[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, to the local Election Day scene with national implications because control of Congress is running through the New York City suburbs again this year on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley and The Tom Kean, Jr.-Sue Altman race in New Jersey. We'll keep taking your Election Day calls throughout the show on any race or ballot question you've decided how to vote on.

In the last week, we're looking for late deciders or any questions you have for our guests. In this segment, any of the local swing congressional districts or the New York State Equal Rights Amendment, that's Proposition 1, on the back of your ballot or any other ballot measure, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. We'll combine this with our weekly visit from our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Liz usually joins us on Wednesdays after the mayor's Tuesday news conferences.

This week, the mayor held a news conference yesterday, Monday, because of Election Day. Much of the discussion with reporters was Election Day-related. With us now are WNYC City Hall reporter Liz Kim and Nick Reisman from Politico New York, a reporter covering New York state government and politics and co-author of the daily New York Playbook newsletter. Nick Reisman, let me say your name right. Hi, Liz and Nick. Thanks for some Election Day time today away from your actual job. Nick for Politico, welcome back to WNYC.

Nick Reisman: Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it.

Elizabeth Kim: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Nick, I'll start with you. On Proposition 1, you had a piece yesterday called Amendment Anxieties. Remind everyone of what this is.

Nick Reisman: Well, this is Proposal 1. This is the so-called Equal Rights Amendment. It is different from what had been a long proposed amendment at the federal level called the Equal Rights Amendment. This is a state-level version. Essentially, what the Equal Rights Amendment purports to do is that it would bar discrimination against a variety of vulnerable groups in New York. That includes LGBTQ+ individuals. That includes barring discrimination against national origin.

It is also meant to bar discrimination against, and I'm quoting here from the ballot language, "pregnancy outcomes." That is taken to mean any variety of pregnancy outcomes, including the right to obtain an abortion in New York as well. You have to go back to a few years ago, back in 2022, when the US Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. As a result of that, Democratic state lawmakers decided to respond by passing this state-level version of the Equal Rights Amendment, setting in motion the process to amend the state constitution.

Now, it's going to be put before voters today. There is some significant controversy and some questions about whether something like this can actually pass even in deep-blue New York because there has been a somewhat, to this point, effective opposition campaign raising all sorts of questions and concerns, what they're calling possible unintended consequences with the proposed constitutional amendment such as trans people participating in girls' and women's sports, the idea that non-citizens would be able to vote in New York elections, and a whole variety of things that supporters of the amendment say amount to fearmongering.

Nevertheless, there is a concern that the opponents have had a significant head start on something like this. A lot of the supporters have really struggled to gain traction for a variety of reasons, ranging from how one of the main ballot committees supporting the ERA has been spending a lot of money on consultants and polling and not really a lot of money until very late in the game on voter contact. There was a real effort to get Governor Kathy Hochul involved with this amendment process as well.

She has started to promote it alongside some of the other statewide Democrats like Attorney General Letitia James. There is some question about whether something like this can pass. If you talk to Republicans and Democrats alike, they do expect it will. Even if it's, say, under 60% or in the mid-50% passage rate, that would consider to be something of an embarrassment for Democrats who had pushed something like this through with the expectation that it would pass by a very wide margin in a state known for having pretty strong abortion rights already on the books.

Brian Lehrer: Before we bring in Liz to this conversation on some things Mayor Adams is saying about the election and, Liz, I'll ask you if he's taken a clear stand on Prop 1 or an enthusiastic stand, but even beyond the Democrats being embarrassed by a small margin of victory, Nick, we've seen abortion rights measures all over the country that are expected to increase turnout by Democrats that will also help their candidates. Could this go the other way? Do you have any indication that this is energizing the Republican opposition more and actually potentially winding up helping the Republicans in the swing congressional districts?

Nick Reisman: That was a concern that I heard over the summer actually, starting around mid-August, that the polling had come back in some of these swing seats, especially on Long Island in the Hudson Valley, the suburban House seats that we've all been watching for the last two years, that the attacks on the Equal Rights Amendment had a beneficial impact potentially for some of these Republican candidates.

It's really important to note that when there was not a lot of activity on the pro Proposal 1 side, the anti-Proposal 1 side in the middle of summer, kind of a slow news time, believe it or not, for a lot of local news, the antis were holding news conferences in the middle of the day to raise all of their concerns with Proposal 1. That was making it on local news across the state, not just in New York City region, but really statewide. I've been talking to a couple of Democratic operatives and strategists in some of these House races. They say that this has had an effect on some of these races. Initially, this was supposed to be a boon for Democratic turnout. It could actually boomerang on them and turn the other direction.

