Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & NYWFP Director Sochie Nnaemeka (photo: @AOC)

Many of New York’s smaller political parties face an uncertain future after they appear to have failed to garner enough votes to keep an automatic ballot line over the next two years under new rules that went into effect in this election cycle. Only the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party seem to have emerged unscathed, rallying voters to meet new thresholds through votes for their presidential and vice presidential nominees. 

As part of the state budget, the Legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo approved a new campaign finance system for New York with a public matching component and lower contribution limits, meant to curb the effects of wealthy donors and encourage small donations from everyday New Yorkers. Beginning in 2021, candidates will be able to opt in to the voluntary system. 

But the new system was passed in combination with increased thresholds for political party ballot access that essentially only place a burden on minor parties like the Working Families, Green, Conservative, Libertarian, and Independence Parties. Under New York’s fusion voting system, those parties can cross-endorse candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties, and all the votes for the same candidates get tallied together. For instance, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees but also appeared on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. Likewise, Trump and Pence were candidates on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.

Under the new ballot rules, minor parties have to win 2% of all votes cast or 130,000 votes, whichever is higher, every two years, in gubernatorial and presidential elections, in order to win a ballot line on which they can run candidates for all offices as they choose. And the votes must come at the top of the ticket, for the presidential/vice presidential nominees and the nominees for governor and lieutenant governor, which are run as pairs on the general election  ballot.

Under previous rules, parties only required 50,000 votes in gubernatorial elections every four years. Unlike the broader campaign finance system and contribution limits that will be in place after the November 2022 general election, these party ballot thresholds went into effect for the presidential election this year -- a combination that appeared designed to hurt the Working Families Party and aid Governor Cuomo’s expected campaign for a fourth term.

Despite a daunting challenge, the Working Families Party marshaled immense resources, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending and endorsements from many major Democratic politicians both in New York and beyond, and far exceeded the needed votes.

Through the initial count of in-person ballots cast via early voting and on Election Day across the state, Biden and Harris received 287,374 votes on the Working Families Party line, about 4.42% of the nearly 6.5 million votes cast through Tuesday evening. 

Trump and Pence got 249,094 votes on the Conservative Party line, or about 3.83% of the vote.

Both parties would seem to have crossed the barrier for automatic ballot access for the next two years. Based on past results, the Conservative Party was expected to more easily meet the threshold while the WFP was thought to be in some doubt, leading to its massive campaign.

The unofficial election night results don’t account for the 1.2 million absentee ballots cast statewide, which will not begin to be tallied until next week and will change the exact thresholds that the parties have to meet. Even if all those absentee ballots are validated, which is unlikely, the total vote will be about 7.7 million, setting the ballot access threshold at roughly 154,000 votes.

“New York’s progressive movement is stronger than ever. As ballots continue to be counted, we are confident that the New York Working Families Party will meet the ballot threshold and will remain on the ballot in New York,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, WFP state director, in a statement on Tuesday night. “This is a victory for our party and our movement.”

Other minor parties didn’t fare as well and it’s unlikely that uncounted absentee ballots will change their fate. The Green Party only received 22,829 votes for their presidential and vice presidential candidates, Howie Hawkins and Angela Nicole Walker, through unofficial election night tallies. The Libertarian Party, with Jo Jorgensen and Jeremy Cohen on their line, received 46,791 votes thus far. The Independence Party received 17,240 for Brock Pierce and Karla Ballard. The Serve America Movement (SAM) Party, which barely won a New York ballot line through its 2018 gubernatorial candidate, will also lose that line. The SAM Party did not appear on the ballot since it did not endorse a presidential candidate or run their own. When the new rules were first proposed, the SAM Party was among the minor parties that opposed them, viewing them as a direct threat to the state’s fusion voting system. The party is still pursuing a court challenge against the rules, arguing that they violate the party's First Amendment right. 

The additional hurdles for the other minor parties -- namely the Green and Libertarian Parties, which do often run their own candidates in New York -- don’t stop there. Without automatic access, parties must collect enough petition signatures to get on the ballot, and the new system increased the number of required signatures from 15,000 to 45,000 for statewide candidates.

Meeting the vote threshold was a particular challenge this year since turnout reached a historic high in the state, as it did across the country. In 2018, if the threshold had been in place, only the Conservative Party would have managed to meet it. The party received 253,000 votes for its endorsed candidate, Republican Marc Molinaro. More than 6 million people voted that year; which meant the threshold was 130,000, since a 2% threshold of 122,000 votes would have been lower. In 2016, when 7.8 million New Yorkers voted in the presidential election, the threshold would have been even higher, at 156,000 votes. Again, only the Conservative Party surpassed it with 292,392 votes for Donald Trump.

Another test for the parties will be coming soon, with the 2022 election for Governor now less than two years away.

Note - this article has been updated with the total absentee ballot numbers and with a reference to a court challenge by the Serve America Movement party against the new ballot rules.

The New York State Senate chambers (photo: NY Senate)

Though hundreds of thousands of votes across New York are still to be counted and many races are not yet called, it appears certain that Democrats will retain the majority in the State Senate that they won two years ago, and by a fairly wide margin. But, Republicans seem poised to regain several seats in the chamber to narrow what has been an exceptionally wide 40-23 seat margin and keep Democrats from expanding it to what they hoped would be a veto-proof supermajority.

With a comfortable hold on the State Assembly and the governor’s office, Democrats will continue to control state government for at least the next two years.

But with the 2020 election heading toward counting of absentee and other paper ballots, a number of State Senate races remain up in the air.

Unofficial election night results showed Democrats winning at least 28 State Senate seats and Republicans winning 9. With about 1.2 million absentee ballots cast statewide in the election and with counting of those ballots set to only begin next week, it’s too early to tell how the rest of the 26 races will end up.

Early indications show that Republicans seem to have a lead in several competitive districts home to first-term Democratic senators, meaning the Democratic majority could be diminished by as many as five seats. Republican Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said Wednesday he believes his conference will have at least 27 seats when the dust settles.

Going into the election, Democrats held 40 seats and Republicans held 20 seats in the 63-seat Senate, while three seats most recently held by Republicans were left vacant based on retirements or resignations.

Democrats were hoping to pick up ten seats, particularly “open” seats where there had been Republican retirements and the districts held a Democratic voter enrollment advantage. Democrats were also on the defensive in several seats. It remains to be seen how all those districts will shake out.

“Despite a difficult night for many Democratic candidates throughout the state and nation, the Senate Democratic Conference comfortably retained our majority and will be welcoming a historic group of new upstate Democrats to the Senate,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester Democrat who was just reelected, in a statement. “With the record high number of outstanding absentee ballots that are overwhelmingly Democratic, we will add even more victories to our majority as the vote counts continue. The Senate Democratic Majority will continue to lead New York State forward as we recover from this pandemic and economic crisis.”

In a Wednesday appearance on The Capitol Pressroom radio program, Deputy Majority leader Mike Gianaris, a Queens Democrat who also won reelection this week, expressed confidence that there are an “overwhelming” number of Democratic votes that were cast in absentee ballots. “Given our projections, we fully expected that some of these close races we were going to be behind on election night and ultimately win,” he said. “That's the posture we're in right now. We secured 36 seats comfortably so the majority is intact with a sizeable cushion. That number is going to grow because there are eight or so districts where we still believe we can overtake the Republicans.”

On the Republican side, Minority Leader Ortt, speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, saw the early results as an indication that voters are disaffected with Democrats. “What you saw last night was a repudiation of one party rule,” he said, confident that the party will win up to 29 seats once all votes are counted.

Along with the Senate races, he also pointed to the party’s victory in some congressional seats held by Democrats. “That is a huge, huge signal, I think certainly to the leadership of the majority of the State Senate that the people of New York, of all political stripes, did not like what they saw the last two years,” Ortt said. “And they want to see something different. They want to see more balance, they want to see checks.”

In seven districts where Democrats had expressed confidence about picking up seats previously held by Republicans, the results are mixed so far. The in-person vote tallies do not account for significant numbers of absentee ballots, leaving a lot unknown for the time being. The State BOE provided a snapshot of absentee ballot numbers as of November 6, though absentee ballots were continuing to be delivered and those numbers were likely to change.  

In District 1, Republican nominee Assemblymember Anthony Palumbo leads with 54.08%, or 74,289 votes, against Democrat Laura Ahearn, who has received 55,554 votes, about 40.44%. There were 32,485 absentee ballots returned by voters in the district. Of those, 15,508 were from Democratic voters, 7,322 from Republicans and 7,588 from independent voters. 

In District 41, incumbent Republican Senator Sue Serino is ahead with 56.49%, or 68,907 votes, against Democrat Karen Smythe, who has 49,477 votes, about 40.56%. This is Smythe’s second time challenging Serino. In 2018, Serino won by only 688 votes. 30,712 voters have returned absentee ballots, including 16,088 Democratic voters, 5,580 Republican voters, and 7,166 independent voters.   

In District 46, Republican Richard Amedure has received 66,784 votres, about 51.19%, compared to Democrat Michelle Hinchey, who has 58,613 votes, or 44.93% so far. There were 25,987 absentee ballots returned from 13,311 Democratic voters, 4,980 Republican voters, and 5,910 independent voters. 

In District 50, Republican Angi Renna leads with 63,299 votes, about 51.45%, against Democrat John Mannion, who has 56,071 votes, about 45.57%. There are 37,149 absentee ballots left to be counted from 17,127 Democrats, 9,286 Republicans and 8,450 independents. 

In District 55, Democrat Samra Brouk has the lead with 59,560 votes, about 49.88%, against Republican Chris Missick, who has received 54,504 votes, about 45.65%. Voters returned 42,443 absentee ballots in the district – 21,018 came from Democrats, 9,141 from Republicans and 8,982 from independents. 

In District 56, Democrat Jeremy Cooney has a marginal lead, with 46,469 votes, about 47.16%, over Republican Mike Barry Jr., who is just behind with 45,587 votes, about 46.27 %. There were 32,578 absentee ballots returned from the district including 16,444 from Democrats, 7,017 from Republicans and 7,108 from independents.  

In District 60, Democrat Sean Ryan has won 68,633 votes, about 54.32%, leading against Republican Joshua Mertzlufft, who is far behind with 52,391 votes, about 41.47%. Ryan may well keep his lead as the 26,729 absentee ballots in the district are counted. Most of the absentees, 15,347 to be exact, were from Democratic voters, while 5,076 were from Republicans and 4,517 were from independents. 

