what worked and what did not work and why."

Hochul said the investigation, dubbed an "After-Action Review," would be the first of its kind in the country regarding COVID-19 and could serve as "a guide for future leaders in the state of New York, but also for other states."

"This is going to be an important resource for us," she said, calling it a "blueprint" for future emergencies. "It's not going to be done overnight. It's going to take a fair amount of time but we're going to get it right."

The review is expected to begin in November and last for roughly a year, and will be overseen by New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Jackie Bray. Previously involved in several aspects of New York City’s pandemic response under Mayor Bill de Blasio, Bray was appointed to her current position after Hochul took over as governor last year.

Hochul has been facing intensified questions and criticism since Gotham Gazette reported on July 6 that her office only had a vague timeline of "later this summer" for launching the search for outside firms through an RFP. That came after a spokesperson in April told Gotham Gazette the review was already "underway" and Hochul herself told reporters in May, "actually, we have outside consultants who are going to be working with us."

"We had thought it would start when the pandemic was completely in the rearview mirror but that's not going to happen any time soon so now is the right time to go forth with those preparations," Hochul said at the briefing Wednesday, which in part focused on the current covid surge.

Hochul's timing has been called into question by critics who have accused her of dragging her feet on the review, which could place her in the crosshairs as a high-ranking member of the Cuomo administration as lieutenant governor and leader of the state through the Omicron and BA.5 waves as governor. While Hochul was not a part of Cuomo’s inner circle and clearly kept at arm’s length by the disgraced former governor (he did not mention her once in his much-criticized covid memoir), whose handling of the pandemic has been the subject of several scandals and investigations, she did have a role coordinating the state response in Western New York, where she is from.

Under the timeline outlined by the governor's office, the after-action will not begin until around the general election this fall when Hochul is hoping to be elected to her first term as governor.

"Instead of swift answers, she’s dragging her feet just long enough so that the initial findings don’t come out until after the November election," wrote her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, in a statement Wednesday.

Hochul made the announcement Wednesday as part of a presentation on the state's "Fall Action Plan" for fighting covid, which includes public health policies that will ostensibly unfold before the state review begins in November.

The 85-page request for proposals (RFP), the document used to solicit government contractors, outlines some of the scope of the proposed study. In addition to investigating the response, the consulting firm or firms will be asked to produce a report with best practices and recommendations for handling similar catastrophes or future coronavirus waves.

The review will examine how hospitals were managed and what medical procedures were suspended when facilities faced an onslaught of positive cases and the entire healthcare system was under strain. It will also look into policies around the transfer of individuals into congregate settings, "including homeless shelters, group homes, nursing homes, jails and prisons," language that touches on several areas of controversy, most prominently the Cuomo administration nursing home policy that became the source of an attempted cover-up by the former governor. (The list does not explicitly mention state psychiatric facilities, which also received covid-positive patients from hospitals at the height of the pandemic and whose per capita death rate dwarfed rates in all but nursing homes.)

Government watchdogs and public health experts have been calling for a review of the state's response for months as a basic civic duty following mass death and illness, socio-economic catastrophe, and two years of emergency actions that have upended life for millions of New Yorkers. Those calls have been complimented by a separate but aligned push for accountability from the families of nursing homes residents and a bipartisan group of state legislators.

"After months of asking for an independent investigation into the State’s handling of the nursing home crisis, I’m encouraged to see the Governor taking the first step towards getting closer to the truth for our grieving families," wrote Assembly Member Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat and outspoken critic of the state's handling of nursing homes, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. Kim, who sponsors a bill with Republican Senator James Tedisco to create a nursing home review commission, said he hopes the state's after-action reveals the total impact of a March 2020 state Department of Health order to return covid-positive hospital patients to nursing homes. He hopes it will also answer questions about the intent of policies to limit the legal liability of home operators and cover-up the true number of nursing home deaths.

According to Hochul and the RFP, the review is also to explore many of the pandemic's secondary, but no less devastating, effects: the shutdown of schools and its impact on students, the designation of essential businesses, and what protections existed for essential workers. It is intended to analyze the procurement of essential goods and services, something that has been going on with limited oversight due to over two years of successive emergency declarations signed by Cuomo and Hochul.

The RFP instructs consultants to assess how data has been shared with local governments and the public and how the state should manage and implement emergency procedures in the future. It may also look at "The effectiveness of policies and programs in reducing disparities in health outcomes for communities of color," one of the pandemic's most visceral consequences.

The governor's office is expected to pick a firm to conduct the review in mid-to-late September and for the contract to start early-to-mid November. The after-action team would deliver initial findings within six months and complete its study after a year, Hochul said.

As of Wednesday, at least 69,000 people have died from COVID-19 statewide, including roughly 41,000 in New York City.

Governor Kathy Hochul (photo: governor's office)

Governor Kathy Hochul has raised more than $38.8 million for her campaign -- the vast majority of it in the 11 months since she became governor -- and spent a whopping $26 million to win the June 28 Democratic primary, according to the latest campaign finance filings with the State Board of Elections.

Hochul, New York’s first female governor, handily won the primary with 66.5% of the vote against her opponents, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who received 19% of the vote, and Rep. Tom Suozzi of Long Island, who got 12.8%. Hochul received 575,159 votes, spending about $45 for every vote. She is running for her first full-term after succeeding former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid scandal in August 2021.

Hochul’s spending vastly eclipsed both Williams and Suozzi.

Williams’ campaign only raised about $542,000 by June 28 and spent about $474,000, which is about $2.80 per vote.

Suozzi raised about $7.8 million and transferred about $2.5 million from his congressional campaign account. He spent more than $9.9 million through primary day, for about $89 per vote, according to the latest filings that covered fundraising and spending through July 11.

The filings were due July 15.

Heading into the fall general election, Hochul and her running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, are facing Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island and lieutenant governor nominee Alison Esposito. Zeldin emerged victorious from a contentious four-way primary.

Hochul and Delgado have a major fundraising advantage. Hochul has about $11.2 million in cash on hand and Delgado has about $1 million, per those latest filings, while Zeldin has $1.6 million and Esposito just over $2,000. For the primary, Zeldin was able to raise $12.4 million, and spent $10.5 million, per his filing.

“With the campaign ramping up for the general election, Governor Hochul’s strong war chest demonstrates her widespread support and ability to build a winning coalition,” said Jen Goodman, a Hochul campaign spokesperson, in a statement. “The campaign will continue to use its resources to show voters how Lee Zeldin’s dangerous, far-right agenda would put families and communities at risk, dragging our state backward.”