Brian Lehrer: If it had just been an abortion rights referendum to enshrine that in the state constitution, it might have gone one way because it includes the words "gender identity" and "national origin," which are big hot buttons for the right right now. We'll see how much it goes the other way in terms of what it produces with respect to turnout. Liz Kim, as our lead Eric Adams reporter, has the mayor taken a strong stand on Prop 1?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know about strong. He was asked about it last week and he basically said, yes, he supports it. The mayor hasn't really said much about any election, local or national, and that's been something that's been really, I think, quizzical to a lot of the press corps. He's really been pressed on his views about the national election. His position on that has also been very vague.

As we talked about last week, he's declined to condemn Donald Trump. He was asked whether he agreed with some critics that Trump is a fascist and he said no to that. He's also not really said much about Vice President Harris either. That was something that reporters really tried to pressure him on yesterday. A reporter even said to him that we've noticed that he hasn't even said Harris's name.

Brian Lehrer: Here's his response to that.

Mayor Eric Adams: I have to be extremely careful. Everything I do is critiqued highly and I have to be careful. If I'm doing electioneering here at this podium, you're going to write a story on me. I got to understand what I'm doing. My legal team said, "Eric, here's what you can do and what you can't do." I have to make sure I do it correctly. You damn if you do, you damn if you don't. I stated that everyone knows who I endorse. Everyone knew that I left this beautiful city to go to the Windy City as a super delegate. I don't know which more enthusiasm you need for me to do so.

Brian Lehrer: If he had just said, "Everyone knows who I endorse. I endorse Kamala Harris," would he be running afoul of some law against electioneering? Is that clear that he wouldn't be?

Elizabeth Kim: I called Reinvent Albany. They're a government watchdog. I just wanted to make sure what they think about this. They told me, "No, the mayor has a First Amendment right to express his opinion even in that particular setting." I even went back and I looked at transcripts of Mayor de Blasio in 2020. Even then on Election Day, I saw, and even before he expressed why he thought Joe Biden was the right candidate for New Yorkers.

The mayor wouldn't be electioneering. I don't even know who he's referring to in terms of his legal team. Is that his legal team defending him in the federal corruption case or is that just his general legal counsel as mayor? No, he would not be running afoul of any rules. The mayor just clearly does not want to say Harris's name. He was asked twice, "Who are you voting for?" His response is always, "You know who I've endorsed."

Brian Lehrer: The speculation is that he's soft-pedaling any opposition to Trump because Trump has taken the position that the indictment of Eric Adams is illegitimate and being brought for political reasons by the Biden Justice Department and that Adams is trying to curry just enough favor with Trump that he call off that indictment if he's elected president. Can we prove that?

Elizabeth Kim: That's right, Brian. That's the key context here because that's basically what people have been saying that this is about. Trump has expressed sympathy for the mayor. He also does have a track record of using the presidential pardon to commute sentences for Democrats that were convicted of corruption. I'm thinking of Blagojevich. I'm thinking about the ex-Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick. Those are two examples.

Brian Lehrer: Any last-minute deciders out there? So far, we haven't gotten any. I've been inviting people from the beginning of the show and been getting good relevant questions on other things, but I'm curious. Any last-minute deciders on Prop 1? Any last-minute deciders in the swing congressional districts in our area? They're called swing congressional districts because they could go either way.

Anybody waiting till the last minute and recently made up your mind or any relevant question for Nick or Liz? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Here's one on one of the swing congressional races. Republican incumbent Mike Lawler, north of the city, versus his Democratic challenger, former Congressman Mondaire Jones. Jennifer in Ossining, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to let people know that there is a fake candidate in our district, in the 17th congressional district. Anthony Frascone is on the Working Families Party ballot line, but he is not supported by the Working Families Party. He is basically on the ballot for the purpose of taking votes away from Mondaire Jones from Working Families Party voters, who otherwise would have been voting for Jones. I'm with the Working Families Party locally and we endorsed Mondaire. He would have been on our ballot line if not for this candidate manipulating our ballot access process.

Brian Lehrer: Right. We've covered this on the show before. It certainly seems well-established that this guy is a fake candidate trying to take votes away from the Democratic nominee, Mondaire Jones, by splitting the vote since, obviously, the Working Families Party is a left of center party. He did win the primary, so how did that happen? If he really is a fake stalking horse for the Republican, how did he beat Mondaire Jones in the Working Families Party primary since it sounds like you're an official with that party?

Jennifer: Well, it's a volunteer position. Essentially, what they did was the Republican Party recruited around 200 Republicans from Rockland County. You can see it in the vote results if you dig in. Mondaire actually won the primary in Westchester, which is not where these people are based who concocted the scheme. It was really the Republican Party that did the whole thing in Rockland. You can see in the results all of the votes or the majority of the votes that were for Frascone came from really Republican areas of Rockland County, where we don't have a lot of support for the Working Families Party.