In three districts, Democrats felt they had a solid chance of flipping Republicans seats but the current vote tallies, without the absentee counts, look promising for the GOP.

In District 4, incumbent Republican Phil Boyle has a strong lead with 69,199 votes, about 55.49%, against Democratic challenger former Assemblymember Christine Pellegrino, who has received 46,464 votes, about 37.26 %. There were 19,717 absentee ballots from the district, including from 9,495 Democrats, 4,747 Republicans and 4,363 independent voters. 

In District 51, Republican Peter Oberacker has won 57.01%, or 64,014 votes, so far, while Democrat Jim Barber trails with 37.70%, or 42,336 votes. Voters returned 20,264 absentee ballots, including 9,020 Democrats, 5,742 Republicans and 4,281 independents.  

In District 61, Republican Ed Rath already has 57.81%, or 64,887 votes, against Democrat Jacqualine Berger, who has received 36.81%, or 41,314 votes. Of the 31,628 absentee ballots returned in the district, 16,121 were from Democratic voters, 7,635 from Republicans and 5,987 from independents.  

Republicans fielded competitive candidates in several races, particularly challenging first-time Democrats elected in 2018 in relatively moderate districts. Almost all of those challenges seem like they could yield seats.

In District 3, Republican challenger Alexis Weik leads with 53.01%, or 59,155 votes, against first-term incumbent Democratic Senator Monica Martinez, who has received 40.68%, or 45,388 votes so far. There were 20,012 absentee ballots returned, including 9,715 from Democrats, 4,693 from Republicans, and 4,416 from independents. 

In District 5, Republican candidate Edmund Smyth is leading with 51.33%, or 69,015 votes, against incumbent Democrat Jim Gaughran, who has 41%, or 55,132 votes. There are plenty of absentees to count, however, and they favor Democrats. Of the 36,048 absentee ballots returned, 18,445 were from Democratic voters, 7,366 from Republicans and 8,645 from independents. 

In District 6, incumbent Democratic State Senator Kevin Thomas is behind with 56,672 votes, or 43.03%, against Republican Dennis Dunne, who has 64,509 votes, about 48.99%. Voters returned 27,600 absentee ballots including 13,553 Democrats, 7,127 Republicans and 5,760 independents. 

In District 22, Republican challenger Vito Bruno is in the lead with 40,621 votes, about 51.37%, against incumbent Democratic State Senator Andrew Gounardes, who has received 34,586 votes, about 43.73%. According to the New York City Board of Elections, 39,294 voters requested absentee ballots in the district, including 24,689 Democrats and 5,587 Republicans. Of those, a total of 18,524 ballots were returned by 11,622 Democrats and 2,651 Republicans. Another 7,785 independent voters also requested absentees and 3,714 returned them to the BOE. 

In District 39, Democratic State Senator James Skoufis, a first-term incumbent, is currently ahead but with a margin that appears too early to call, though the senator did declare victory. He has received 50%, or 54,976 votes, so far, compared to Republican challenger Steve Brescia’s 44.23%, or 48,639 votes. There were 5,432 absentees returned – including 3,069 from Democrats, 927 from Republicans and 1,128 from independents.

In District 40, incumbent Democratic State Senator Pete Harckham, another first-term senator, is trailing with 45.48%, or 58,233 votes, against Republican challenger Rob Astorino, who has received 51.31%, or 65,686 votes, and was previously Westchester County Executive and the 2014 GOP nominee for governor. There were 31,622 absentee ballots returned in the district, including from 17,354 Democratic voters, 5,775 Republican voters and 7,000 independent voters. 

In District 42, Republican Mike Martucci is in the lead with 52.65%, or 58,685 votes, against Democratic incumbent Jen Metzger, who has received 43.11%, or 48,054 votes. There are 12,700 absentee ballots left to be counted including 6,526 from Democrats, 3,141 from Republicans and 2,363 from independents.  

Besides Stewart-Cousins and Gianaris, other incumbent Democrats who won reelection, many of them running uncontested, include John Brooks, James Sanders, John Liu, Jessica Ramos, Leroy Comrie, Toby Ann Stavisky, Simcha Felder, Julia Salazar, Roxanne Persaud, Zellnor Myrie, Kevin Parker, Diane Savino, Brian Kavanagh, Brad Hoylman, Liz Krueger, José Serrano, Brian Benjamin, Robert Jackson, Luis Sepúlveda, José Rivera, Alessandra Biaggi, Jamaal Bailey, Shelley Mayer, Neil Breslin, and Tim Kennedy.

The conference is set to have one newcomer in Jabari Brisport, an activist and teacher backed by the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, who ran uncontested in the general election for the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn. Brisport pulled off an upset in the primary, defeating Assemblymember Tremaine Wright, who was supported by the previous officeholder, the retiring Velmanette Montgomery, and a third candidate, Jason Salmon.

The nine incumbent Republicans who won their races include Minority Leader Ortt, and Senators Andrew Lanza, Joseph Griffo, Patty Ritchie, James Tedisco, Fred Akshar, Pamela Helming, George Borrello, and Patrick Gallivan.

Note - this article has been updated.

Note- this article has been updated with a snapshot of absentee ballot totals as of November 6. It has also been corrected to reflect accurate absentee ballot totals from Senate District 22.  

Voters at the polls (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

UPDATE as of November 15: Voter Turnout in New York City Jumped 7.5% from 2016 to 2020

***
Original article from November 3:

While final results and tallies are still unknown, it appears that the 2020 election has seen an increase in voter turnout in New York, as it has across the country.

As of November 1, the New York State Board of Elections reported there were 5.57 million registered voters in New York City, among 13.56 million across the state. It appears there will be more than 2.8 million votes cast in the city this general election, but the final tally will be heavily dependent upon how many absentee votes are cast and counted. Roughly 6,495,194 were cast in the presidential race across the state as of election night, according to the State Board of Elections.

In the 2016 presidential election, 2.76 million voters cast ballots in New York City -- roughly 56% of registered voters at the time -- out of a total 7.8 million votes cast statewide, a 62% turnout rate.

In the 2012 presidential election 2.47 million votes were cast in New York City, for a 53% turnout rate, out of 7.13 million votes across the state, good for 59% turnout. In 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected president, there were 2.6 million votes cast in New York City, a 57% turnout, out of 7.7 million votes cast across the state, or 64% turnout.

This year, it appears the city will likely surpass its 2016 vote total, though not necessarily its turnout rate. Vote counting is ongoing, particularly amid an unprecedented expansion of absentee voting, where eligibility was made universal due to the coronavirus.

After polls closed on Election Day, November 3, the city Board of Elections reported a total of 2,346,302 votes cast between the nine-day early voting period and Election Day in-person votes. That number includes more than 1.1 million New York City voters who cast ballots during the state’s first early voting period to occur during a general election for president.

Meanwhile, more than 1 million absentee ballots were requested in the city, and more than 550,000 had been returned by voters and received by the Board of Elections as of numbers released on Election Day, with another day for such ballots to be received in the mail. If most of those ballots are valid, the city could hit and surpass 2.8 million votes. Turnout of 2.8 million would be about 50% of the 5.57 million registered voters in the city (about 600,000 of whom have been deemed inactive due to a lack of recent participation in elections).

In-person voting totals across New York State hit 6,495,194 on election night, per the State Board of Elections, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots still to be counted. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris received 55.16% of the vote, with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence receiving 42.8%. In New York City, Biden and Harris received roughly 73% of the presidential/vice presidential race votes, with Donald Trump and Mike Pence getting about 26%.

More than 287,338 of the votes across the state (170,000 in New York City alone) for Biden and Harris came on the Working Families Party ballot line, which means the party hit the new state threshold and will continue to have an automatic ballot line moving forward, for at least two more years. Trump and Pence received 249,078 of their votes across the state on the Conservative Party line, helping it to also hit the threshold to keep its line. The fate of other small political parties' ballot lines looks doomed.

New York City’s general election early voting numbers dwarfed early voting turnout in the June primaries -- when only 52,000 people took advantage of the option citywide -- and the roughly 60,000 people who cast early ballots last fall, when there was little on the ballot and early voting was first offered in New York.

But not all boroughs saw the same enthusiasm for early voting this year. Brooklyn saw a relatively high early turnout rate of about 22% of registered voters, while the Bronx and Queens showed the lowest participation with roughly 18%, each (Manhattan fell in between with 19% turnout). Staten Island was an early voting outlier with 30% of its registered voters participating. The disparity may have something to do with the availability of early voting poll sites. Staten Island had the fewest number of early polling locations but the lowest ratio of sites to registered voters: about 35,000 voters per location on average. That ratio was more than doubled in Manhattan and Queens, and the Bronx and Brooklyn each had ratios above 1 site per 50,000 voters.

But Staten Island’s participation rates are often higher than other boroughs and this year’s gap may also have had to do with hosting the only competitive congressional race in the city. In New York's 11th Congressional District, spanning all of Staten Island and some of Southern Brooklyn, incumbent Rep. Max Rose, a first-term Democrat, is facing off in a bitter battle with Republican Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis. The challenger holds a large lead as of election night and declared victory, while Rose pointed to potentially 50,000 absentee votes still to be counted and did not concede.

Without any absentee ballots counted in the race, 236,008 votes had been tallied on election night, with Malliotakis taking 136,382 of them, good for almost 58% to Rose’s 42% and 99,224 votes.

Roughly 192,000 voters in the district went to the polls when Rose was elected in 2018, defeating incumbent GOP Rep. Dan Donovan, while 232,000 voters cast ballots in the race that gave Donovan the seat in the last presidential election.

A similar dynamic is playing out in State Senate District 22, where first-term incumbent Democrat Andrew Gounardes is being challenged by Republican Vito Bruno. In that district, which covers parts of southern Brooklyn, Gounardes beat then-long-time incumbent Marty Golden, a Republican, in a 2018 race with 66,000 total votes -- just three-quarters of the turnout in 2016, when Golden ran unopposed.

Without absentee ballots counted in that race, 75,293 votes had been tallied as of election night, and Bruno led with 40,621 votes, good for almost 54%, to Gounardes’ 34,586 votes, or almost 46%.

There are many more numbers to crunch in the coming days and weeks, especially as the absentee ballots are counted.

"There are going to be people who haven't voted before," said Jerry Skurnik, a veteran political consultant who runs the Prime New York firm, in an interview with Gotham Gazette. "I think there are two reasons for it. One is the interest in elections and politics because of Trump. And the fact that it's easier to vote this year...Being able to vote absentee without having to really be out of town, or being able to early vote without having to wait online today is a lot more convenient."