Most of Hochul’s expenditure has been on television and online ads. She spent more than $15.5 million to blanket the airwaves ahead of primary day, almost entirely through one firm, Washington D.C.-based GMMB. But her fundraising has also kept pace. She raised $2 million between June 14 and July 11, according to her campaign.

Hochul’s campaign is shaping up to be one of the most expensive ones in state history. For comparison, Cuomo spent about $43 million over a four-year cycle for his reelection in 2018. According to a New York Times report, Hochul aims to raise between $50 and $70 million in total by the November general election.

Hochul has faced criticism from her opponents for raising many millions of dollars from wealthy donors and special interests including the real estate, cryptocurrency, and gaming industries, among others who have or hope to have business before the state.

Ravi Mangla, a spokesperson for the Working Families Party – which endorsed Williams and his lieutenant governor running-mate Ana Maria Archila in the primary – decried the massive spending disparity but noted that progressive candidates performed well despite it. “We're never going to have Hochul's money, her $30 million against our roughly one million,” he told Gotham Gazette on election night. “But if you do a dollars-per-vote, both Jumaane and Archila's races are going to have the best return on investment. And in that terms we're just up against big money in these races.”

This year’s election cycle is the last under the current campaign finance system, as the state implements a new program including lower individual contribution limits and public matching funds for low-dollar contributions, somewhat similar to the system that is currently in place in New York City.

Note: the headline for this story initially accidentally inaccurately said Hochul spent $28 million in the primary, and it has been corrected to match what the text of the piece said all along: that her campaign spent $26 million in the primary.

Construction workers (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)

UPDATE, 8/1/22: After this article was published, the Department of Labor website was updated with a Construction Worker Fatality Registry, which reports three deaths since February 2022 in Nyack, Newburgh, and Jamestown. One union and one non-union worker fell to their deaths and another non-union worker was struck and killed by an object, according to the registry. None of the fatalities on New York City job sites have been reported. The website notes the database contains "the most up-to-date information reported to the Department of Labor by county coroners, medical examiners, and other authorized officials as mandated by law. This database is updated as reports are submitted to the Department of Labor."

New York State has failed to launch a registry of construction site fatalities after lawmakers passed and the governor signed legislation last year to require the reporting on one of the most dangerous industries in the state.

Between 40 and 70 people are killed in New York each year working on construction sites, where the risk of falling from a great height or being crushed by heavy machinery is high. Four out of five deaths are on non-union worksites and one in five workers killed are Latino, despite Latinos accounting for only one in ten construction workers statewide. In the first year of the pandemic, the per capita on-the-job death rate of workers increased even as the number of construction projects dropped.

A state law passed in early 2021 required contractors, coroners, and medical examiners to report construction site fatalities to the state Department of Labor and for the agency to publish that information in a public database. Advocates for workers said the registry would shed light on a dark corner of the construction industry and help expose employers with chronic safety issues.

The law required the state to launch the registry a year after its February 2021 signing by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, and for it to record deaths occurring since it was signed into law.

According to a tracker of construction worker deaths compiled by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), an advocacy group for workplace safety, at least 11 people have died on worksites in New York City alone since the registry law was signed.

This February, the Department of Labor launched a website apparently to house the registry but never uploaded the database. No deaths have been reported despite at least two workers – Alexander Gabatashvili on Staten Island and Holger Molino Pinos in Queens – dying in New York City since the website went up.

A Department of Labor spokesperson said the reason it has not reported any deaths is because no deaths have been reported to the agency. "Since the passage of the bill requiring the establishment of a construction fatality registry, no fatalities have been reported to the New York State Department of Labor," the spokesperson wrote in an email following a Gotham Gazette inquiry.

In that period, another government agency, the New York City Department of Buildings, reported in its public 2021 Construction Safety Report the deaths of eight workers killed on job sites in 2021.

The Department of Labor website was recently updated to add information for contractors, medical examiners, and other mandated reporters about when and how to file a report. But in a July 8 letter to DOL Commissioner Roberta Reardon that was shared with Gotham Gazette, State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Queens Democrat who introduced the legislation to create the registry, expressed concern that DOL was not conducting adequate training or outreach to inform them of their new responsibilities.

"Having this information available is critical to ensure that contractors who repeatedly engage in substandard safety practices are tracked and monitored in the official public record," wrote Ramos, who chairs her chamber’s labor committee and represents a heavily Latino district home to many construction workers.

"Efforts are underway to better educate contractors, medical examiners, and coroners about their responsibilities when a construction fatality occurs," wrote the Department of Labor spokesperson, declining to provide an attributable name. "We have been sharing widely our webpage that details when, how, and what to report in the event of a worker death." When asked where the agency had advertised the website, the spokesperson wrote, "Outreach to mandated reporters is ongoing," but provided no specifics.

Ramos' letter criticized the delay and questioned what the agency was doing to fulfill its mandate.

"This registry is to be maintained by DOL, and the updated information should be accurately published and accessible as of its effective date,” Ramos wrote. “However, the Workplace Fatalities Registry has yet to reflect an accurate list of fatalities that have occurred and is currently nonexistent on the DOL website.”

"This also leads me to assume no fines have been levied against contractors who have failed to report fatalities," the letter reads.

Under the law, contractors can incur a fine of $1,000 to $2,500 for failing to report a worksite fatality. When asked by Gotham Gazette whether any contractors had been penalized under the law, the DOL spokesperson wrote, "The DOL is in the process of exercising our authority under state law to potentially fine mandated reporters who fail to submit this data."

According to Ramos' office, DOL has not responded to the senator's letter.

"There is no doubt that the DOL is not in compliance with the law to report on these fatalities in a searchable database," wrote NYCOSH executive director Charlene Obernauer, in an email to Gotham Gazette. "For watchdog organizations like NYCOSH, it makes it more difficult for us to advocate when we don’t have accurate information about fatalities that occur."

This year, state legislators passed Carlos' Law, which would expand the criminal liability of employers for endangering workers when someone is injured or killed on the job. The act is named for Carlos Moncayo, a 22-year-old non-union worker who was crushed to death when the walls of a trench collapsed on a construction site in Manhattan's Meatpacking District in 2015. The incident occurred seven years to the day before Molina Pinos was killed falling down a shaft on a site in Ridgewood, Queens.

A spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hochul said she is reviewing the bill; it is among hundreds awaiting her signature or veto.

Obernauer said the fatality registry could help advocates and lawyers track unscrupulous contractors across multiple unsafe job sites in order to hold them to account under Carlos' Law. "Advocates might be able to do research on employers that have multiple fatalities on different job sites or make overall analyses about safety on job sites if given access to this information," she wrote.

"In short, without data, it’s difficult to make smart policy decisions because we just don’t know what’s going on."