Brian Lehrer: Although don't you need to be registered in the Working Families Party to vote in their primary?

Jennifer: Yes, that was the 200 people that I referred to. They got a bunch of people who were conservative and either were not registered or were registered as Republicans and had them change their registration to the Working Families Party so that they could sign petitions to force the primary in the first place so that they could go out and vote in the primary.

Brian Lehrer: All right. A good Election Day warning from Jennifer in Ossining with the Working Families Party. If you're to the left of the Democrats generally and you vote Working Families Party when you have the opportunity, the Working Families Party itself is saying in this race, "Don't do it for the candidate that's on the ballot on their line, whose name is Anthony Frascone. It's a fake and he's really just trying to take away votes from the Democrat to get the Republican elected." Jennifer, thank you for your call. Nick, have you covered that? I've seen so much reporting that indicates that the way Jennifer tells the story is accurate. Can you confirm it?

Nick Reisman: Yes, there was an effort to get Anthony Frascone onto the ballot. Certainly, the WFP believes that they are essentially the victim of a Republican-backed scheme. This is not about the volunteers who are part of the WFP. Quite frankly, the WFP itself is not without agency here as its own political force and organization. There have been efforts in the past by Republicans to hijack their ballot line. One would think that in a pretty hotly-contested congressional race like the Mondaire Jones-Mike Lawler seat that the WFP should have, could have been better prepared for a scenario like this.

It's also important to keep in mind that back during the heat of the June primary season, Mondaire Jones endorsed George Latimer in the hotly-contested congressional primary for that Westchester, Bronx House seat over squad member Jamaal Bowman. That angered a lot of left-leaning activists and advocates and voters in the northern New York City suburbs. The strategy that Jones had employed there for that race may have had something to do with some progressive voters cooling on Mondaire Jones as a congressional candidate.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, let's talk about security at polling places. Mayor Adams was asked about this yesterday in his news conference. We talked in our previous segment with Elie Honig about possible threats to poll workers. We know there have been acts of intimidation against poll workers all over the country in 2020 and, again, earlier this year in early voting. When Mayor Adams was asked about that possibility in New York City, he said this.

Mayor Eric Adams: We have two officers at each polling site. The Intelligence Division under Deputy Commissioner Weiner is monitoring all of these different chats and channels to know how do we deploy personnel if needed. People have the right to call the Board of Election as I gave the number earlier, 866-868-3692. We're going to protect the integrity of our electoral process.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor yesterday. Liz, I assume that since New York is not a swing state in the presidential and doesn't really have swing congressional districts even within the city that there's not going to be a lot of focus by anybody trying to cause trouble at polling places. Correct me if I'm wrong. What was the mayor responding to there?

Elizabeth Kim: No, I think you're right there, Brian. I think that a lot of the reasons for having two officers at every polling site, not so much civil unrest, but I think there's always the possibility of really long lines of people getting frustrated. Just this morning, we learned that there were scanners at certain poll sites in Queens that were not working. We've already seen long lines.

The BOE has a checkered history when it comes to running elections in 2021 for the mayoral race that Mayor Adams was in. They bungled the vote tally for that primary. Then in 2016, our own Brigid Bergin reported that over 100,000 voters in Brooklyn were purged from the voting rules. I think it's more about potential chaos that could happen at the polls and just upset and frustrated voters.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Nick in Montclair who's going to say, I think, that he knows somebody who is a last-minute decider. Nick, you're on WNYC. Hello. Do we have Nick in Montclair? Do I have the right name? I think Nick is listening on the 10-second delay on the radio instead of to his phone. Nick in Montclair once. Nick, you there? Is there a Nick in Montclair in this universe and on our phone? No.

Nick: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, there you go. Hi, Nick, good morning.

Nick: Yes, hi. Hi. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Nick: Yes, thanks for taking my call. Well, I've actually been very good friends with this woman for many years. She was a Trump supporter all along. We have argued about it all along. She finally flipped a week ago or whenever it was that idiot made those remarks about Puerto Rico. She's a Latino woman and that was it for her. She finally saw the light and she flipped. I don't know. I haven't met anybody else that is ready to flip.

Brian Lehrer: That's a focus group of one. It's anecdotal evidence, but maybe it's indicative of something. Nick, thank you very much. Nick Reisman from Politico, it's no accident that Kamala Harris spent a lot of yesterday, the last day of campaigning in Pennsylvania, going to some places like Allentown and I think Reading, where there are a fair number of Puerto Rican voters. Remember, Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland are US citizens and can vote in presidential-- All Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but those who live on the mainland can vote in the presidential elections.