According to an analysis of voter history data from Prime New York, about a quarter of the roughly 850,000 primary voters in New York City had not voted in a previous primary over the last ten years. Prime New York will eventually conduct the same analysis of the general election.

***
by Ben Max and Ethan Geringer-Sameth
@GothamGazette

2020 Voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Results are not official, hundreds of thousands of ballots are still to be counted, and only some New York races can be called as of election night, but millions of votes cast by New Yorkers in the 2020 general election have provided some indication of winners of a number of races.

In-person voting totals across New York State hit 6,495,194 on election night, per the State Board of Elections, including 2,346,302 in New York City, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots still to be counted, including roughly 550,000 in New York City alone.

We don't know who won the presidential race, but Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won New York and its 29 electoral votes, at this point receiving 55.16% of the counted New York vote, with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence receiving 42.8%. In New York City, Biden and Harris have received roughly 73% of the presidential/vice presidential race votes, with Trump and Pence getting about 26%. Like all other numbers, those figures are all but sure to change as the rest of the votes are counted. A Biden-Harris national popular vote win is all but certain, while an Electoral College win is appearing more and more likely as of Wednesday morning, as is Republicans holding on to the majority in the U.S. Senate and Democrats holding on to the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As for a still very unofficial breakdown by borough, with many thousands of votes still to be counted, Biden-Harris are ahead of Trump-Pence in the four boroughs other than Staten Island, which was also the only borough Trump won in 2016. Biden was ahead of Trump 84%-14% in Manhattan; 82%-17% in the Bronx; 73.6%-25% in Brooklyn; 68.5%-30% in Queens. Trump was ahead 61.3%-37.4% on Staten Island.

More than 287,338 of the votes across the state (170,000 in New York City alone) for Biden and Harris came on the Working Families Party ballot line, which means the party hit the new state threshold and will continue to have an automatic ballot line moving forward, for at least two more years. Trump and Pence received 249,078 of their votes across the state on the Conservative Party line, helping it to also hit the threshold to keep its ballot line. The fate of other small political parties' ballot lines looks doomed, though they can potentially win them back in the future via gubernatorial or presidential elections.

In New York's 11th Congressional District, spanning all of Staten Island and some of Southern Brooklyn, incumbent Rep. Max Rose, a first-term Democrat, has been locked in a bitter battle with Republican Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis. The challenger holds a large lead as of election night and declared victory, while Rose pointed to potentially 50,000 absentee votes still to be counted and did not concede.

Without any absentee ballots counted in the race, 236,008 votes had been tallied on election night, with Malliotakis taking 136,382 of them, good for almost 58% to Rose’s 42% and 99,224 votes.

A similar dynamic is playing out in the overlapping 22nd State Senate of Southern Brooklyn, where first-term incumbent Democrat Andrew Gounardes is being challenged by Republican Vito Bruno. Without absentee ballots counted, 75,293 votes had been tallied as of election night, and Bruno led with 40,621 votes, good for almost 54%, to Gounardes’ 34,586 votes, or almost 46%. The city Board of Elections has already received 12,744 absentee ballots in the district, with more likely coming in, and they skew heavily toward Democratic voters, according to figures provided by the BOE. Whether those Democratic voters, among others, fall heavily enough toward Gounardes is still to be seen.

In the overlapping 46th Assembly District, Democratic Assemblymember Mathylde Frontus is in trouble against Republican challenger Mark Szuszkiewicz. With thousands of absentee votes to be counted, Frontus has received 15,030 votes (45.66%) to Szuszkiewicz’s 17,852 votes (54.2%).

Gounardes’ race is part of the battle for control of the State Senate, which Democrats flipped in 2018 and took a wide margin that Republicans were hoping to chip away at this year to set themselves up to retake the chamber in 2022. The GOP appears to be on the verge of making up some ground, though there are many votes still to be counted and the math of the seats is somewhat tricky.

While Gounardes and several other Democratic incumbents in the Senate are in some trouble, Democrats are on the verge of flipping a few seats that are or were most recently held by Republicans. The 22nd District is the only competitive State Senate race in New York City, while several races on Long Island and north of the five boroughs are highly competitive. (A full rundown of competitive State Senate races will be available later on Wednesday.)

As is always the case, Long Island -- especially Nassau County -- is making for one of the most interesting battleground areas in the state. As he did four years ago, Trump is winning Suffolk County by a wide margin, but the presidential vote in Nassau is close -- Hillary Clinton narrowly won Nassau County in 2016. As of Wednesday morning, Trump had won 49.56% of the vote in Nassau to Biden's 48.46%.

One to several State Senate seats that Democrats flipped on the Island in 2018 may flip back, but absentee votes must be counted and will impact those races as well as House contests and the presidential tally.

While Democrats are not in any risk of losing the Assembly majority or needing to worry about the margin shrinking much, Frontus is not the only Democratic incumbent in some trouble, and Democrats also struggled in multiple open seats without an incumbent running. Other Democrats who could be knocked off include Edward Braunstein of Queens and Michael Cusick of Staten Island, though both will probably prevail once absentee ballots are counted. Republicans also appear set to keep Malliotakis' Assembly seat in a district Democrats had begun to have high hopes for.

Democratic Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright of the Upper East Side does appear on the verge of holding onto her seat against a spirited Republican challenge complicated by the fact that Seawright’s campaign made errors keeping her from the Democratic Party ballot line. And Phara Souffrant Forrest, who beat Assemblymember Walter Mosley in the June Democratic primary, again prevailed over Mosley, who was on the Working Families Party ballot line.

Less competitive races that can and have been called include:
-Democratic City Council Member Donovan Richards winning the race to be the next Queens Borough President.

-Democrat Darma Diaz was uncontested in the general election and will become the next City Council Member in Brooklyn's 37th District, a seat that has been vacant since Rafael Espinal resigned for a private sector job.

-Democrat Jabari Brisport winning the 25th State Senate District in Brooklyn to replace retiring Senator Velmanette Montgomery.

-Democratic City Council Member Ritchie Torres winning the 15th Congressional District seat to replace retiring Rep. Jose Serrano.

-Jamaal Bowman winning the 16th Congressional District in the Bronx and Westchester, aftering having defeated Rep. Eliot Engel in the Democrartic primary.

-Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning her first reelection bid in the 14th Congressional District in the Bronx and Queens.

-New York City Congressional Reps. Gregory Meeks, Grace Meng, Nydia Velazquez, Hakeem Jeffries, Yvette Clarke, Jerry Nadler, Carolyn Maloney, and Adriano Espaillat, all Democrats, are all coasting to reelection.

Congressional Races Outside New York City
-It appears Republicans will hold the 1st and 2nd Congressional District seats on Long Island, via Rep. Lee Zeldin and nominee Andrew Garbarino, respectively.

-Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi is trailing in the 3rd and Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice is leading in the 4th, with absentee ballots still to count.

-Democrat Mondaire Jones will win the 17th Congressional District seat.

-Democratic Reps. Sean Patrick Maloney and Antonio Delgado are in close races in the 18th and 19th Districts, respectively, as absentee ballot counting is set to begin.

-Democratic Rep. Paul Tonko has a commanding lead in the 20th Congressional District.

-Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik has a commanding lead in the 21st Congressional District.

-Democratic Rep. Anthony Brandisi appears to be in trouble against former Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney, whom he unseated in 2018 in the 22nd Congressional District.

-Republican Reps. Tom Reed, John Katko, and Chris Jacobs appear headed toward reelection in the 23rd, 24th, and 27th Congressional Districts.

-Democratic Reps. Joseph Morelle and Brian Higgins appear headed toward reelection in the 25th and 26th Congressional Districts.

More detailed results will be available in the coming days and weeks.

Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, left, & Rep. Max Rose face off in NY-11

Voting in the 2020 general election is set to come to a conclusion on Tuesday, November 3, Election Day. The full, official results won't be known for weeks.

The eyes of the world are on the presidential race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, and it's unclear when a winner may be declared.

Though it's unlikely Trump can pull off an upset and beat Biden in New York, voters here have been going to the polls in large numbers, just like across the country, with 2020 expected to see modern record voter turnout. How exactly the presidential race shakes out in New York is among many things to watch as we count the votes. 

1. Voter Turnout
Voter turnout, both in person and by mail, is likely to reach historic highs in the 2020 general election.

There are 5.3 million voters registered in New York City​ and just under 13 million registered across New York State, as of February 2020. (Many thousands more registered between then and the October deadline, but those numbers are not yet available.)

In the 2016 presidential election, only about 64,000 absentee ballots were cast in New York City. This year, eligibility for absentee balloting has been expanded to all registered voters due to the coronavirus pandemic, a change that led to a huge surge in such voting in the June primaries. As of October 20 of this year, over 1 million absentee ballots for the general election had been processed in New York City, according to the city Board of Elections (BOE). The board will accept absentee ballots that are put in the mail or dropped off by Election Day.

The nine-day early voting period, October 24-November 1, has yielded over 1.1 million in-person votes cast in New York City alone, a little more than 21% of registered voters in the city (using the February number). This is the first presidential general election with either universal absentee voting or early voting in New York. (In 2019, the first year of early voting when only a handful of local races were on the ballot, only about 60,000 people citywide and 256,000 statewide voted at an early voting site.)

While many New Yorkers are taking advantage of voting by mail or early voting, Election Day is still expected to see a large surge of voters, with many expecting New York turnout, like that across the country, to surpass recent election cycles.

In the 2016 presidential election, 2.76 million voters cast ballots in New York City (roughly 56% of registered voters) out of a total 7.8 million votes cast statewide (a 62% turnout rate).

In the 2012 presidential election 2.47 million votes were cast in New York City (a 53% turnout rate), out of 7.13 million votes across the state (59% turnout). In 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected president, there were 2.6 million votes cast in New York City (57% turnout), of 7.7 million votes cast across the state (64% turnout).

2. New York City Tries to Run a Smoother Election with Expanded Options
It has already been another election marred by poor execution by the New York City Board of Elections. What Election Day itself will bring is yet to be seen. While some changes and challenges have been brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, some problems this year look like those made by the Board of Elections and its vendors in prior years.

There are many outstanding questions about what will unfold on Election Day and in the counting of ballots thereafter.

