Brigid Bergen: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Brigid Bergen from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Now, onto state politics. It is a big election year here in New York. Voters will cast ballots for the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and state controller, along with the representatives for Congress and the state legislature. The first votes are in June for the primary contests. The statewide candidates appearing on those ballots are determined in one of two ways. They can be designated at their respective party's convention, or they can gather signatures from across the state.

Last week, the Democrats met in Midtown Manhattan with a keynote address from a very high profile, New York Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Next week, the Republicans will meet for two days in Garden City, Long Island to designate their candidates and lay out their vision for how to win in deep blue New York.

With us now to recap what happened with the Democrats and preview what's to come with the Republicans, our two state politics reporters. Anna Gronewold is a reporter for POLITICO and writes the AM and PM New York playbooks, and Zack Fink is the statehouse reporter for Spectrum News NY 1 and hosts the podcast, Off Topic/On Politics. Welcome to WNYC to you both.

Anna Gronewold: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Zack Fink: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Brigid: Listeners, we are going to cover a lot of ground here, but we want to know what issue will get you to turn out and vote this year, and is there a candidate that's speaking to your issue? We know it's still early in the election season, but if you had to pick a single issue, what is it? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Is your concern related to the economy, public safety, the ability of the city and state to work together? Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC. Zack, let's give listeners a little sense of the scene from last week's convention. Where was it and how reminiscent was it to what we're used to seeing on television for those national conventions?

Zack: Brigid, it tries to model the national convention, the difference is is that it's counties around the state that bring their delegates. It was held in Manhattan at The Sheraton. There was not a lot that was out of the ordinary. Obviously, Governor Hochul is the sitting governor, she was expected to get the nomination. There was some surprise I think, certainly by the media, maybe not in the room as much, that Jumaane Williams, the public advocate, who is also seeking a place on the ballot, failed to secure the 25% needed.

He got about half that and some were anticipating that he would have enough of a showing to actually get ballot place, and now he's just going to have to petition his way on, which we expect that he will be able to do.

Brigid: Anna, Kathy Hochul became the first woman governor of New York late in August, and her campaign for a full term is well underway this year. How much did the convention play into her potential to make history for a second time?

Anna: I think that was one of the huge themes that we saw the entire day, and even in the receptions the evening before. There are a lot of reasons why Kathy Hochul got so much of the weighted vote, I believe it was about 86%, and a number of people cited the fact that she is the country or the state's first woman governor, and the fact that she hasn't made any missteps. She's done a lot in her first six months as governor. There's really no reason to go elsewhere and it looks like the message from the party is it's only up from here.

Brigid: Not to get too much to the weeds here, which I like to do too often, but just for our listeners who might not, have never been to one of these conventions, don't know what you mean when you're talking about the weighted vote and petitioning. Zack, can you just talk about how the designation process works? Then, when you say that now Jumaane Williams has to go and collect those signatures, what kind of lift are we talking about?

Zack Fink: Basically the convention has delegates from each county and then they cast ballots for who they believe the nominee should be. It's a weighted vote. It's based on a very complicated formula. I know JJ, the party chair was trying to explain it to me and he was at a loss that it's based partially on results from the previous statewide election. It also has a representative from each assembly district, but some assembly districts have more than one because they cross over into a different county.

By and large it's about 400-some odd delegates who cast that vote and they tend to be party faithful, but they're also elected by the party. The surprise again with Hochul wasn't very much in doubt, but I think there was an expectation that it would at least be a little competitive in part of it. Basically, because Jumaane Williams was not able to get automatically onto the ballot with the vote there in the room, he will have to go and gather signatures from different counties throughout the state to get his name on the ballot for the June primary.

It's not insurmountable, it's done all the time, and we also anticipate Tom Suozzi, the Democrat congressman who is also running, a little bit to Hochul's right- Jumaane's running to the left- he will all go the same route. He didn't even put his name in for submission. He is basically resigned to the fact that he's going to have to collect these signatures, and that can be done through volunteers. He doesn't have to personally go out and collect every signature himself, they can-- I say, volunteers, they can also pay people to collect them.