Update: Governor Hochul signed Carlos' Law on December 23, 2022.

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (photo: Lee Zeldin flickr)

U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor, was denied the additional general election ballot line for the Independence Party on Thursday after election administrators found his campaign had submitted over 12,000 invalid ballot petition signatures. The petition was reviewed after Libertarian Party officials filed an objection, claiming they found over 11,000 signatures that had been duplicated by photocopy on the document submitted to the state Board of Elections.

Republicans had filed an independent nominating petition for the Independence Party ballot line on behalf of Zeldin and his running mate, Lieutenant Governor nominee Alison Esposito, as well as Republican nominees for comptroller, attorney general, and U.S. Senate. Under New York’s fusion voting system, candidates can appear on multiple party lines. If the Republican petition had been successful, the Independence Party would have been back on the ballot after it had lost its line in 2020 when the state adopted stricter ballot access standards. But the state BOE voted Tuesday to invalidate the entire Republican slate's ballot petition.

The BOE determined that 12,868 of the petition's 52,096 signatures were invalid, thus falling short of the 45,000-signature threshold needed to get a third party on the ballot. Typically, campaigns submit more signatures than they need with the expectation that their opponents will challenge the validity of some of them.

In this case, the challenge was brought by Andrew Kolstee, secretary of the Libertarian Party, which also lost its regular ballot line in 2020, with the assistance of Diane Sare, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate. The party alleges over 11,000 of the rejected signatures had been photocopies of signatures the Zeldin campaign had already submitted.

"The Zeldin campaign’s attempt to defraud the electorate and pose as an independent campaign by filing thousands of photocopied signatures is a slap in the face to New York State voters and the election process,” Kolstee said in a statement in a Libertarian Party's email sent to members and press.

"I actually started out by running them through a program looking for duplicate copies and came across several of them," Kolstee told Gotham Gazette in a phone interview on Thursday. "That's when we discovered it and then we just started counting them up and came to find out there were over 900 sheets, over 11,000 [signatures]."

A spokesperson for Zeldin said the campaign had not reviewed the objections but denied photocopying signatures.

"Being nearly an entirely grassroots effort, we haven't reviewed all of the petitions nor the specific objections associated with them," wrote Katie Vincentz, the campaign spokesperson, in an email. "In the final few days leading up to the filing deadline, tens of thousands of signatures from all over the state had to be immediately turned into the Board of Elections. While the Zeldin for New York campaign is not aware of photocopies, we certainly didn't make any photo copies."

A spokesperson for the State Board of Elections confirmed that the petition had been invalidated but would not comment on the reason for rejecting the signatures.

"My reaction to it was, 'wow,'" said Sarah Steiner, a veteran election lawyer, who was not involved in the case.

"Unless somebody accidentally mixed in pages that they had photocopied and then paginated them, in which case they would still be invalid, that's a massive attempt at fraud," she told Gotham Gazette of the allegedly duplicated signatures.

Having thousands of signatures thrown out isn't uncommon, Steiner said: "It doesn't surprise me that a petition that has 52,000 signatures doesn't have 45,000 valid signatures because even the best petitions are probably 80 percent valid, usually. So it's a very thin margin."

It would take hours to go through each page of the petition to identify duplicates – something State BOE administrators apparently did – in order to corroborate Kolstee's allegations of fraud. But the manner in which the duplicates appear on the petition may be telling of the motives behind them, Steiner suggested. According to Kolstee, the photocopies are scattered throughout the petition in chunks of various sizes, not grouped together in one place.

"That sounds like a deliberate attempt to pad the petition," Steiner said. "Whereas you can kind of see how a bunch of copies could be picked up and bound inadvertently, if they were all together."

Zeldin and Esposito will still appear on the Conservative Party line in the general election, where they face the Democratic ticket, Governor Kathy Hochul and Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who are running on the additional Working Families Party line.

New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs pointed out Thursday that Zeldin was among the Republicans who falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulently decided and voted against certifying President Joe Biden's victory. "Let's not forget: Lee Zeldin was one of the many far-right Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election under the guise of election fraud — a dangerous conspiracy theory peddled by Donald Trump and his pawns in Congress," Jacobs said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "Now, Zeldin submitting 11,000 fake signatures just emphasizes his hypocrisy and proves he is willing to sell New Yorkers another 'Big Lie' to benefit his failing campaign."

In 2020, as part of a move backed by then Governor Andrew Cuomo, state lawmakers significantly raised the threshold for parties to keep their ballot lines. The move was widely criticized by minor parties that now had to receive a far greater number of cast votes and achieve that feat more often – every two years (in presidential and gubernatorial elections) as opposed to every four – in order to stay on the ballot in the next election cycle. Lawmakers also raised the number of signatures needed for statewide candidates to get on the ballot from 15,000 to 45,000.

That year, only the Working Families Party (which cross-endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the general election) and the Conservative Party (which cross-endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump) received enough votes to keep their line. The Independence, Libertarian, Green, and Save America Movement parties all lost theirs.

The Green and Libertarian parties also failed to secure the requisite number of signatures to get candidates on the ballot this fall, as did candidates for several other minor parties.

Assemblymember Dick Gottfried (photo: @cannaparade)

After 52 years as a member of the New York State Assembly, Richard “Dick” Gottfried is retiring. His half-century career makes him the longest-serving Assembly member in New York State history, a journey that began in 1970. A Democrat representing the 75th Assembly District, which includes parts of Manhattan’s West Side, Gottfried will also be leaving his post as chair of the Assembly Health Committee, which he has held for a mere 35 years, since 1987.

Gottfried announced his retirement in December, allowing for an open, competitive Democratic primary to replace him, the winner (the Gottfried-endorsed Tony Simone) all but assured to take the seat given the district’s overwhelming Democratic tilt.

It also allowed Gottfried a swan song in Albany, where he had another set of bills passed this year, though not his white whale: the New York Health Act, which would institute a state-run, single-payer, universal health care system in New York.

Along with public health and health care, Gottfried has prioritized human and civil rights, criminal justice reform, rights of the elderly, education, and issues of particular importance to his district. He’s sponsored more than 500 laws, according to his office.

“Just about every year at the end of session I feel great that we accomplished some important things, and that makes me want to come back. And at the same time, I’m always disappointed at things we didn’t get done, and that makes me want to come back. So, in many ways, this end of session was like many others,” Gottfried said, reflecting on his career and imminent retirement in a recent conversation with Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max on the Max Politics podcast. 