The 2020 elections have seen an unprecedented level of absentee voting, the result of the state expanding eligibility to all registered voters as part of the larger effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. The high volume and the amount of time it takes to receive and verify mail-in ballots means that many races may not be officially called until weeks after polls close. The New York City Board of Elections has predicted it will complete the ballot canvassing process by November 24, four days before the statutory deadline. The Electoral College is set to formally elect the president on December 14.

Lines at the polls will be long this year, not only because of high turnout, but because of social distancing. The city Board of Elections says it has hired 4,800 additional poll site workers who will be assigned specifically to line management. The board has also mailed "Fast Pass Tags" to all registered voters that have scannable barcodes for expedited and "contactless" poll site check-in. Voters may (but are not required to) bring them to their early voting or Election Day poll location, where electronic poll books are also now in use, having been first instituted last year among a wave of voting and election reforms.

Completed absentee ballots can also be dropped off during open hours at early voting and Election Day polling locations and at BOE borough offices. There is no check-in required for using one of the dropboxes.

The city BOE opened 88 early voting sites this fall, up from 79 for the June primaries and 61 during the general election last year, when early voting began in New York. That number, which became 89 after the threat of a lawsuit by a Manhattan Assembly member, has proven too small, however, given the large turnout, adding to the list of issues with Board of Elections planning and administration.

After having reduced the total number of early voting hours by ten, from 74 to 64 hours, according to Vote Early New York, a non-profit advocacy group, the BOE responded to large turnout on the first several days by adding additional early voting hours. In one Upper East Side district, following days of long lines and a planned court challenge from Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright, herself on the ballot this year, the BOE opened up an alternative early voting site. The sites were open for nine days from October 24 through November 1.

New York City is the only jurisdiction in the state that assigns voters to a specific early voting site, rather than having universal centers where any registered voter can go. Voting rights advocates have pushed the city to adopt borough-wide and citywide early voting but administrators have said memory limitations on the machines it uses make it impossible to store the ballots of every election district.

On top of the new absentee voting element this year, election administrators are operating under a brand new state requirement to notify voters when their mail-in ballots are being rejected on certain technical errors and provide them a channel to correct the mistake.

The new mandate, signed into law in August, applies to missing or incorrect signatures on the inner "oath" envelope and to ballots that were returned without the oath envelope entirely. When there is a “cure” eligible error, the Board of Elections is required to send notices to all mailing and email addresses on file for the voter at hand, and must make attempts by phone wherever possible to reach each voter. The notice will include a form through which voters can "cure" the mistake and return to the BOE to be reviewed and counted. Pursuant to an executive order signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, administrators are allowed to review ballot envelopes for defects as soon as they are received, but state law requires they remain sealed with the ballot uncounted until seven days after Election Day.

There are always unforeseen mishaps that impact the voting experience leading up to and on Election Day in New York City. In September, a vendor printing error led as many as 100,000 Brooklynites to receive another voter's oath envelope, which would render the ballot inside invalid if cast. The BOE says it has contacted all impacted voters and has provided new, correct ballots and envelopes.

Between a fifth and a quarter of absentee ballots are rejected every year on technicalities, a majority of which are because of missing signatures. The state has redesigned the oath envelope to emphasize with a prominent red 'X' where a signature is required and passed the ‘curing’ law.

3. Presidential Election Results Across New York City and State
If the last presidential election result is any indication, Joe Biden will handily win New York and pick up its 29 electoral votes. In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won 4.5 million votes across the state, compared to Trump’s 2.8 million. In New York City, the Clinton-Kaine ticket beat the Trump-Pence ticket overwhelmingly, garnering 2.16 million votes to 494,549 votes.

Trump, however, won 45 New York counties to Clinton’s 17, particularly as he was successful in less-populated rural and suburban areas. He did win both Staten Island (Richmond County) and Suffolk County, one of the two on Long Island, along with Nassau, where Clinton won fairly narrowly.

In New York City, there are a few pockets of Republican strength beyond much of Staten Island. Trump won parts of Queens that are home to white ethnic voters and a significant swathe of Brooklyn where there is a concentration of Orthodox Jewish communities.

While Trump did well in some suburbs of the city, many parts of the region moved towards Democrats in the 2018 elections, when Trump was not on the ballot himself but many voters appeared motivated by his initial nearly two years on the job. Case in point, in the 2018 state elections, Democrats won several State Senate seats in districts long held by Republicans, some in extremely tight races, including one in Southern Brooklyn’s 22nd State Senate District. The same was true in Congressional races in the city and beyond, especially New York’s 11th Congressional District, where Democratic wins helped the party take over the House of Representatives. It remains to be seen whether Trump can help those Republicans make a comeback or if Democrats will retain their hold. 

Though Republicans are hoping that Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket will help them win back those seats in more conservative and moderate districts in rural and suburban areas outside New York City, Democrats are perhaps more confident that their base will turn out in greater numbers and they will win independents by large margins.

4. Can Minor Political Parties Keep Their Ballot Lines?
The presidential election is likely to have major consequences for the state’s minor political parties and what the New York ballot looks like in 2021 and beyond. New York’s fusion voting system, which allows candidates to run on several party lines on the ballot and accumulate votes, is not itself at risk of ending, but there are new thresholds parties must meet to keep an automatic ballot line on which to nominate candidates for offices all across the state.

The system gives minor parties like the Working Families, Conservative, Independence, Green, and Libertarian parties the ability to cross-endorse a candidate also backed by the Democratic or Republican Party to run on their line. The arrangement is mutually beneficial – candidates get allies that can help them expand their voter base and the parties garner influence with candidates and office-holders.

This year’s state budget included legislation creating a new campaign finance system for state elections, based on the recommendations of a state-created commission, while also creating new hurdles for minor parties that could place many of them in a tenuous position heading into the election.

Starting this year and continuing every two years, political parties now have to meet new, higher thresholds to automatically qualify for a ballot line. Where previously they only had to win 50,000 votes every four years in a gubernatorial election, they now have to win 2% of votes cast or 130,000 votes, whichever is greater, every two years, in a gubernatorial or presidential election. Based on the 2018 election, none of the state’s minor parties would have met that threshold except the Conservative Party. The Working Families Party is in the midst of a massive effort to keep its line.

[Read: New York's Smaller Political Parties Must Quickly Meet New Ballot Thresholds]

5. Max Rose Tries to Keep the Congressional Seat He Flipped in 2018
In New York’s 11th Congressional District, first-term Democrat Max Rose is in a pitched battle for his seat against Republican Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis. A recent NBC 4 New York / Marist Poll found that Malliotakis held a slight lead in the race, with 48% of likely voters to Rose’s 46%.

The district, which has swung several times between the two parties, covers all of Staten Island and parts of Southern Brooklyn along the waterfront. It has been a target for Republicans ever since Rose won it in 2018, defeating incumbent Dan Donovan, the Republican former Staten Island District Attorney.

Rose, a military veteran, is a moderate, center-left Democrat who has often sought to distance himself from the party’s more progressive policies and members. As he runs for reelection, he has repeatedly criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio, a two-term Democrat, for his perceived failures in running the city and has at times even expressed support for President Trump, though Rose did vote to impeach Trump.

Malliotakis represents the Assembly in a district that covers most of the east shore of Staten Island and a small part of Southern Brooklyn. She previously ran for mayor of New York City in 2017, but only won 27.1% of the vote, losing handily to de Blasio who won 65.1%. She did, however, win Staten Island that year with 70% to de Blasio’s 25.3%.

The seat is rated one of the most competitive across the country, and while it helped Democrats flip the House of Representatives in 2018, the party does not appear to need it to keep the House after this election. But whether it is part of Democrats keeping and expanding their majority or Republicans narrowing it or possibly flipping control back is yet to be seen. The seat had been Republicans’ only congressional office in New York City until Rose took it.

6. Other Congressional Races in New York and Control of the House
In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats flipped control of the 435-seat House of Representatives, with a net gain of 40 seats. In New York, the party flipped three seats – Max Rose defeated Dan Donovan in the 11th District, Antonio Delgado prevailed over John Faso in the 19th District, and Anthony Brindisi was victorious against Claudia Tenney in the 22nd District.

Delgado looks to be headed to reelection, facing first-time Republican candidate Kyle Van De Water, an Army veteran and attorney, in a district slightly north of New York City. Further upstate, Brindisi is again facing Tenney this year as she seeks to reclaim the position. Though Tenney is hoping to be boosted by Trump’s presence on the top of the ticket, a recent Siena College poll showed that Brindisi has a comfortable nine-point lead in the race. Rose is the most vulnerable of the three Democrats, as he faces a tough fight against Malliotakis in a pro-Trump district. 

The state will also send some new Democrats to the House, candidates finalizing their journeys after tough primaries but easy general elections given teh overwhelmingly Democratic districts they’re running in. In the 15th District in the Bronx, Ritchie Torres, currently a City Council member, won the Democratic nomination from a crowded field vying to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano. In the 16th District, including parts of the Bronx and Westchester, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman won the June primary to unseat Rep. Eliot Engel, who had been in office for 16 terms. Both Torres and Bowman are all but assured to win the general election and head to Congress, as is another Democrat, Mondaire Jones, who won a tough primary north of the city to replace retiring Rep. Nita Lowey. 

7. Andrew Gounardes Tries to Keep the State Senate Seat He Flipped in 2018
Democrat Andrew Gounardes flipped Brooklyn’s State Senate District 22 in 2018, defeating longtime incumbent Marty Golden, one of the last remaining Republicans in the state Legislature representing New York City.

The district, situated in Southern Brooklyn, includes some of the more moderate parts of the city. Though it has more than twice as many registered Democratic voters as Republicans, Gounardes nonetheless won in 2018 by a narrow margin. This year, he’s being challenged by Vito Bruno, a former nightclub owner and president of the Edmund G. Seergy Republican Club.

Democrats have expressed confidence they can hold the seat given the registration advantage and Bruno’s relative lack of name recognition as well as Gounardes’ first-term accomplishments, while Republicans think Trump’s presence at the top of the ballot can help Bruno win, along with controversial criminal justice reforms passed by Democrats in the State Legislature.

[Read: Democrats Flipped a Brooklyn State Senate Seat in 2018; Is It In Play In 2020?]

8. Other State Senate Races Outside the City and Control of the Senate
After winning control of the State Senate in 2018 and working with their party-mates in the Assembly and governor’s office to pass a long list of liberal legislation, Democrats are now looking at the possibility of capturing a supermajority in the chamber. They currently hold 40 out of 63 seats; Republicans hold 20 while three are vacant from Republican resignations. Several Republicans have also announced their retirements at the end of the year, creating a slew of “open” seats that are being hotly contested.