Brigid: There are a lot of speeches at this event. I want to play a clip from part of the address Governor Hochul delivered. It's about a minute and it's her talking about the state's recovery.

Governor Hochul: New Yorkers will regain that sense of pride, invincibility, unity, and of course, our swagger. As we enter this arena together, I say we rise up, our brothers and sisters. We rise up for our brothers and sisters in labor, and we'll rise up for women, and we'll rise up for working families, and we'll rise up for the LGBTQ community. We'll rise up for Black, brown, Asian and Native American communities. We'll rise up for New Yorkers, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. We'll rise up for upstate and downstate. Rise up. We will rise up. We will rise up. We will rise up for one state, rise up for one state. Yes, my friends. Yes, my friends. This is a new day for New York. Thank you.

Brigid: Anna, that is not the Kathy Hochul I am used to hearing. Is that who we should expect to hear from on the campaign trail?

Anna: I like that clip that you chose, because I also was a little bit surprised to see her evokes the more aggressive, from the pulpit, rallying speech like that. She's definitely more understated and that's the one we're used to hearing and I think it's more her personality as well. It seemed like a little bit out of the ordinary for her and something that you would specifically to the convention and that's it.

I think it's notable that she's very much saying, she is reiterating what a number of other individuals, Eric Adams, Hillary Clinton eventually, were trying to communicate toward the tail end of the convention, is that the party really does need to stick together, all of its various wings that have been a little bit divided, not only in the state, but across the country recently. Just because she has this strong showing of support, just because we're in this big blue state, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to go into the midterms without a fair number of concerns. I feel like it was a rallying cry for the sort of unity that still feels a little bit elusive right now.

Brigid Bergen: Zack, you had mentioned that both Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Congressman Tom Suozzi were there, brief appearances, what kind of reception did they get?

Zack: Well, Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi, I thought were both a little shut out and it showed. They both held press availabilities before the convention began. Williams was certainly there after and did one as well. I didn't actually see Suozzi, but to them, it's even if they have a strategy to avoid putting their names into the nominating process, it's still, I think a little bit disappointing. My impression was that that showed, a little bit to your point about Hochul's speech, she did sound a little out of character.

She's doing this kind of Rose Garden strategy, which is a incumbent strategy of pretending everything's good, stay the course, things are going to be fine. That may work, that may not, I don't know the answer. She hasn't been officially elected as governor. She took over in August and she doesn't take a lot of stands on controversial legislation. Very often at press conferences, when we try to ask questions about policy, she doesn't want to commit to anything.

There's a lot of big decisions that are going to have to be made in the state budget, for example, that is due at the end of March, and so far, we don't see a lot of where she stands and she's going to get hit from both Suozzi and Jumaane Williams, depending on which stance she takes.

Brigid Bergen: Let's bring some of our callers into this conversation. Julie in Yonkers, welcome to WNYC. What's the issue that is going to be your issue for this election season?

Julie: Thank you. There are many, many issues I care about. I'm really worried about climate change especially with this late news about how badly the fires are going to get worse, but my main issue is voting rights. I'm also very, very concerned in terms of voting rights, of people actually knowing that we have a right when we vote, to have our votes counted as cast. We're in an extremely dangerous cybersecurity environment. We're just watching, we're just hearing news of serious infrastructure destruction in Ukraine, but we are also at risk.

We know that there are already attempts to hack our elections. Robert Mueller talked about the fact that our elections are being pro-- our voting infrastructure was being probed "as we sit here". In New York State right now, almost half of the counties are now using for early voting, a voting machine that has the physical capability of printing over ballots after they're cast. The New York State Senate did pass a bill in 2021, S309A that would've banned voting machines that combine a ballot-marking device with a printer, with a scanner, because the design of hybrid voting machines, this is going to sound very in the weeds, but it's really important to the right to vote.

