Election day in New York: Democratic weakness in the Empire State

ANDREW MORIN: After a year of political turmoil in New York following the resignation of Governor Andrew Cuomo, a bitterly contested mayoral primary and an ongoing struggle between progressives and moderate Democrats, New York held local and county elections across the state last Tuesday. While less high-profile than the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey, the results in one of the country's more populous and most Democratic states reveal crucial information about the current political climate. Democrats suffered a series of defeats across the state in a wide array of contests, especially outside of New York City itself.

In New York City, Democrats largely held their existing strength. Five months after a narrowly-decided ranked-choice primary, Democratic mayoral candidate Eric Adams defeated Republican Curtis Silwa, winning substantially with almost two-thirds of the vote in a margin effectively unchanged from Bill de Blasio's 2017 victory. Adams, however, primarily represents a much more moderate lane within the party than outgoing mayor de Blasio, with the two having already clashed repeatedly on issues of schools, pandemic regulations and law enforcement reform. Furthermore, despite Democrats holding the Public Advocate and City Comptroller office, the party still lost ground, notably in the outer boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, where city Republicans appear to have flipped at least two city council seats as well as performed strongly in local judicial elections. 

However, outside of the city, Democrats showed further weakness as Republicans won an important string of victories in two suburban Long Island counties representing almost 3 million people. In suburban Nassau County, which Joe Biden won by ten percentage points in 2020, Republicans appear to have won control, defeating the incumbent Democratic county executive. Further down the ballot, the Democratic district attorney candidate lost by roughly twenty points, while the incumbent Democrat in neighboring Suffolk lost by almost fifteen, large swings from 2017 races and a steep drop from Biden's 2020 strength. These races largely centered on the state's controversial 2020 bail reform bill, which sought to reduce prison populations by decreasing the usage of cash bail and has been fiercely resisted by state Republicans. Elsewhere, the Democratic vote held up more strongly, as George Latimer easily won reelection as county executive of suburban Westchester County, which he had flipped from Republican control in 2017. 

In the critical upstate region stretching from the Hudson River to the Canadian border, Democrats and the left suffered further setbacks. In Buffalo's mayoral election, Democratic nominee and democratic socialist India Walton was defeated through a write-in campaign by incumbent mayor Byron Brown, despite Walton being the only name on the ballot. Having lost the Democratic primary to Walton in the spring, Brown was buoyed by substantial support from city Republicans in a victorious write-in campaign against the left-wing Democratic nominee. While both of New York's senators, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, endorsed Walton, much of the state's political establishment, including Governor Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native herself, did not make any endorsement in the race. Elsewhere upstate, Democrats also underperformed, losing seats on the State Supreme Court and town councils. 

Finally, while there were no statewide elections on the ballot, state Democrats suffered further defeats in a series of important ballot initiatives. After Democrats won control of the State Senate in the 2018 midterms, the body embarked on a reform program to liberalize a highly restrictive electoral system. Building on these reforms in 2021, the senate sought voter approval to alter the state constitution to sanction expanding early permanently and absentee voting. These ballot initiatives, along with another proposed by state Democrats to reform the redistricting process, all failed last Tuesday after a vigorous campaign by state Republicans in opposition to the reforms. With almost no active campaigning from statewide elected Democrats or the state party in favor, the measures failed to pass in a state Joe Biden won with 61% of the vote, as many predominantly Democratic voters in New York City simply left the questions blank. 

While important in their own right, these losses are also a warning for the critical elections on the ballot next year, when the state will hold legislative, congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial elections. While redistricting is yet to be completed in the state and Republican control of any major office remains highly unlikely, further Democratic losses seem possible, be it valuable seats in the United States House of Representatives, their new supermajority in the New York State Senate, or even the governorship itself.

Tuesday's results also reflect the New York Democratic Party's ideological differences, most clearly demonstrated in Buffalo and critical in New York City, Yonkers, Rochester, and other cities and towns across the state. With a congressional delegation divided between progressive leaders and high-ranking members of the party establishment and substantial remaining Republicans strength in suburban and rural areas, New York stands at an electoral crossroads ahead of next year's battles.

Andrew Morin is a freshman in the SFS from New York with an interest in Congressional politics and foreign policy.