Since 2018, Trump has grown increasingly unpopular in the state, Democratic voter enrollment has continued to increase, and the party has vastly outraised and outspent the GOP in state Senate campaign funds. Democrats are hoping that turnout will be in their favor again this year and believe they can pick up as many as ten seats; they only need a net gain of two for a supermajority, which would allow the Senate Democratic majority to work with the supermajority of Democrats in the Assembly to potentially override gubernatorial vetoes.

Republicans, however, maintain that they will hold on to all their seats and that they will be able to appeal to moderate Democrats and conservatives to unseat several first-term Democrats who have pushed the Legislature and the state overall towards the left.

Brooklyn’s 25th State Senate District will also see new representation from Jabari Brisport, who won the June primary over Assemblymember Tremaine Wright and others to fill a vacancy being left by the retirement of State Senator Velmanette Montgomery. Brisport, a democratic socialist, is running unopposed in the general election.

[Read: Democrats Eye a Supermajority, Republicans Look to Regain Seats: the 2020 New York State Senate Battle]

9. Other Races of Note in the City
Queens is set to get a new Borough President and it’s all but certain to be Democratic City Council Member Donovan Richards. In the June primary, Richards emerged victorious in a crowded field to claim the nomination; the seat has been held on an interim basis by BP Sharon Lee since former Borough President Melinda Katz resigned at the start of the year to become the borough’s district attorney.

Richards’ most prominent opponent is Republican nominee Joann Ariola, chair of the Queens County Republican Party. But Democrats hold a massive voter enrollment advantage and the borough has not elected a Republican as borough president since the 1950s.

[Read: Donovan Richards Lays Out His Vision As Likely Next Queens Borough President]

In Assembly District 76 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, incumbent Democrat Rebecca Seawright is running for reelection. But Seawright’s bid is only noteworthy because she is running on the self-created “Rise and Unite" party line that she had to create after she was kicked off the Demorcatic and Working Families Party ballot lines after failing to file the proper ballot paperwork. She is being challenged by Republican Louis Puliafito in a race where the GOP is hoping to eek out a win based on there being no Democratic nominee on the ballot and the fact that the Upper East Side is still home to a sizable group of Republicans.

In Assembly District 64, Democrats may have a chance to flip a Republican-held seat as the current incumbent is Nicole Malliotakis, who is not running for reelection as she runs for Congress. Democrat Brandon Patterson, former deputy chief of staff to state Senator Diane Savino, and Republican Michael Tannousis, a former assistant district attorney in the Bronx and Staten Island DAs offices, are running against each other.

In Assembly District 57, incumbent Democrat Walter Mosley lost the Democratic primary to Phara Souffrant Forrest, a nurse and first-time candidate who was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America. After losing the primary, Mosley is running on the Working Families Party line, having received their endorsement as well. But the WFP has asked him to stand down and urged their members to vote for Forrest instead, giving her their endorsement after the primary.

There are also some other notable Assembly races in the city, largely pro-forma finalizing of contested June primaries through the general election.

In Assembly District 31 in Queens, Khaleel Anderson, who is just 24 years old, came out on top in a crowded Democratic primary to win the nomination. The race was for an open seat left vacant after Assemblymember Michele Titus was elected as a civil court judge.

There were other upsets along with those by Souffrant Forrest and Anderson in Assembly districts in the primary, as leftist candidates unseated longtime establishment Democrats and are now poised to sail to election in the general.

In Assembly District 50 in Brooklyn, activist Emily Gallagher defeated Assemblymember Joe Lentol. In Assembly District 51 in Brooklyn, Marcela Mitaynes defeated Assemblymember Felix Ortiz. In Assembly District 34 in Queens, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas defeated Assemblymember Michael DenDekker. In Assembly District 36 in Queens, Zohran Mamdani defeated Assemblymember Aravella Simotas. In Assembly District 38 in Queens, Jenifer Rajkumar defeated Assemblymember Michael Miller. In Assembly District 84 in the Bronx, Amanda Septimo won after Assemblymember Carmen Arroyo was disqualified from the ballot.

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth and Samar Khurshid
@GothamGazette

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (photo: NY Senate)

Two years ago, Democrats won a majority in the New York State Senate for the first time in eight years, winning full control of the state Legislature and the governor’s office and allowing them to pursue a raft of progressive legislation that had stalled under Republican obstruction. As the New York GOP has continued to diminish since that election, including another wave of retirements among state senators, and as President Donald Trump remains unpopular in the state, Democrats now see an opportunity to pick up even more seats and win a supermajority in the Senate to match that has long existed in the Assembly.

But, Republican leaders in the state have professed their own optimism given Trump’s presence at the top of the ballot this year, driving base turnout unlike two years ago, when the party also lost several seats in the House of Representatives, and ongoing criticism of criminal justice reforms passed by the Democrats in Albany. While GOP officials have been hesitant to predict they will regain the state Senate majority via this year’s elections, they do say they will chip away at the wide margin Democrats ran up in 2018.

The Democratic Party holds 40 out of 63 state Senate seats and needs only two more for a veto-proof supermajority. The party has long enjoyed a dominant lead in the 150-seat Assembly, currently holding 103 seats, but power in the Senate had for the most part eluded them before 2018. That year, propelled by a surge in Democratic turnout largely driven by anger against Trump, a slew of progressive Democrats deposed moderate members of their party who had made up the erstwhile Independent Democratic Conference, which caucused with Republicans and helped them control the chamber, in the primaries and a half-dozen others flipped seats on Long Island, in Southern Brooklyn, and north of the five boroughs. 

Since 2018, there have been several retirements and resignations by GOP incumbents, including the most recent Republican majority leader, John Flanagan of Long Island, opening up an opportunity for Democrats to expand their power. Three Senate seats, including Flanagan’s District 2 (which isn’t seen as competitive, though), already lie vacant while Republicans hold 20 going into this election.

According to a spokesperson for the Senate Democratic conference, Democrats have their eye on picking up seats in ten districts recently or currently held by Republicans covering Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and Western New York – they are comfortable that they will win Districts 1, 41, 46, 50, 55, 56 and 60, while Districts 4, 51, and 61 seem to them to be leaning blue.

Senate Democrats consider themselves on the defensive in five seats they hold – they view Districts 3 and 40 as the most competitive races with Republican challengers while they expect to hold competitive Districts 6, 22, and 42, though they note those have seen heavy expenditures by the GOP and from independent entities. District 22 is the lone state Senate swing district in New York City, a Southern Brooklyn seat that Democrat Andrew Gounardes flipped in 2018 and is attempting to hold onto this year.

Senator Michael Gianaris, deputy majority leader and chair of the state’s Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said in an interview he’s “very optimistic” about the election. “It was hard enough to get 40 [seats],” he said. “Adding a couple to that is going to be an unprecedented majority, but we're working towards it.”

Gianaris said there are several factors at play. The party enjoys a significant voter enrollment advantage – as of February 21, there were 6.56 million registered Democrats statewide, compared to 2.84 million Republicans and 2.82 million independent voters who are not registered with any political party. The prevailing sentiment against the president, “the strength of our incumbents, the success of our first term in the majority, the tidal wave of Republican retirements that have opened seats in districts that have a Democratic registration advantage is a factor. So there's a lot of reasons why I believe we're headed that way,” Gianaris said.  

A spokesperson for Senate Republicans, however, said party leaders anticipate holding on to all of their seats, including the “open” seats where no incumbent is running in Districts 1, 2, 40, 45, 50, 51, 55, 56, 60 and 61. They believe that seven of their candidates challenging incumbent Democrats are in competitive, winnable races in Districts 3, 6, 22, 39, 40, 41, and 42.

The best case scenario for Republicans appears to be if they hang on to the seats they currently hold or were most recently held by Republicans, and also win back five seats from Democrats, which would still leave them short of recapturing the majority in the chamber, but help set the stage for additional wins in 2022. Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt and State Republican Party Chair Nick Langworthy did not provide comment for this article despite multiple requests.

Former Senate Majority and Minority Leader Flanagan’s seat is a safe bet for Republicans. The party’s candidate is local union leader Mario Mattera, who is running against Democrat Michael Siderakis, a former state trooper. It's one of the few Senate districts where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats.

Democrats are also vastly outspending their opponents, a shift from previous elections when major special interests backed the GOP. But Democrats are faced with a torrent of independent expenditures, largely from police unions and billionaire cosmetics heir Ron Lauder. The police unions have already put more than $1 million into Republican senate races, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. And Lauder has given about $4.8 million to an independent expenditure group he created, Safer Together New York, of which about $4.5 million has gone out the door. The expenditure campaigns have been premised on opposition to criminal justice reforms passed by the Democratic Legislature, and have taken particular aim at a major reform to bail laws, which they have blamed without direct evidence for contributing to spikes in violent crime and a drop in quality of life. 

Langworthy has amplified that argument, as have legislative candidates across the state hoping they can persuade moderate Democrats and independent voters. “That's gonna be an issue that looms large over every state Senate district, in every state Assembly district, in every Congressional district where the Democratic incumbent either voted for that policy or stands with that bail and discovery reform,” he said in an interview on WMHT last month. “You know, you've got the rest of the country looking to New York and California saying don't let us become like them, because they see what's happened here with these ultra liberal policies that have really gutted the opportunity for our law enforcement officials to do their job.”

Gianaris said he isn’t worried about the attacks against his party. “Somehow, over the last decade, it seems that the big dark money always flows for the Republicans rather than against them. And we won regardless. So we know how to deal with this,” he said. There have been independent expenditures in favor of Democrats as well, and some of the big special interest donors that gave to the New York GOP shifted their giving to the Democrats once the latter took the Senate majority via the 2018 elections. 

For Democrats, a supermajority in the Senate will mean the potential to claw back some power from Governor Cuomo, who has only expanded his authority in the last few months, particularly over the state budget, in response to the coronavirus pandemic and with the support of the Legislature. Whether Democrats in the Legislature would take a much more aggressive stance toward Cuomo is yet to be seen. But the possibility of such dynamics is an intriguing subplot of the election cycle.

Though dual supermajorities would allow Democratic legislators to override a veto by the governor and pass the types of legislation he has consistently opposed – higher taxes on the wealthy, for instance – it’s unclear whether the legislative chambers would use that tactic. “The governor's never had a veto overridden and I don't know that it would ever come to that,” Gianaris said. “What tends to happen is people realize what the possibilities are and what the math is and that affects the negotiated outcome.”