She sees some opportunity there. I wonder if there's a New York swing congressional district overtone to any of this, any concentrations of Puerto Rican voters in any of these Long Island or Hudson Valley districts that you've been covering or, for that matter, in the Tom Kean district in New Jersey. I think not so much there, but where it could make a difference since there does seem to be some kind of backlash to that comedian pick to give that what he called comedy at the Trump Madison Square Garden rally last week.

Nick Reisman: Right. What I think is interesting about that, and I haven't done any specific reporting on which House seat could be tipped in the balance because of this, but this all goes to the broader discussion that had been had about voters of color had been trending away from Democrats to former President Trump during much of this election.

Now, we're seeing in the last couple of weeks, in the last couple of days, as it appears that momentum may have been shifted in this race toward Vice President Kamala Harris, that voters of color, including Latinos and Black voters, are more willing to "come home," as they say in politics, and cast a vote for the Democratic ticket, which would be even in some of these very, very close races where you're seeing a lot of discussion about immigration and border security. I'm thinking the Marc Molinaro-Josh Riley race in the Mid-Hudson Valley.

I'm also thinking of also Anthony D'Esposito and Laura Gillen as well where there is a significant population of voters of color in that House seat as well. All of these Latino communities certainly are diverse within themselves. You can't just simply pick out, "Well, Latinos automatically are going to now shift their votes to Democrats as a result of these comments at the MSG rally," but I think it goes to the broader conversation about how Trump was attempting this realignment of the electorate. That may not actually come to pass now. It could be very beneficial for Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket and down into these House races.

Brian Lehrer: In the last week, one of the final-week election campaign stories has been the backlash to that comedian calling Puerto Rico "garbage" and then backlash to President Biden saying that Trump supporters are garbage. He says he was trying just to refer to people like that comedian specifically because he was answering a question about that comedian, not all Trump supporters. Then we had JD Vance yesterday calling Kamala Harris "trash." He said, "We're going to take out the trash and that includes Kamala Harris." As this goes back and forth and back and forth, here's something that Governor Hochul said about those swing district Republicans on MSNBC over the weekend that's making similar news and raising eyebrows.

Governor Kathy Hochul: It gave me a chance to tie the Republicans running these seats, the incumbents closer to Donald Trump, and remind everybody. If you're voting for these Republicans in New York, you are voting for someone who supports Donald Trump. You're anti-woman. You're anti-abortion. Basically, you're anti-American because you have just trashed American values and what our country is all about over and over and over. You will wear this on Election Day.

Brian Lehrer: Nick, what was she getting at and why did she say that?

Nick Reisman: Well, there's something that Governor Hochul has been saying now for quite some time. It's a variation of those remarks where she has suggested that Trump holds anti-American or un-American views. She's never gone as far as to suggest that Trump voters, people who cast votes for Trump, are actually un-American or anti-American themselves.

We have seen other examples of Hochul refer to right-leaning voters, conservative-leaning voters, as being either clowns or anti-woman, or during the 2022 race with Lee Zeldin suggested that Zeldin should leave the state and maybe move to a more Republican-friendly part of the country like Florida. This is bound up in a phenomenon that we're seeing. I hate to say it. It's on both sides because I guess you can't say both sides anymore, but it really is on both sides.

Republicans have said in the past that the Democrats are un-American or they hate America. We've seen that from some of these House candidates during this election cycle as well. Brian, it reminds me of a book that came out about 20 years ago called The Big Sort. It's by a social scientist named Bill Bishop. Basically, he talked about how Democrats and Republicans are clustering in very specific parts of the country.

They're all clustering together, people who are like-minded in their politics and in their culture and not just in their economic class. They're all huddling together in the country. We're seeing that now across every state. When you hear Governor Hochul or former Governor Cuomo say that conservatives don't belong in a blue state like New York, when you see hostility from people in Texas to people from the northern Midwest like Minnesota moving to their state because they don't want their Texas to be California, that's all part of this.

It's creating all of these tensions because we all do have to live together in this country. The calcified partisanship has trickled upward in many respects to the elected officials themselves. That's the big-picture view I've taken of all of this. I think the more charitable way is that the governor awkwardly tripped over her words and is now paying a price for it.

Brian Lehrer: Liz Kim, last word, 30 seconds. Was the mayor asked about those comments by the governor or anything else you want to say relevant to the mayor in the Election Day?

Elizabeth Kim: He was asked about that and he's in a tricky spot there because, as we know, the governor holds the power to remove the mayor. He basically didn't tackle that question. He basically expressed support for the governor, believes the governor has good intentions, but he basically left it at that.

Brian Lehrer: Nick Reisman writes the daily New York Playbook newsletter for Politico. Liz Kim is our lead Eric Adams reporter. Thank you both for Election Day time. I know you're both busy.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

Nick Reisman: Thanks.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.