Cheat Sheet: Navigating New York’s 2024 Elections
Here are the five topics we’re watching with the elections less than three weeks away.
Election Day is less than three weeks away, and while New York isn’t one of the seven swing states that will likely decide the presidential election, there are still a number of important issues for Empire State residents to vote on.
Here’s New York Focus’s guide to what’s at stake and why it all matters.
There are hundreds of candidates running for state legislature, local judgeships, school boards, district attorneys’ offices, and more. We’ve picked five key topics to focus on:
- The presidential and US Senate elections.
- How New York’s battleground House seats could decide control of Congress.
- Five ballot measures for New York City voters that Mayor Eric Adams says would improve city government — but opponents claim are just a power play.
- A proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the New York State Constitution, which supporters say would protect abortion access.
- Whether Democrats will lose their supermajorities in the state legislature.
You can read the rest of our coverage of New York’s elections here.
Does Donald Trump have any chance in New York?
Almost certainly not.
Democratic candidates for president easily won the state in 2016 and 2020, and according to a New York Times analysis of polling through Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris has led Trump in New York by an average of 14 points.
That hasn’t prevented Trump from scheduling a rally at Madison Square Garden a little more than a week before Election Day.
The only US senator up for re-election in New York, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, is expected to win easily. A Siena poll conducted in mid-September showed Gillibrand with a 23-point lead over her Republican challenger, retired New York City Police Department detective Mike Sapraicone.
Can New York Republicans help their party keep control of the House?
Congressional Democrats had a good election year almost everywhere in 2022 — except in New York.
Here, Republicans flipped the House after picking up three seats and giving New York its largest Republican congressional delegation in more than 20 years.
Now, Republicans’ ability to hold onto their fragile majority may depend on whether they win the seven competitive House races in New York: three on Long Island and four throughout the rest of the state.
New York has more competitive House seats than any other state except California, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. The New York State Democratic Party is mounting a multimillion-dollar campaign targeting all seven seats, seeking to defend the two held by Representatives Tom Suozzi and Pat Ryan and flip the other five.
Here are the candidates in the seven battlegrounds:
First congressional district, Suffolk County: Incumbent Republican Nick LaLota, a former Suffolk County public servant, vs. Democrat John Avlon, a journalist and former speechwriter for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Third congressional district, Suffolk, Nassau, and Queens counties: Incumbent Democrat Tom Suozzi, a veteran representative, vs. Republican Mike LiPetri, a former lobbyist and state assemblymember. (This is George Santos’s old seat!)
Fourth congressional district, Nassau County: Incumbent Republican Anthony D’Esposito vs. Democrat Laura Gillen. Both are former local politicians.
Seventeenth congressional district, Lower Hudson Valley: Incumbent Republican Mike Lawler, a former state assemblymember, vs. Democrat Mondaire Jones, a former representative.
Eighteenth congressional district, Mid-Hudson Valley: Incumbent Democrat Pat Ryan, a former county executive, vs. Republican Alison Esposito, a retired New York City police officer.
Nineteenth congressional district, Hudson Valley, Catskills, and Finger Lakes: Incumbent Republican Marc Molinaro, a former local politician, vs. Democrat Josh Riley, an attorney.
Twenty-second congressional district, Central New York: Incumbent Republican Brandon Williams, a navy veteran, businessman, and farmer, vs. Democrat John Mannion, a state senator. A court-ordered redrawing of the lines earlier this year made the swing seat friendlier to Democrats.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who is helping to run and fund the state Democratic Party’s campaign to win these seats, has also staked her political reputation on avenging her party’s 2022 losses. She was widely criticized, including by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for her anemic campaign that year; she eked out a narrow win over Republican Lee Zeldin just two years after Biden won the state by more than 20 points.
If Democrats take back the house, Brooklyn’s Representative Hakeem Jeffries will likely become speaker. He would be the first New Yorker in the position since Theodore Pomeroy held it for a single day in 1869.
Will Eric Adams’s bid to revise New York City’s charter be successful despite his indictment?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s political future is hanging by a thread as he faces federal prosecution for bribery and multiple law enforcement investigations into potential corruption within his administration.
Nonetheless, his administration is proposing five amendments to the city charter that New York City voters will see on their ballots next month.
The Equal Rights Amendment (described in detail lower in this story) will be the first question on New Yorkers’ ballots. The rest of the charter amendments will be numbered two through six.
They deal with issues ranging from trash pickup to public safety, but many observers of city politics think that Adams and his allies have an ulterior motive for pushing the proposals: to block a prior City Council-led effort to amend the city charter.
In mid-May, the City Council proposed a ballot measure that would have asked New Yorkers to vote on increasing the number of city government positions that require a confirmation vote from the council. The move would have placed a check on the mayor’s power to make appointments.
Days later, Adams announced that he was forming a commission to consider separate changes to the charter.
Per city law, mayoral and city council proposals can’t appear on the same ballot, and the mayor’s take precedence — bumping the city council’s proposed change off this year’s ballot.
At least 19 City Council members and numerous other elected officials are urging voters to reject the measures, calling them a power grab by a mayor mired in scandal.
The first of the proposals could bring significant changes to the city’s Sanitation Department. The other four are fairly minor.
Here’s what they would do:
Ballot Measure Two: The first measure would expand the purview of the city Department of Sanitation. It would allow sanitation workers to operate in parks and other non-street public spaces, including by issuing tickets to unlicensed vendors there, which is currently the responsibility of the police and parks departments. (Those departments would retain that authority if the measure passes.) It would also allow the department to require that buildings use containers to take out trash rather than placing bags on the sidewalk, which is a key plank of Adams’s war on rats.