With two legislative supermajorities Democrats would also have a stronger hand in the redistricting process that will kick off after Census data is delivered from Congress to the states for electoral apportionment.

Bruce Gyory, a Democratic political consultant at the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, said in a phone interview that this year’s election is unlike previous ones. “Usually in a given cycle, there's four to seven challenge races, real hard contested, swing or marginal races, ten at the absolute tops. This year, you have 16,” he said of the State Senate. “That is an astounding anomaly.”

As Gyory sees it, Republicans are hoping to win more moderate upstate and suburban districts by harping on the leftward swing driven by downstate Democrats, and Democrats are relying on strong candidates with good fundraising while making the argument that “Trump is a pair of cement shoes around the ankles of any Republican in a suburban area.”

“This is a good year to run as a Democrat,” Gyory added. 

Jerry Skurnik, a long-time political consultant at Prime New York and former aide to Mayor Ed Koch, agreed. “I think Democrats have a good chance to reelect almost all their incumbents, if not all of them, and pick up four or five seats,” he said of the State Senate. “New York State is becoming more Democratic in general and I think Trump's election has moved it even further. Just like Trump's having problems with suburban voters outside of Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta, he’s even more so having those problems in New York.”

Where Democrats See Pick-Ups
In District 1 on Long Island, Republican Kenneth LaValle is retiring after 44 years in office when his term ends this year. Democrat Laura Ahearn, an attorney and social worker, is running against sitting Assemblymember Anthony Palumbo, formerly a Suffolk County prosecutor. The district covers the eastern side of Suffolk County.

In District 41, which covers most of Dutchess County and parts of Putnam County, Democrat Karen Smythe is challenging Republican State Senator Sue Serino for the second time after losing to her in 2018. That year, Smythe lost by only 688 votes and now has a better funded campaign in a district that has become more blue since her loss.  

In District 46, Republican State Senator George Amedore’s retirement has given Democrats an opportunity for another seat. The district covers Montgomery County and Greene County and includes parts of Albany, Schenectady, and Ulster counties. Democrat Michelle Hinchey, daughter of late U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, is seeking the seat, running against Republican Richard Amedure, a retired state trooper.  

In District 50, which covers the Syracuse region, Republican State Senator Bob Antonacci left the Senate after being elected a state Supreme Court judge last year, leaving the seat vacant. Democrat John Mannio, a teacher, is hoping to take his place, facing off against Republican Angi Renna. 

In District 55, which includes parts of Ontario County and Monroe County, Republican Senator Rich Funke decided he would not run for reelection, kicking off a competitive race Democrats believe they will win. Democrat Samra Brouk is running against Republican Chris Missick, an Army veteran and attorney.

In District 56, which falls entirely in Monroe County, Republican Senator Chris Robach is also retiring. Democrat Jeremy Cooney, the former chief of staff to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren who unsuccessfully challenged Robach in 2018, is running for the seat a second time and faces Republican Mike Barry Jr., a Council Member from the town of Greece, in a district where Democrats have a strong enrollment advantage. 

In District 60, the seat has been vacant since State Senator Chris Jacobs won a special election to the 27th Congressional District earlier this year. Democratic Assemblymember Sean Ryan is vying to replace him, facing off against Republican attorney Joshua Mertzlufft.

Democrats See A Solid Chance
The District 4 seat on Long Island is currently held by Republican State Senator Phil Boyle, who nearly lost in 2018 to Lou D’Amaro, a Suffolk county lawmaker. Democrats believe Boyle is vulnerable and have nominated former Assemblymember Christine Pellegrino to challenge him. 

In District 51 in Central New York, Republican State Senator James Seward is retiring after 34 years in office. Republican Peter Oberacker, member of the Otsego County Board of Representatives, is seeking to replace him and is being challenged by Democrat Jim Barber, a farmer.  

In District 61, yet another retirement, of Republican State Senator Ranzenhofer, has buoyed Democratic hopes. Democratic candidate Jacqualine Berger, an Amherst Town Council member, is vying for the seat against Republican Erie County legislator Ed Rath. 

Highly Competitive Seats and Republican Optimism

Democrats find themselves defending several seats, some of which they very narrowly won in 2018 when they regained control of the State Senate.

In District 3 on Long Island, incumbent first-term Democratic State Senator Monica Martinez is being challenged by Republican Alexis Weik, the Islip town receiver of taxes.

In District 40, which includes parts of Westchester, Dutchess, and Putnam counties, incumbent Democratic State Senator Pete Harckham, who was first elected by a narrow margin in 2018, faces a competitive challenge from Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County Executive who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2014 and lost his reelection bid in 2017 to then-State Senator George Latimer, now the county executive.

A first-term Democrat is also trying to hold onto a competitive seat in District 6 on Long Island, where incumbent State Senator Kevin Thomas is being challenged by Republican Dennis Dunne, a Hempstead Town Council member; in District 22 in Brooklyn, where Senator Andrew Gounardes is facing Republican Vito Bruno, in a district that is more moderate than other parts of the city; and in District 42, in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, where Senator Jen Metzger is defending her seat against Republican challenger Mike Martucci, a school bus business owner.  

In District 5 on Long Island, Democrat Jim Gaughran is defending his seat against Republican challenger Edmund Smyth, a Council member from Huntington, and Green Party candidate Barbara Wagner. In District 39, Democratic State Senator James Skoufis, who was previously a member of the Assembly, is serving his first term as well. He is being challenged by Republican Steve Brescia, who has been a legislator in Orange County for more than two decades.

New York Democrats in 2016 (photo: New York Democratic Party)

October 28, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs

Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Party, joined the show to discuss key races for the House of Representatives and State Senate, as well as other issues related to the 2020 elections in New York.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

Lou Puliafito & Rebecca Seawright

Last time she faced a Republican challenger, in 2016, Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright won by a margin of nearly 50 points. Her Assembly district, which includes the Upper East Side, Yorkville, and Roosevelt Island, has a solid Republican presence but is generally considered a firmly Democratic stronghold. Yet due to a series of ballot controversies, Seawright’s reelection bid has been thrust into some uncertainty this year.

The trouble started for the Assembly member this Spring, when her campaign failed to include a cover page for her petition filings for the June Democratic primary, in which she was to have run unopposed. She then attempted to run in the general election on the Working Families Party ballot line, but the courts determined that the deadline had already passed. This left open the possibility that the Republican nominee, Lou Puliatifo, would be the only candidate on the ballot for voters of the 76th Assembly District.

But Seawright got the required signatures to run on the self-created “Rise and Unite” ballot line, with the backing of much of the Democratic establishment but some reason to be nervous about how voters in her district may react to seeing no name on the Democratic Party line for Assembly. Given what’s unfolded her campaign has brought in some of the party’s biggest names, both locally and nationally, to help make sure Democratic voters know she’ll be on the ballot -- somewhere. The party’s two most recent presidential candidates, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Joe Biden, have announced endorsements of Seawright, with Clinton even Zoom-ing in for a virtual event.

The Assembly member’s path to reelection has also been complicated by progressive activist Patrick Bobilin, who ran against City Council Member Ben Kallos in 2017 and jumped into the Assembly race on his own “Blue Wave” independent ballot line. Sensing a threat, Seawright’s campaign sought to have Bobilin kicked off the ballot, and in late September the Appellate Division ruled that Bobilin did not meet the residency requirement for the office, after the State Supreme Court initially concluded that he did meet the requirement.

Bobilin decried the court’s ruling, saying it “portends a negative impact on young people who want to run for office if they were ever outside of the state for any reason,” but has since decided to suspend his campaign. Given the timing of the ruling, Bobilin’s name appeared on a small batch of absentee ballots that went out.

He has said that he will be running again in 2022.

But it’s unclear who the incumbent will be.

Puliafito, who works as a doorman, garnered 3.5% of the vote as the Reform Party candidate for the seat in 2018, with no Republican nominee that year, to Seawright’s 96%. He has received significant attention from the media and Republicans given the incumbent’s ballot challenges and the outside chance for the GOP to pick up a seat -- there are currently no Manhattan Republicans elected to New York City or State government.

Seawright has significant advantages despite the ballot snafu, particularly the district’s Democratic voter enrollment advantage, her name recognition as an Assembly member since 2015, endorsements including big name politicians as well as labor unions, and fundraising. Seawright is one of more than 100 Democrats in the majority in the Assembly, which has 150 seats across the state.

As of the 11-day pre-general election financial disclosures, Seawright had raised $133,961 in the latest period, including $60,000 from the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee in October alone, and had $120,608 in cash-on-hand while continuing to raise more funds. Comparatively, Puliafito raised $1,426 in his last filing and had a balance of $1,483. (In that filing, Bobilin reported $11,384 in donations and had $10,802 in balance.)

According to Census Reporter, The 76th Assembly District is predominantly white (72% of residents are white compared to 56% of New York State as a whole) and significantly wealthier than the rest of the state (the median household income is more than 50% higher in the district than the rest of the state). As of February 2020, there were 58,748 Democrats in the district compared to 15,690 Republicans, out of 101,185 registered voters, in the district, according to data from the state Board of Elections.

Rebecca Seawright
In an interview, Assemblymember Seawright emphasized what she sees as her top legislative accomplishments and leadership positions. She serves as secretary of the Assembly’s majority Democratic Conference and sits on the judiciary, education, and consumer affairs committees. She cites a “proven track record of passing legislation” that includes cosponsoring the codification of Roe v. Wade into New York state law and sponsoring legislation requiring health insurance providers to cover mammograms.

She also cosponsored the recent repeal of section 50-A of the Civil Rights law, which is providing greater transparency regarding police disciplinary records.

“I’ve given over $12 million to our local public schools, libraries, and parks and will continue to fight for additional funding, especially during this pandemic,” Seawright said, referring to government funding she’s secured for the district. She said that she would support legislation to “cancel rent” as a result of the pandemic and related economic catastrophe “until after January.”

Asked about the state’s looming budget deficit, Seawright said, “I think we need to look at new ways to raise revenue and we need to continue to push for federal relief money out of Washington.” She supports a “millionaires’ tax” to raise revenue, she said, likely meaning raising taxes on those earning above $1 million annually on top of the higher rates they already pay.

“I think it’s very important that we keep our buses clean, accessible, and on time,” said Seawright, when asked about other top priorities for her constituents.

Seawright’s district office was the target of anti-Semitic vandalism in August and she said that she is currently sponosirng legislation in Albany “to strengthen our hate crime law.”