Gottfried’s journey into the New York State Assembly began as a teenager in 1960, he said, when he was inspired by John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

The Democratic party of Gottfried’s early career was not as influential in New York as it is today. As a result, Gottfried noted that many of his Democratic colleagues didn’t have long-term plans to stay in the Assembly. “When I arrived, it seemed like an awful lot of my colleagues were there either because it was the best job they could get or because they were biding their time until it was their turn to get elected to be a judge,” Gottfried said.

When he joined the Assembly, Democrats were actually in the minority, but the balance of power soon shifted in 1974 following the Watergate scandal. Following this shift, Gottfried saw considerable change in the passion of his fellow Democratic officials. “Over the years, more and more of the Legislature is people who are there full-time - who do not have another occupation. That’s really the majority, certainly on the Democratic side,” he said. Gottfried also pointed to the increase in diversity and progressivism within the Democratic Party as a significant change that has been “very much for the better,” though he said his own politics haven’t changed very much given how progressive he was when he was first elected. 

While the Assembly never returned to Republican hands, for much of Gottfried’s tenure the State Senate or the governor’s office (or both) was in GOP hands, meaning a lot of compromise between the two parties. For roughly the last 15 years of his tenure, Democrats had the governorship, and therefore significant leverage to pass many priorities, especially in the last four years where the party controlled both houses of the Legislature as well.

“Fortunately Republicans in New York State are a lot more moderate than Republicans perhaps in any other state. Certainly a lot more moderate than Republicans nationally and a lot of states today,” Gottfried said, reflecting on getting bills passed even under Republican governors and State Senate leadership. “Even when we had a Republican majority in the State Senate, I and other Assembly members were always able to get things done.” 

Gottfried addressed several issues that he worked on early in his tenure and remain relevant today, referencing his early advocacy for marriage equality and the decriminalization of marijuana in New York. He also focused on health equity, including for LGBTQ New Yorkers.

In 1974, he negotiated with the Senate to classify possession of marijuana as a misdemeanor, a more moderate approach than Gottfried sought, but progress nonetheless, he said. It wouldn’t be for another four decades until marijuana was legalized for recreational use in 2021. The changes on the issue -- with the legalization of medical marijuana in between (in 2014) -- are emblematic of the long arc of Gottfried’s career and how movement on some issues takes time.

Gottfried noted that such sacrifices to policy purity are part of the job and knowing how to “work the system.” He discussed his sponsorship of the Child Health Plus Program, which today ensures child health care coverage up to age 19. When the bill was first introduced, Gottfried started small, calling for coverage up to the age of 12 with limited services. 

The budget-conscious legislation was moderate enough to pass the Republican Senate, eventually expanding repeatedly. “You grab whatever you can at a given moment. And I don’t like to consider it a compromise. I consider it; half a loaf is better than none. You come back a year later and fight for more,” Gottfried said.

Gottfried began his foray into public health in the 1980s, taking over as Assembly Health Committee chair and pushing through legislation for the creation of the Prenatal Care Assistance Program (PCAP), which increased Medicaid support for mothers. 

As a representative of Manhattan’s Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and surrounding areas in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Gottfried saw up close how devastating the HIV/AIDS epidemic was locally, especially for the substantial LGBTQ community in his district and nearby. During the epidemic he advocated for confidential HIV testing and treatment, which went on to become law in many other states as well. Representing Chelsea amid that public health crisis was part of why Gottfried said he sought to become the Health Committee chair, a position he has held from 1987 through this year and that has come to define his public service career in many ways.

“It was a big change in my career. It totally changed the set of issues that I work on. It’s about the best thing I’ve ever done in my career,” Gottfried told Max on the podcast.

Gottfried’s role as health committee chair concludes amid another major infectious disease crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. In reflecting on his work and that of his colleagues, he said: “The State could have done more to get state funding for masks and other personal protective equipment out. We certainly could have done more to support safety net hospitals that serve low-income communities that were the hardest hit by the pandemic. The state should have done a lot more both before the pandemic and during the pandemic to provide adequate funding for those hospitals.”

Another major issue during the pandemic that Gottfried reflected on was the lack of transparency over covid-related nursing home deaths, many of which went uncounted by the administration of then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, at least initially. For “several years” data was only shared on residents who died of covid inside nursing facilities, Gottfried noted, “But if they were taken to the hospital and died at the hospital, the Health Department didn’t tell us that that was a nursing home death. It’d be like if you were hit by a car and taken to the hospital and died there, and they didn’t count it as a traffic death.”

One of the defining bills of Gottfried’s career and time as chair of the health committee is the New York Health Act (NYHA), which would institute single-payer health care in New York, creating universal health care coverage under one government-run system and eliminating private insurance. Gottfried first introduced the bill as lead sponsor 30 years ago, in 1992, and has advocated for its passage since while tweaking it along the way. He never got it passed, though, including during the Democratic takeover of state government over the last four years.

“Just about every problem we face in health and health care – whether that's as a patient or employers, taxpayers, doctors, hospitals – is made worse and harder to solve because of the way we pay for healthcare in this country,” Gottfried said on the podcast, discussing his push for the bill and disappointment in not seeing it passed.

Gottfried criticized the current healthcare system in the United States as “pretty crummy,” pointing to costly deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-network charges as causes for poor outcomes and health care debt. Gottfried said a single-payer system would work towards mitigating inequality in the healthcare system.

A major point of concern over the bill is the cost, and raising taxes on many New Yorkers in order to pay for the new health care system, though it would eliminate many health care costs. Gottfried referenced a RAND Corporation study from 2018 that found that only the top 5% of income earners in New York wouldn’t save money from the passage and implementation of the New York Health Act.

“95% of New York households would spend less than they now do on health coverage and health care under a single-payer system,” said Gottfried.

But the bill, which would create immense change in the New York economy, has not been passed despite a majority of sponsors in the Assembly (where it passed multiple times before Democrats took the Senate) and nearly a majority in the Senate.

Gottfried cited recent opposition from public employee unions who like their plum health coverage as a key part of why Democratic officials have yet to pass the bill. Gottfried said many union leaders have developed track-records of bettering union health packages, helping them get re-elected. Public employee health coverage is superior “by American standards,” Gottfried noted, though not perfect, requiring trade-offs of wages for benefits.

“The struggle will continue,” Gottfried said of trying to pass the health act. He said he is willing to work with whoever takes over as lead sponsor of the New York Health Act in the Assembly.

One broader takeaway Gottfried shared in reflecting on his career was the need for civic engagement in local politics. “The fact is that most of the law that affects our daily lives – and a large part of the public spending that affects our daily lives – comes not from City Hall or Washington, but from Albany,” he said.