Ballot Measure Three: This one would give the mayor-controlled Office of Management and Budget an opportunity to estimate the cost of any proposed law prior to a City Council vote, something that the City Council is already required to do. The measure would also obligate the council to prepare their estimate earlier in the legislative process, before public hearings are held, so cost can be taken into account before a vote.
Ballot Measures Four, Five, and Six: Four would require the City Council to give 30 days’ notice to the police, fire, or corrections departments, along with the public, before voting on any legislation that affects those divisions of government. Five would push the city to collect more information about some of its maintenance needs. And six would amend the charter to establish a city “chief business diversity officer,” change rules governing what part of government issues film permits, and merge two municipal archive boards.
Scintillating stuff!
Will New York voters pass an amendment enshrining abortion rights?
Two years ago, poor Democratic performance in New York congressional races helped prevent the party from regaining a majority in the US Congress.
While Hochul was singled out for blame, she and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, are pushing a strategy for electoral redemption this year: a ballot proposition that would enshrine abortion rights and other civil protections into New York’s constitution.
The effort comes two years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for decades had generally protected people’s right to have an abortion.
In the November 2023 elections, the issue of abortion proved highly effective for Democrats. Even in the South and Rust Belt, Democrats who focused on the issue were able to pull off victories despite President Joe Biden’s unpopularity at the time.
While New York already has strong laws on the books protecting abortion, Democrats say a constitutional amendment is a necessary bulwark against state Republicans potentially changing the laws in the future.
But the amendment does more than protect abortion rights. It would bar discrimination in New York based on “ethnicity, natural origin, age, disability, creed or religion”; sex, including “sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression”; or “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
In a state where Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2002, Democrats gaining the majority vote needed to pass an abortion rights measure would seem a slam dunk. And a Siena Research Institute poll from mid-September showed that voters supported the proposed Equal Rights Amendment 64 to 23 percent.
Yet some Democratic strategists in the state are growing concerned.
Last year, Democrats said they planned to raise $20 million to push for the amendment’s passage. But according to campaign finance records, the main group pushing the cause — New Yorkers for Equal Rights — only had about $1.7 million in cash on hand through September.
Some pundits believe the ballot language is confusing and note that it never mentions the word abortion, giving opponents the opportunity to redefine it.
Those opponents say abortion is not under threat in New York. They have also gained traction by criticizing other sections of the amendment, including an argument that it would lead to transgender people playing women’s sports.
Proponents respond that under current state law, children already have the right to play on sports teams aligning with their gender identity.
While a well-funded opposition has not yet materialized, an independent expenditure committee, whose treasurer has often worked for well-funded national Republican efforts, was created in late September.
So far, however, the “Vote NO On Prop One Committee” has not disclosed any fundraising. Billionaire Ronald Lauder, the biggest donor to many past conservative independent expenditure efforts in the state, has reportedly decided to stay out of this battle.
Hochul’s campaign in 2022 hammered the issue of abortion, while her Republican opponent, former Representative Lee Zeldin, concentrated on crime.
Still, New York Democrats believe focusing on the issue this year will boost their congressional candidates.
Can Republicans make a dent in the state legislature’s Democratic majorities?
The significant majorities Democrats hold in both the state Senate and Assembly don’t appear to be in danger this year, although it’s possible Republicans could begin chipping away.
Through the 2016 elections, Republicans held a majority in New York’s Senate for most of five decades. But their fortunes waned dramatically during the presidency of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly driven turnout among Democratic voters.
In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats resoundingly won a majority and have since expanded it. The party currently controls 41 of 63 seats in the chamber. (Another seat is currently vacant, and Democrats are expected to easily retain it.)
To determine which races Senate Democrats consider priorities, just look at their campaign arm spending.
Through September, Senate Democrats spent $350,000 boosting state Senator Peter Harckham, who represents a Hudson Valley district. He is running against Republican Gina Arena.
Democrats have spent nearly $343,000 supporting Syracuse’s Chris Ryan, the minority leader of the Onondaga County Legislature. Ryan is running against Salina Town Supervisor Nick Paro for a seat vacated by a Democrat, John Mannion, who is running for Congress.
Republicans have reported spending about $11,000 boosting Paro.
Democrats had spent $328,000 boosting Sarah Anker, a former Suffolk County legislator. She is challenging incumbent Republican state Senator Anthony Palumbo.
Senate Republicans have spent most of their more limited resources boosting incumbent members. Foremost among them has been Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick of Nassau County on Long Island ($160,000), who is running against Democrat James Lynch, a psychiatrist; Jack Martins of Nassau ($129,000), who is running against Democrat Kim Keiserman, an educator; and Jake Ashby ($48,000), who represents an Albany-area district and is running against Democrat Alvin Gamble, a local lawmaker in the town of Colonie.
As for the Assembly, Democrats have held the majority for decades and control 100 of the 150 seats. (There are two vacancies.)
While Democrats’ majorities appear safe, their supermajorities may not be. It’s an open question whether Democrats will control two-thirds of the seats in both chambers, allowing them to overcome gubernatorial vetoes without help from Republicans. That may be more of an academic question than a practical one. Democrats have at times enjoyed such majorities in recent years, but so far have not used that power to override vetoes issued by Hochul, a fellow Democrat.