“I’m running on my record,” Seawright said. “I treat each problem as if it were my own and I take it very seriously.” She also said that election reform will be a top priority for her in the next session, after nearly failing to make the ballot herself, so as to provide “more access to people to run for office and for people to understand the election process.”

Lou Puliafito
“I don’t like either party,” Puliafito said in an interview, but added that “when you have a one-party town, there’s no accountability” and that he is “fed up with party politics and pointing at each other.” He notes that he is also on the Liberal Party ballot line, for any voters in the district squeamish about voting for a Republican.

Puliafito, a former IT professional who became a part-time doorman in retirement, was quick to emphasize that he’s not a typical Republican candidate and at times distanced himself from the national party, saying, “This is a local election. It has nothing to do with Washington.”

Puliafito voiced support for further increases to the minimum wage, saying, “I’m a union guy. I know it’s $15, but I think it needs to be more.”

On affordable housing, he said, “I don’t have the patent on what’s the right thing to do” and that he would bring stakeholders together to compromise if elected. However, he decried recent new developments in the district as “creeping gentrification” and voiced concerns about the cost of living in the district. He has also stressed what he sees as a lack of safety on the streets of the district and the need for stronger law enforcement while criticizing bail reforms that the state passed in 2019.

Puliafito criticized the current state of governing on Roosevelt Island, calling for the board of the Roosevelt Island Operation Cooperation (RIOC) to be elected by the island’s residents so that it is “accountable and transparent.” The RIOC board is currently appointed by the Governor.

Election day is Tuesday, November 3. Early voting is already underway and all registered voters are eligible to vote by absentee ballot.

Note: this article has been corrected to reflect that Puliafito will be on the Liberal Party line, not the Conservative Party line.

Make sure to sign your ballot (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Among a package of changes to New York state election law passed since the chaotic June primaries is a provision that requires the Board of Elections to notify voters when their absentee ballots are on the verge of being thrown out and give them a chance to correct certain potential disqualifications. Designed to ensure possibly tens of thousands of intended votes are actually counted, the “curing” mandate applies to a handful of often disenfranchising technicalities, but the newborn steps may add a challenging addition to the already heavy load election administrators are facing as they contend with huge turnout by mail and at the polls.

Roughly 80,000 mail-in ballots were rejected by the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) in June, a vast majority due to issues with the signature on the inner "oath" envelope. Twenty-three percent of absentee ballots were rejected, roughly the same as in the 2016 presidential primary election, but with a twelve-fold increase in the total number of such ballots this year, according to the BOE. With so many people voting by mail due to the coronavirus and related expansion of absentee balloting, lawmakers attempted to mitigate widespread disenfranchisement.

Over 1 million voters had already requested absentee ballots for the general election as of October 20, according to the city BOE, which said at the time it had processed almost all of them. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is October 27. There were roughly 5,320,000 registered voters in New York City as of February 20, per State Board of Elections numbers.

Mail-in voting, like check-in at a poll site, requires the voter to provide a signature that can be compared against the one on their registration. The new law, passed by the State Legislature in July and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in August, applies to oath envelopes with missing or incorrect signatures, or to ballots returned without the inner envelope altogether.

If an error is found, county boards of elections must now notify the voter, explain why their ballot was rejected, and provide a form through which they may "cure" the mistake. The BOE must send the form through all possible channels, including by post and email, and must begin the process almost immediately after catching the error. Cuomo signed an executive order in August allowing administrators to begin examining ballot envelopes for possible defects "as soon as possible" (though state law requires the inner oath envelopes remain sealed and uncounted until seven days after Election Day to ensure all votes are received).

"We are encouraging the voters to return [absentee ballots] to us as quickly as possible," said BOE executive director Michael Ryan at a City Council oversight hearing in September. "It will provide the maximum period of time to engage in the newly created cure process," he told lawmakers.

"Clearly the sooner that happens the better. If it happens a day before Election Day it's going to be very difficult for the process to be completed," Ryan said. The BOE must accept absentee ballots mailed by or on Election Day (November 3). If administrators determine a ballot is eligible for remedy by the voter, the BOE must begin trying to tell the voter within a day, or the same day if the determination happened on or after Election Day.

The cure form must be completed and returned within seven days of notification if the absentee ballot was received by the city BOE before Election Day, and -- for the 2020 general election only -- within five days if it is received on or after November 3.

The statutory deadline to certify election results is November 28.

The provision may add to an already sizable headache for the BOE which has been attempting to control damage caused by a printing error that resulted in as many as 100,000 Brooklyn voters receiving an oath envelope with another voter's name. The board sent out guidance to impacted voters, instructing them to destroy old ballot materials and providing new ones.

But thousands of unsuspecting voters may have submitted the incorrect envelope with a mismatched signature. It is unclear how the ballot cure law will impact them and whether registered voters whose envelopes were mistakenly signed by someone else will be given an opportunity to cure the defects on another voter's ballot. The new curing law was not specifically designed to account for such a mistake.

An aide to State Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the elections committee and sponsored the cure bill, said the BOE may have no way of knowing who the incorrect signature belongs to. Administrators will be able to inform a voter whose ballot was incorrectly "used" but the person who accidentally cast the ballot -- voted, signed, and returned an envelope -- may not know that their attempted vote was not counted, unless they catch the mailing or track the status of their ballot online (a new feature in New York City this election).

The New York City Board of Elections did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

​An "overwhelming number" of invalidated absentee ballots in June were the result of completely missing signatures, Ryan said in September. To help avoid this problem, the state has placed a large, red 'X'red 'X' on the inner envelope to indicate where a signature is required.

The cure form asks the voter to attest "to the same information required by the affirmation envelope" and "that the signer of the affirmation is the same person who submitted such absentee ballot," according to guidelines issued by the State Board of Elections to county boards.

The new requirements entail brand new procedures in an already tumultuous election cycle for administrators that is expected to see enormous voter turnout for the presidential election.

Above all is the new requirement to notify voters, and state guidelines say that message must be conveyed through virtually every channel available to the BOE. When an absentee ballot is received, evaluated, and put in line for rejection before Election Day, the BOE must attempt to contact the voter at the address on their registration and the address indicated on their absentee ballot application. If the board has any email addresses or phone numbers on file, it must make attempts on all of them.

"What might be seen as the greatest departure from the normal process is the notification. Having to notify a voter that there is some defect, either by phone or email, is the introduction of a step that wasn't there before," Myrie told Gotham Gazette. In the high-turnout 2020 elections, he acknowledged that is a big lift, but one that would help "restore credibility to the [voting] process."

Some additional provisions have been set out by executive order that partially ease the burden on administrators for cures to ballots received on or after Election Day. When Cuomo signed the bill into law, he included a memorandum saying it would apply for the 2020 general election but would be revisited to determine its permanence.

For ballots received on or after Election Day, which is November 3, the guidelines allow administrators to forgo a physical mailing unless both no email is available and no contact is made by phone. The leeway applies only to the 2020 general election.

The guidelines also say county boards must notify voters even when their ballots are rejected for reasons that are not curable. If the cure itself is rejected before Election Day, administrators are required "to the extent practicable" to inform voters and give information of alternative ways to vote.

"There is an entire process set up by which they examine absentee ballots...what this bill does requires them to then make a notification," Myrie said. In doing so, it also adds a new document that will need to be processed on a large scale.

All of this takes time and resources. The BOE estimates the total canvassing process -- the time it takes to review all the votes cast -- will take 21 days from Election Day, placing final official results somewhere around November 24.

Part of the extended timeline is because envelope signatures for mail-in ballots are examined by hand by bipartisan teams -- one Democrat and one Republican -- as are many functions carried out by election administrators. If the BOE team makes a preliminary ruling of a mismatched signature, a team of managers reviews the decision. State guidelines advise boards that signatures are variable and may not always match the one on file, even if they are correct. The state BOE has instructed local administrators to "presume that the documents were signed by the same person."

The BOE expects a high number of ballot cures but a report on the city's staffing needs, submitted to the state Board, omits information on the status of personnel hired to carry out the process.

"Given the anticipated volume of individual cures and to ensure the timely processing of same, the final stages of automation to assist in processing is being completed. Upon completion, the Board will finalize the number of staff assigned to this task," reads the report. As of October 14, the city BOE had not provided those figures to the state.

A spokesperson for the state Board said they believed recently purchased vote-sorting machines have the ability to file ballots based on missing envelope information.

Other issues don't require a cure according to guidance from the state BOE. That includes wrongly placed signature, incorrect date, use of pencil or pen, extra paper when it is material provided by the BOE, random marks or tears on the envelope that look like the result of mailing.

When voting by mail and hoping to avoid the curing process altogether, voters should ensure both the return envelope and inner "oath" envelope are fully sealed, and that the inner one is signed and correctly dated.

CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez and students, pre-pandemic (photo: City University of New York)

College seniors who graduated this June faced a very different economic landscape from the one they saw at the beginning of the school year. A global pandemic shattered the job market, and many industries — including the performing arts, entertainment, restaurants, and hospitality and tourism — were in complete freefall after government-mandated closures. 

The widespread financial strain that saw unemployment in New York City skyrocket from 4% to well over 20% was felt acutely among the 271,000 students of the City University of New York. CUNY educates some of the city’s most vulnerable residents: almost half of CUNY students come from households that bring in less than $20,000 in annual income. Nearly 40% of students had lost their jobs since the pandemic began and over half had experienced housing insecurity, a university official said at a June City Council hearing. 

The CUNY community, including students and their families, faculty, and staff, is a microcosm of the devastation that has already been wrought by the pandemic — especially in communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus — and of the immense challenges facing New York City. The city is staring down a catastrophic fiscal crisis, losing billions of dollars in tax revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs. And as the city feels for handholds to pull itself out of this deep hole, CUNY could be a major boost.

“CUNY is the educational, social mobility driver for the City of New York. We take that role very seriously,” CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said in an interview. 

Uniquely, the majority of CUNY students are New York City residents — around 75 percent — and the majority of students will stay in the city after graduation. In an economy where jobs that don’t require a college degree, like many in hospitality, restaurants, and retail, have been devastated, maintaining an accessible pathway to earning a degree like CUNY offers — and ensuring that New Yorkers enroll and graduate — may be one key to getting New Yorkers back to work. 

Experts and stakeholders interviewed by Gotham Gazette say that New York City and CUNY could, and should, recover together, but warn that CUNY and its students could be left behind if smart steps are not taken. 