“New Yorkers need to keep a close eye on your legislators,” Gottfried continued. “Watch what they’re doing. Support them when they’re doing the right things, let them know when they’re not. It’s really a central part of our public life.”

[LISTEN to the full conversation: Max Politics Podcast: Dick Gottfried on 52 Years in the State Assembly]

Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris (photo: NYS Senate Photography)

July 12, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris on the Court of Appeals, Gun Control, & More

State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, joined the show to discuss upheaval at the New York Court of Appeals, redistricting, bail reform, gun control, the upcoming State Senate elections, and more.

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.

Diane Savino with Eric Adams (photo: @ericadamsfornyc)

In her ninth term serving as the New York State Senator for the 23rd district, spanning parts of Staten Island and southern Brooklyn, Diane Savino decided to not seek reelection this year. Savino, a moderate Democrat from Staten Island, is leaving the Senate after 18 years and passing 144 bills, which have heavily focused on labor issues. That focus made sense given Savino was elected to the Senate after having been a political operative for a large labor union.

Savino recently joined Gotham Gazette’s Max Politics podcast to reflect on her tenure and how Albany has and hasn’t changed over the past two decades, highlight policies she’s championed, and discuss both the controversial Independent Democratic Conference she was part of as well as the future of the Democratic Party.

Savino said she decided to not run again because it felt like the right time to move on and pursue another chapter in her public service career, a third act of sorts given she had worked in child welfare and labor before becoming an elected official.

“For a lot of people in this business, you have to know when it’s time to move on, when you’ve accomplished what you want to do and that it’s time for someone else,” Savino told Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max. “Too many people think that no one else can do this, that somehow or other the world will end if they're not there to serve in this district.”

Prior to running in 2004, Savino said that seeking elected office had never been on her mind. She began her career as a caseworker for New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services, and served as the vice president for Political Action & Legislative Affairs of Social Service Employees Union Local 371. It was not until State Senators David Paterson (later governor), Eric Schneiderman (later attorney general), and Liz Krueger recruited her that she considered launching a campaign.

“My initial reaction was ‘No, I'm not qualified,’ — I think that’s typical of most women,” Savino said. “And then I decided that I could be more effective in the Legislature for the issues I cared about.”

Pending signatures by Governor Kathy Hochul, Savino’s office estimates her law total will hit 150 by the end of this year. She said on the podcast that her office has memorabilia from her legislation that became law as well as many other aspects of her life as an elected official. But, she said, she took home just 11 commemorations of her laws; most notably, the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which is the first bill of rights for domestic workers in the country, she noted, and the legalization of medical marijuana in New York in 2014, which Savino said she had to fight then-Governor Andrew Cuomo on every step of the way to passage.

While reflecting on her record, Savino said protections for gig workers was one legislative push she was disappointed not to have gotten to the finish line. She said she wanted to find the right balance around providing both flexibility and protections for those who are not considered employees, like for-hire vehicle drivers.

“The world of work is changing, and the labor movement needs to change with it,” Savino said.

She later followed up with Gotham Gazette to note that she also wanted to highlight not getting to a deal on medical aid in dying as a disappointment of her tenure.

When asked how the Legislature has changed over her nearly two decades in office, Savino immediately responded with “tremendously” and called the State Senate a “completely different place,” citing how only six senators, including her (and Krueger), remain in the 63-seat chamber. Working with five governors, she said Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration has been far less antagonistic toward the Legislature.

Looking ahead to the upcoming 2022 elections, Savino said Democrats, who she called a “circular firing squad,” are in for some trouble. She said her party-mates should have agreed to revise the state’s bail laws to allow judges to determine whether a person is dangerous, a position she shares with Mayor Eric Adams, whom she endorsed in last year’s mayoral race and in whose administration she is expected to work when her Senate tenure is over. Savino said Republicans have been better at messaging about criminal justice reform by appealing to people’s very real fears about their safety.

“To the extent that we continue to ignore that, and the press can find examples every day of some person who's been arrested numerous times and has now committed a violent felony, it’s going to come back to haunt us,” she said. “We can balance our need to create a fairer criminal justice system and protect public safety, and until we're able to do that, this is going to hang over our head.”

Asked about the seemingly constant string of scandals in state government over recent years, Savino said she doesn't think structural changes are really the answer, but that it’s more important to get people with good intentions and high ethical standards to seek public service as a profession.

“Unfortunately, the criteria for running for office in the constitution for a state senator is you have to be 18 years old, a resident of the district for at least one year unless it's a reapportionment year, and you have to be a citizen,” Savino said. “It doesn't say that you have to be an honest person.”

In New York political circles, Savino is well-known as one of the founding members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of breakaway Democratic state senators who created a power-sharing agreement with Senate Republicans and helped them maintain a majority for a number of years last decade.

There were several specific scandals involving the group as well as the broader question about its members’ political allegiances and priorities. While it undercut Democratic efforts to win a Senate majority and therefore run all of state government, the IDC was in some ways particularly beneficial to its members and their districts, while it lasted.

Savino also argued on the podcast that the conference was important and well-meaning at the time, which was full of Democratic dysfunction and Republican power in the State Senate, and that the IDC was productive, including by pushing the Republicans to support certain Democratic priorities in state budget deals. “We did a lot of really good things,” she said, referencing marriage equality and raising the minimum wage, among other policies.

The group dissolved in 2018, rejoining the Democrats as the writing was on the wall that its members were set to see particularly charged up primary challenges.

“When Donald Trump got elected, people were looking for not just a way to punish him, but to punish anybody,” Savino said. “They were so angry with him and anybody that could be remotely associated with any Republicans, and so the voters turned on us.”

Six of the eight members of the IDC lost their primaries in 2018, and then Democrats flipped several other seats and took the majority, setting the stage for the passage of many Democratic priorities over the last four years.

During the podcast, Savino defended the creation of the IDC and its tactics, and blamed Cuomo for not staying loyal to its members and helping them in those 2018 primaries.

Asked what she would have done differently with the IDC if she could do it again, she said, “maybe if we could have found a way to resolve it sooner, it might have been better for all of us.”

“Do not underestimate what Andrew Cuomo did to us,” she said, saying that the then-governor distanced himself from the IDC after having had a strong working relationship with its members because engaging and endorsing its members in those 2018 primaries would hurt him in his own race that year. “Silly me, expecting loyalty in politics,” Savino said with a laugh.

Savino is the last-serving member of the IDC. Asked why that’s the case, she cited her standing in the labor movement and among her moderate constituents “who like bipartisanship,” her strong working relationship with her colleagues, and that she was not often the focus of negative press coverage, unlike IDC leader Jeff Klein. Savino credited Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for welcoming her into the Democratic fold beginning in the 2019 session when the party took the majority.

Although she did not divulge her future plans, Savino repeatedly said “my career in public service is not over.” 

[LISTEN to the full conversation: Max Politics Podcast: Diane Savino Says Farewell to the State Senate]

Jumaane Williams (photo: John McCarten/City Coucnil)

Last month’s primary election was a disappointing one for progressive Democrats in New York, as statewide and Assembly candidates lost to incumbents across the board with few consolation victories. It was a markedly different election than four years ago, when a progressive wave shifted the political landscape, contributed to a Democratic takeover of the State Senate, and helped deliver a long list of liberal policy priorities at the state level.

But even as progressives had an especially disappointing set of primaries, including in the primaries for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, they held onto several seats where their own incumbents were facing challenges from moderates and flipped one particularly notable upstate Assembly seat.

Governor Kathy Hochul and her running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, both moderate Democrats, handily won their respective primaries by unexpectedly wide margins and are headed into the general election on a joint ticket. The progressive standard bearers in the race, New York CIty Public Advocate Jumaane Williams running with activist Ana Maria Archila, both fell short. Each came second in their race, besting the centrist pair of Rep. Tom Suozzi and former New York City Council Member Diana Reyna.

But Williams received just 19% of the vote compared to Hochul’s 66.5%, while Suozzi got just 12.8%. Archila got 23.3% to Delgado’s 57%, while Reyna got 13.3%. Williams and Archila came up far below the progressives running in 2018: Cynthia Nixon got 34% against Governor Andrew Cuomo while Williams received 47% against Hochul in the lieutenant governor primary — though both of those were two-way races.

At the Assembly level, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other left-wing officials and activists worked together to support a slate of challengers against sitting Democrats and for open seats, as well as incumbent progressive Assemblymembers. While the incumbent progressives held on to their seats, most of the challengers failed.

Sarahana Shrestha, a democratic socialist, is the only challenger from that slate to win her race, defeating Assemblymember Kevin Cahill in the 103rd Assembly District. (Another race, in Brooklyn’s 54th Assembly District, where Samy Nemir Olivares challenged Assemblymember Erik Dilan, is still too close to call.)

Another Working Families Party-backed candidate (not endorsed by the DSA or AOC), MaryJane Shimsky, won in Westchester's 92nd District, beating Assemblymember Tom Abinanti in the Democratic primary.

In Queens’ 37th District, Juan Ardila, who was endorsed by the WFP and Ocasio-Cortez — but not the DSA, which typically endorses far fewer candidates than the WFP — emerged victorious in an open race to replace outgoing Assemblymember Cathy Nolan.

There were many factors at play this year that worked against progressive momentum. In the statewide races, Hochul and Delgado had the benefits of name recognition and far more campaign cash, raising and spending millions of dollars to get their message out across the airwaves to voters, while Williams and Archila’s resources were paltry in comparison. Hochul, able to fund-raise at a historic clip given the powers and leverage of the office, was also able to spend the months and weeks leading up to the primary celebrating aspects of the $220 billion state budget passed with the Legislature in April and signing bills negotiated in the post-budget legislative session, including major accomplishments on childcare, healthcare, housing, abortion care, gun control, and more.

It was also a vastly different political landscape than in 2018, the last statewide election. That year, the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a rogue faction of Democrats that helped keep Republicans in control of the State Senate, was on the ballot and a major motivator for left-wing organizing. And President Donald Trump was in power. Democrats across the nation were boiling over with resentment and in New York, that meant a surge in turnout and the election of several young progressives in the State Legislature, including the demise of most members of the IDC.

With Cuomo’s resignation last year, progressives lost a villain who, for them, embodied the worst of Albany’s dysfunction and a centrist who preferred a split Legislature.

Turnout dropped significantly from 2018, though it was still above 2014, even without State Senate races on the ballot — they are set for a second, court-ordered primary along with U.S. House of Representatives primaries in August. Hochul and legislators declined to pursue combining the primaries for later in the summer, assuming that the split primary and lower turnout would advantage incumbents.

The local political conversation has largely revolved around public safety and crime over the last two years given the rise in violent crime coinciding with the pandemic, another factor that has often appeared to cut into progressive momentum, including in last year’s mayoral race won by Eric Adams. National politics also seemed to subsume the election in the closing days. With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and a gun control law in New York State, there seemed to be little appetite among voters to depose sitting Democrats from office, particularly Hochul, who has led the way on both issues since taking over as governor.

Progressives were left fighting for attention, attempting to argue they would do even more on these issues with little room for such claims, and attempting to keep the focus on issues like housing and climate where the left-wing arguments against Hochul and other more moderate incumbents are stronger, and have been the focus of many of the progressives’ campaigns.

“Statewide, I was not surprised by the poor showing [for progressives]. Hochul ran a very effective political operation from the day she was sworn in to ensure the primary wasn’t going to ever really be an event,” said Neal Kwatra, founder of Metropolitan Public Strategies, in a text message. “On the Assembly, I thought the Sarahana and Shimsky wins over Cahill and Abinatti were quite notable and big wins for the climate movement in NY. But otherwise labor and the establishment beat back most of the challenges from the Left.”

New York leftists say they don’t see the outcomes as a loss. The NYC DSA, in a message to supporters, touted the victories of incumbent Assemblymembers Phara Souffrant Forrest, Emily Gallagher, Marcela Mitaynes, and Zohran Mamdani as proof “that their 2020 victories were not just flukes, but that championing democratic socialist legislation and committing to real organizing in their districts works.” And they noted that if Shrestha should win in November, they will add another legislator to their ranks. “This is a step forward for our movement. It means that socialism is here to stay, and it is growing across the State,” the organization said.

“In the face of tremendous real estate spending and right-wing fear mongering, voters chose to keep socialist legislators in office,” said Sumathy Kumar, co-chair of NYC-DSA, in a public statement. “NYC-DSA is proud to have spent the last few months knocking on thousands of doors and talking to thousands of working class New Yorkers about the possibilities our DSA For the Many slate opens up. It’s clear that New York’s working majority is tired of politics as usual, and the only path forward is to tax the rich for universal healthcare, a green new deal, and tenants rights for all.” 

Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist and senior advisor at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, praised Archila’s campaign in particular but said it didn’t break through to the larger Democratic electorate. “I think the problem that progressives have in statewide primaries is that they can't win just by appealing to progressives,” he said. “They have to build bridges to other constituencies.”

He noted that Democrats weren’t as engaged as they were in 2018. “Voters are not feeling that these incumbents are letting them down. In 2018 there was real anger towards the IDC, that anger does not exist…I think the progressives misperceived that there was this continuing anger towards Democratic incumbents,” Gyory said.