“We’re clearly an indispensable partner moving forward in the efforts to bring back the city and the economy, and its social and civic life,” Matos Rodríguez said. “We’ve been working very hard with different sectors — the business community, with elected officials, with some of the other civic society groups who are framing an agenda about what needs to be done, so we can be an integral part of all those conversations.”

The Road to Recovery
CUNY students have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Cathy Davidson, the founding director of the Futures Initiative, a CUNY-supported program that seeks to advance equity in higher education. 

“CUNY students were and are the city’s essential workers,” she said, noting that many students who work at CUNY hold jobs that stayed in operation during the COVID-19 shutdown, such as in pharmacies, grocery stores, delivery services, and health care. Over half of CUNY students work a minimum of 20 hours a week while going to school, which for CUNY includes 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, and seven graduate, honors and professional schools. 

Prior to the pandemic, New York City already had a “bifurcated” economy, according to Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the New York policy think tank Center for an Urban Future. There was a lot of low-wage job growth, in industries like home health care, restaurants, nail salons, and child care, as well as high-wage growth in areas like technology and creative industries, he explained. 

Now, some of New York City’s most important low-wage industries are among the most deeply impacted by COVID-19. A July report by Center for an Urban Future found that the restaurant, retail, and the personal care industries suffered some of the greatest job losses in the early months of the pandemic, alongside the entertainment industry, the hospitality industry, and transportation. Meanwhile, jobs in tech, finance, legal services, and some creative industries, like streaming and publishing, saw comparatively minimal job losses, alongside industries like grocery stores and healthcare.

After a methodical, limited reopening of the economy, the unemployment rate in New York City was at roughly 14% in September, up from 3.5% the same month in 2019. 

“If anything, the pandemic has further polarized New York’s economy. The data that I’m seeing suggests that the industries that have been hurt the most are also the ones that were most accessible for people without a college degree,” Bowles said.

As it currently stands, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the broad strokes of his “recovery agenda” in late September, he did not mention CUNY. The agenda, which de Blasio said sets a “framework” for a series of more specific plans to come, focuses primarily on public health, public health research, “high quality jobs,” and social justice. “New York City is about to enter a transformational era,” de Blasio said in a statement at the time, outlining pillars to connect economic and public health, in part through a “highly trained workforce” and academic research.

Asked about how the mayor sees CUNY in relation to the city's recovery from the coronavirus recession, the mayor's office did not respond for this story.

As New York City tries to recover, CUNY could be the springboard that many current students and potential ones need to secure jobs and bounce into a higher income bracket. In a normal year, CUNY is already a social-mobility booster: a recent Brookings Institution report ranked 12 CUNY senior colleges and community colleges as showing some of the greatest results in being able to move students into the middle class in the nation. 

The colleges themselves also are economic generators. Economic studies on the City College of New York and Queens College released early this year, for instance, found that both colleges added billions to the New York economy through alumni earnings, as well as millions of dollars through college operations, student, construction, and research spending. 

Most students will stay in the state after graduation, and for a while: according to CUNY data released in 2014, 81% of students who graduated across CUNY degree levels in 2008 stayed in New York, while 66% from 1999 stayed in the state, and 72% stayed from the class of 1981. 

And most will hold jobs soon after they graduate: 79% of students who earned a bachelor’s degree were employed in New York within a year of graduation, according to the most recent data from CUNY. Graduates work across a litany of professions, with business and finance, architecture and engineering, and education being some of the major fields of employment for CUNY alums, a 2009-2010 CUNY survey reported. Of graduates in the survey, 30% worked in the public sector. 

“I think more than ever New York needs to develop its own talent and to give its own residents a chance to access the good jobs that are being created. And I don’t think there’s any other institution that plays a more important role in grooming local residents [than CUNY], particularly those from low-income backgrounds, into the good jobs of today, and into the middle class,” Bowles said.

The Past and the New Future
The financial crisis that New York faces rivals what the city faced in the 1970s, according to Greg David, the director of the Business & Economics Reporting Program at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. 

“There is no doubt that this crisis is far worse than the last three,” David said. Somewhat recent financial crises for the city include the 2008 Great Recession, the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and the recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The city’s near-bankruptcy in the 1970s marked a particularly dark time for CUNY: as part of drastic cuts, the colleges began charging students after almost 130 years of remaining tuition-free. This decision remains controversial, and City Council members and state legislators still periodically suggest reverting CUNY back to its tuition-free state, while student and activist groups like Free CUNY push them with that goal. 

City Comptroller Scott Stringer recently picked up on the theme when he proposed making CUNY community colleges free in a much larger plan to develop New York City’s workforce for a post-pandemic world. Facets of the plan include expanding CUNY ASAP, a highly successful financial assistance and academic support program, creating a paid internship program for CUNY students, and expanding technical career education and early-college education in public schools. The plan additionally focuses on helping New Yorkers between jobs to develop the skills they need to reenter the workforce, suggesting “micro-credentialing” and other training. 

“My plan overhauls and modernizes our approach to job training, job placement, and education to reflect the evolution of work and aims to break down systemic barriers that have historically excluded women, people of color, immigrants and young people from higher-wage industries,” Stringer, a Democrat running for mayor in 2021, said in a statement. 

CUNY’s population is composed largely of students of color. Across all campuses and degree levels, the student population is made up of roughly 23% Black students, 26% Hispanic students, 23% students who identify as Asian or Pacific Islander, and 27% white students, according to the most recent figures. The same data shows that CUNY also serves a majority of female students, coming in at over 60%. 

Matos Rodríguez sees city and state government investment in CUNY as a “two-way street,” which will be part of a longer-term strategy to economically reinvigorate New York. 

He referenced partnerships including a Governor Andrew Cuomo-backed workforce development initiative that includes CUNY, as well as more support for paid internships. For instance, in addition to his community college plan, Stringer announced paid fellowships to CUNY graduates in the Comptroller’s Office. 

“I think those kinds of two-way partnerships will be crucial to make sure we can do our part in the economic recovery of the city,” Matos Rodríguez said. One essential question is scale. Stringer’s fellowship program, for example, is for only 20 students per year, but is part of a larger constellation of similar programs, such as the CUNY Cultural Corps internship program, that could become part of a broader universe. 

Beyond the city and state, CUNY has leveraged partnerships with private companies, such as those involved in the new New York Jobs CEO Council. Supported by Cuomo and de Blasio and announced in August amid the pandemic, the council seeks to hire 100,000 New Yorkers, including 25,000 CUNY students, at major New York City-based companies by 2030. The council includes industry titans like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. 

The Budget Conundrum 
Despite assertions that CUNY can be a key part of the pandemic recovery, the public university system is not immune to the pandemic-driven budget woes plaguing the city and state. 

“CUNY is facing tremendous cuts, I’m afraid to say,” State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Higher Education.

“CUNY is in desperate need of federal stimulus money, as other agencies are, obviously,” Stavisky added. “I think we’re all waiting to see what will happen with the stimulus money. And that will be probably right after the election, is my guess.” 

Just like the city and the state, CUNY has called on the federal government in public statements to provide it with an infusion of federal dollars, or else it may need to make drastic reductions in spending. In May, Cuomo called on Congress to provide $60 billion in federal aid to shore up New York, from state government through localities, the MTA, and other governmental entities. The state government projects a $14.5 billion decline in revenue this year to its coffers alone.

“CUNY has long played an important role as an underpinning of the economy, and there’s not question it’ll have a role to play as we work to revive the economy from the damage done by the pandemic,” said Freeman Klopott, spokesperson with the New York State Division of the Budget, which is part of the governor's administration. “To fully leverage CUNY, and all of the state’s resources, we need federal funding to offset the state’s devastating revenue losses that are due entirely to the pandemic. With federal funding, New York State can lead the national recovery as the producer of 8% of national GDP, and without it, the national recovery will be slowed.”

The Professional Staff Congress, CUNY’s faculty and staff union, has also been pushing for a federal stimulus. CUNY already laid off thousands of adjuncts over the summer, and as cuts continue to roll in, professors and staff are concerned not only about job security, but that the university system could be hindered by problems like slashed course offerings and increased class sizes.  

“We feel that CUNY could play a key role, an essential role in recovery,” said Barbara Bowen, a Queens College professor and the president of PSC. “Our position is that CUNY should be expanded now,” Bowen continued, arguing that funding was key to providing students with the necessary tools to succeed. 

Likely due to the pandemic, CUNY’s student enrollment and enrollment revenue have both also taken hits: there has been a roughly 4.4% enrollment decline since the same time last fall, though official, final figures have not yet been tabulated, according to CUNY. 

“We’re trying to stay in touch with students,” Matos Rodríguez said of students who had dropped out in spring when the pandemic first hit and had not returned in the fall. “At some point, hopefully in the not so distant future, we’ll be back to normal, we’ll have a lot more of our face-to-face courses, and then we’ll be able to reconnect to those students.” CUNY has begun the semester almost exclusively via online courses, with a few exceptions.

City Council Member Inez Barron, chair of the Council’s Committee on Higher Education, said she would like to see the city and state take on more financial responsibility for CUNY, after years of routine underfunding.

“Whereas decades ago, a high school diploma was sufficient, and more recently, a college degree would give you some kind of guarantees, we now know that we need to make sure that high school students are prepared to function in today’s society, and that requires post-secondary training,” Barron said in an interview. “And I think it’s incumbent on the city and the state to provide a minimum of two years of course offerings beyond 12th grade so that students are prepared to function in today’s society.”

While she doesn’t yet know what role CUNY will play in the larger New York recovery, Barron believes that CUNY needs to hire and promote more Black faculty and upper level management to address the needs of a diverse student population. According to the most recent figures, only about 12% of the 7,280 members of CUNY’s full-time faculty are Black.

“I question how CUNY can in fact step up and be that system that will help correct what has been historic injustices over the years, and play a significant part in addressing that. So, that remains to be seen,” she said. 

Despite clouds of uncertainty surrounding the budget, experts, officials, professors, and students agree that CUNY can and must be part of the New York recovery from the coronavirus recession.

“CUNY is going to be a vehicle of social upward mobility no matter what,” said Timothy Hunter, the recently-departed chair of the CUNY University Student Senate and a recent graduate, in a September interview. He highlighted the impact that CUNY and its graduates have already had on the state for decades, noting that many elected officials themselves graduated from CUNY.

“I think our elected officials know that CUNY is important, and the numbers and the data is there, I just think that all they need now is just the funding,” he said. “And if we don’t get that, then we won’t be able to have the impact that we’re destined to have on New York City and New York state as a whole.”