“I think the one who kind of took it on the chin, perception wise, was AOC, who made all those endorsements,” he said, referring to Ocasio-Cortez.

Notably, Ocasio-Cortez and a number of other progressive elected leaders from Rep. Nydia Velazquez to State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris endorsed Archila but not Williams, and there appeared to be limited momentum for the gubernatorial candidate. Still, Archila failed to come close to Williams’ 2018 showing in the lieutenant governor’s race. The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Williams in 2018 against Hochul (as well as Cuomo over Nixon), endorsed Hochul this year and did not endorse in the lieutenant governor contest.

On election night, at the Williams-Archila watch party, Working Families Party spokesperson Ravi Mangla wasn’t dismayed by the results coming in. “I think this year we saw low voter turnout and we saw large spends by real estate and large money interests against many of our progressive candidates,” he told Gotham Gazette. “We saw this as a battle of working people versus big money and in many of these cases big money won out. But at the same time, we think this is just the beginning. It's a long fight and we're hoping to build towards bigger wins down the road. I think we remain pretty optimistic about the outlook of New York and our ability to continue to make gains."

As Mangla and others have noted, Williams spent less than Suozzi and still outperformed him, while Hochul spent as much as $26 million, of which about $13 million went to ads alone — Williams spent less than $400,000 in sum. And Archila too spent less than Reyna and did better.

“We're never going to have Hochul's money, her $30 million against our roughly one million,” Mangla. “But if you do a dollars-per-vote, both Jumaane and Archila's races are going to have the best return on investment. And in that terms we're just up against big money in these races.”

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive Democrat and longtime Williams ally who endorsed Williams and Archila, echoed Mangla’s point at the watch party. “Look, they were out-spent,” he said of Williams and Archila. “I think if you combine the two of them, 60-to-1, and still inspired a ton of people to fight to not get kicked out of their homes, and demanding that Democrats really show up on a wide range of fights. So I feel proud of them and I think they inspired an awful lot of people and that's really important.”

He pointed out, as have Williams and others during this campaign, that those fundraising inequalities may soon become less apparent as the state moves to a new campaign finance system, which includes lower individual contribution limits and a public matching system somewhat similar to New York City’s.

On Wednesday night, the Working Families Party put something of a fitting bow on the primaries, announcing that it had filed to put Hochul and Delgado on its general election ballot line.

“Following last week’s Democratic Primary, Jumaane Williams and Ana María Archila declined their designations for the Working Families Party ballot line in the General Election,” said Sharon Cromwell, Deputy Director of the New York Working Families Party, in a statement. “Our State Committee voted to fill those vacancies with Kathy Hochul for Governor and Antonio Delgado for Lieutenant Governor. Our party has never played the role of spoiler and has no intentions of doing so this year. We’re committed to ensuring the Republican nominee Lee Zeldin—and all right-wing extremists dead set on stripping us of our freedoms—are soundly defeated on Election Day.”

*Ethan Geringer-Sameth contributed to this piece.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

Governor Kathy Hochul has yet to hire independent consultants, or even solicit contract bids, for a COVID-19 after-action review the administration said in April was already "underway.”

After having said in March that she told her team to do a full investigation of the state’s pandemic response, in May Hochul said the state would be working with independent consultants to conduct the investigation. Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, said no contracts or requests for proposals (RFP) – the first step in the public bidding process – had come to the comptroller’s office. "We are not aware of any contracts or RFP’s related to this," he wrote in a June 28 email to Gotham Gazette.

A spokesperson for Hochul confirmed no RFPs had been issued for the review, which according to the governor's public comments would examine "every aspect" of the state's response to the pandemic.

"We will be conferring with experts across various sectors to finalize the scope of the Request for Proposal for the pandemic response review, which will be publicly posted later this summer," wrote Hochul spokesperson Bryan Lesswing in response to a Gotham Gazette inquiry. He did not respond to follow-up questions about the estimated date for releasing the RFP.

"Governor Hochul is committed to doing everything in our power to keep New Yorkers safe," Lesswing wrote. "In March, Governor Hochul directed her team to boost New York State’s COVID-19 response preparedness for a potential uptick in the fall and to explore a pandemic response review to better inform the State’s response to future pandemics and related emergencies. ​Her team immediately began working with State agencies to learn lessons from the Omicron surge and determine the objectives for a meaningful and substantive review."

The latest comments further muddle previous statements made by Hochul or her representatives to Gotham Gazette and in public appearances, which indicated the review had begun with outside consultants.

On March 18, in response to inquiries for a story on whether New York should initiate a pandemic after-action process, a spokesperson for Hochul said the governor "is exploring all options to review our pandemic response and protect New Yorkers from future public health crises." On April 22, after the New York Times reported Hochul had in late March ordered her team to investigate “the good, the bad and the ugly” of the state's response to COVID-19, a different spokesperson for the governor told Gotham Gazette the review was "ongoing." When asked to clarify whether the probe had begun or if the administration was still looking into the possibility of initiating it, the spokesperson, Hazel Crampton-Hays replied: "underway."

A month later, on May 23, Hochul told reporters at an unrelated press conference that she had a different vision for the pandemic review. “Actually, we have outside consultants who are going to be working with us to examine every aspect of the pandemic,” she said at the time. “The good, the bad, the ugly. Because I have to be able to leave future governors what was learned. Not just in the healthcare space in response to nursing homes, but also decisions that affected our economy.”

It was the first time she indicated the process would involve outside investigators, but seven weeks later, no formal steps have been taken to hire such a consultant.

On the debate stage with other Democratic candidates for governor on June 7, Hochul asked for more time to put together an independent commission after being pressed by moderators about whether the families of nursing home victims of COVID-19 deserved compensation.

"Give us time to put together a blue ribbon commission of people who are independent, not the consultants who were advising the last administration," she said. "I want to make sure we find out exactly what happened in the nursing home. I gave them an apology and I said I will look at this even further to determine what else we can do to help them."

In response to requests to clarify the apparently conflicting remarks, an administration spokesperson said the previous statements had referred to the governor's initiation of planning for the review with top officials. Asked why it has taken at least three months from the time Hochul first reportedly mentioned it to top officials, the spokesperson insisted there was no delay in initiating the formal review process and that it has taken time to determine the parameters of the probe.

The administration has never shared details about the potential after-action examination’s areas of focus, methodology, or timeline, which are still being determined.

Public health experts and transparency advocates have been calling on the state to initiate a public investigation that would examine and report findings on the details of the state's handling of the pandemic, including many of the opaque decisions made by Governor Andrew Cuomo and other state officials behind closed doors and with limited public oversight. That could include anything from the March 2020 emergency order to shut down much of public life to policies around nursing home residents to the rollout of vaccines – many aspects of which have been strongly criticized.

Voter turnout back down (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Voter turnout in New York City and State declined dramatically – by nearly half – from the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to the one that closed on Tuesday. 

In the race for the party's nomination, Governor Kathy Hochul won – by a wide margin – with close to the same number of votes Cynthia Nixon received in 2018 when she lost the Democratic nomination to incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo by a wide margin. The turnout this month was closer to other Democratic gubernatorial primaries over the last twenty years, which have consistently been among the lowest in the nation, though it was significantly larger than the 2014 primary.

Within that low-turnout environment, Hochul trounced her opponents, winning in a three-way race with roughly the same vote share Cuomo won in 2018. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who ran a progressive campaign to her left, came in second and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, who ran in a similar centrist lane to Hochul's but to her right on crime and taxes, came in third.

With about 98% of districts reporting results (not including some absentee ballots), Hochul won with about 67% of the vote, compared with Williams' 19%, and Suozzi's 13%. In New York City, where Williams had the home field advantage over the Buffalo native and the Long Island congressman, the gap was slightly narrower: Hochul won 60% of the vote, with Williams pulling in 28%, and Suozzi 12%.

According to preliminary data, just 865,000 registered Democrats — or 13% of the roughly 6.5 million registered Democrats across the state as of the most recent Board of Elections data — voted for governor (a number will grow slightly as final ballots are counted and reported).

That's compared to 1,558,000 Democratic primary voters, or 25%, in 2018 and the 574,000 Democratic primary voters in 2014, an abysmal 10% of registered party members.

New York City saw a similar pattern with 446,000 Democratic voters (13% turnout) compared with 913,000 (27%) in 2018 and 298,000 (9%) in 2014. The crowded, competitive Democratic primary for mayor last year had 942,000 ballots counted, roughly 25% of registered Democrats.

Democratic enrollment has increased statewide since 2014, growing from 5.9 to 6.5 million registered voters. The New York City rolls have grown too, jumping about 220,000 between 2014 and 2018, and growing a smaller 90,000 since then. Enrollment and turnout trends leading up to and during the 2018 election appear to have had several causes including the response to Republican Donald Trump’s election as president, intensifying intra-party conflict involving then-Governor Cuomo, and enhanced local attention on the balance of power in the New York State Senate, which shifted to Democratic hands after that year’s elections.

Voting rights advocates hoped that syncing state and congressional primary dates, as state lawmakers did in 2019, would help boost turnout. But that couldn't be tested this year, after a state judge postponed congressional and State Senate primaries to August after ruling newly drawn district lines invalid. This was the first gubernatorial primary held in June, rather than September in years. Governor Hochul and lawmakers then decided not to pursue shifting the June statewide and Assembly primaries to August, in a move that appeared to help incumbents. 

The Democratic race for governor was in some ways a rematch of the 2018 lieutenant governor primary between an incumbent Hochul and Williams, but with the addition of Suozzi and a vastly altered political landscape stirring the electoral calculus.

In 2018, the Democratic primary for governor was a two-candidate field with Nixon running against a second-term Cuomo on a progressive platform challenging the entrenched political ethos he cultivated. Williams, then a City Council member, was offering a progressive alternative to then-Lieutenant Governor Hochul. While Cuomo received roughly 66% of the Democratic vote against Nixon, Hochul beat Williams with just 53%.

The Nixon-Cuomo primary was also the first major election since the 2016 presidential contest and was widely seen as a referendum on the Trump era, where progressive and more moderate Democrats, alike, were galvanized to vote. It also contained a series of heated State Senate primaries, in which progressive insurgents challenged (and mostly beat) the breakaway group of Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference, or IDC, – another unique draw to the polls.

The Lieutenant Governor's race was slightly closer, with Antonio Delgado, Hochul's chosen running-mate and a former congressman, receiving about 57% of the Democratic vote. Progressive activist Ana María Archila, Williams' running-mate, received 23% of the vote, and Suozzi's running-mate, former City Council Member Diana Reyna, got 13%. Again, in New York City, the margin between the Democrats was narrower, with Delgado's 56% compared to Archila's 30% (Reyna's share was virtually the same).

Archila in some ways ran a more spirited campaign than Williams' and cultivated some high-profile progressive endorsements that he did not, including Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and Nydia Velazquez, and State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, among many others. Both were far outspent by their incumbent rivals, Williams by many millions of dollars.

The Republican Primary
The Republican gubernatorial primary was a four-way race won by Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin with 44% of the vote. Andrew Giuliani, a former White House aide to President Trump and son of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, garnered 23% of the Republican vote, according to preliminary data. Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the 2014 nominee for governor, and businessman Harry Wilson received 18% and 15%, respectively.

Republican primary turnout from 2010, the last time New York had a GOP gubernatorial race, between Rick Lazio and Carl Paladino, declined slightly overall and even increased in New York City. Statewide turnout was 447,000 (16% turnout) so far, compared with 480,000 (17%) in 2010. In New York City, 50,000 Republicans cast ballots for governor, 10% of registered voters, compared with 44,000, or 9%, in 2010.

Republican voter enrollment is up from 2010 in New York City but down overall statewide. Independent voters now outnumber Republicans statewide, and by a large number in New York City.

Over a fifth of registered voters, roughly 1,155,000 New Yorkers, are not affiliated with either major party and did not vote for nominees for governor and lieutenant governor.

Upstate-Downstate, Urban-Rural
According to an analysis from the CUNY Mapping Service, Democratic turnout tended to be higher in urban centers like Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany. It also saw a boost in the Hudson Valley, where Delgado hails from and in the Finger Lakes region. The latter is the home of Tompkins County, a liberal bastion in upstate New York that candidate Zephyr Teachout, a lawyer and activist, won in her unsuccessful 2014 primary against Cuomo.

The Seneca Lake region of the Finger Lakes is also ground zero for the battle over fossil fuel-powered crypto-mining. Williams and Archila spent some of the campaign criticizing Hochul’s and Delgado's reticence to opine on legislation to place a two-year moratorium on reopening closed fossil fuel plants -- and the generous sums crypto-currency industry leaders have donated to them or spent on their behalf.

Republican turnout, as a percentage, was highest in rural upstate regions and in Suffolk County on Long Island, where Zeldin received a major home-town boost. Zeldin won on Long Island and across much of upstate, while Giuliani did particularly well in the five boroughs where Republican regard for his father is still quite strong, Astorino did well in his Westchester base, and Wilson performed strongest in the upstate area near where he grew up.