Brigid: Julie, you are in the weeds that I spend a lot of time in, so I appreciate the concerns you're raising and I think the election machinery is certainly an issue that we'll be watching across the state. We know that the state board of elections is responsible for certifying machines for municipalities to choose from and that's an ongoing process and something that we know officials are concerned with at the local level as well as at the state level. Let's get one more caller in here before we jump back to hearing from some of the comments made at the conventions. Matthew in Brooklyn Heights. Matthew, welcome to WNYC. What's your issue?

Matthew: Hi, thanks. Thanks very much. I guess I want to rise up in support of open primaries in New York State. We have a system here where we've got three and a half million registered voters in New York State that are not registered Democrats or Republicans. If we had a unified primary that would select, let's say, the top two candidates. We would not be likely to have Rudy Giuliani's son as one of the top two candidates, just as we would not have had Curtis Sliwa in the mayor's race. That's my issue. It's about why do we have these closed primaries in New York State where there's an organization called Unite New York that you might want to invite on at some point, so thank you.

Brigid: Matthew, thank you so much. Certainly that issue of allowing non-affiliated voters to vote in primaries comes up, particularly around presidential election years, but given that so much of our election law is determined by our state legislature, and those are Democrats and Republicans, it doesn't seem like anything will be moving on that front anytime soon.

I want to go back to our Dem convention here just quickly. We had other prominent officials who secured their designation as the party's nominee. Certainly, US Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Attorney General Tish James. She was the only one to make mention of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, though never by name, but she did it by defending her office's investigation into sexual harassment allegations. Here's about a minute from that speech.

Attorney General Tish James: These were serious allegations that needed to be investigated vigorously and independently, and that is exactly what was done. I understand the importance of this investigation and the need to ensure impartiality, and that's why I chose a team of experienced lawyers from outside the Attorney General's Office to conduct a thorough and fair investigation.

The investigation revealed a dangerous pattern of bullying and harassment by the former governor. It has become clear that the former governor will never accept any version of these events other than his own. To achieve that, he is now claiming the mantle a victim, and disgracefully attacking anyone in his path, pushing others down in order to prop himself up, but I will not bow. I will not break, and I will not be bullied by him or Donald Trump.

[applause]

Brigid: All right Zack, I think I heard a little bit of former Speaker Christine Quinn there who was up on the dais during those speeches. Was there much pushback in the room or otherwise to James's remarks? We know there are still some people out there who are loyal defenders of the former governor.

Zack: Christine Quinn was very vocal on that stage throughout the convention, actually chiming in. I think Brigid, that the room was with Letitia James and the recent Siena poll backed that up. Showed that the majority of the public sides with Letitia James. Since Cuomo resigned, he has had numerous press conferences through his attorney, attacking the credibility of his accusers, attacking the attorney general. Comparisons were made by the attorney general, and by Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Senate majority leader, and many other Democrats, to Donald Trump, which is essentially saying that if you don't like the outcome of the process you declare it rigged and that you were somehow wronged.

That is basically the argument that both Donald Trump has been making since the 2020 election, and Andrew Cuomo has been making since he chose to resign. I think the public just using buying it with either of them.

Brigid: I mentioned that Hillary Clinton spoke, the former secretary of state, US senator from New York, and of course, presidential candidate, and while she emphasized the opportunity for New York to elect its first woman governor, she spent more of her time talking about her view of the current Republican party. Here's a short clip of that.

Hillary Clinton: They'll ban books but do nothing about guns. They'll make it harder for people to vote, but easier for big corporations to bust unions. They'll let polluters trash our environment and let Donald Trump trash our democracy.

Brigid: Anna, we are about to start talking about what the Republicans are going to try to do at their convention next week. What's the contrast the Democrats are hoping to set up here?

Anna: I think that throughout the convention, particularly though with Clinton's speech, there was the message that they were attempting to push forward was the idea that Democrats are getting things done, and that they are opening up opportunities for more people than Republicans are. I do think that Hillary had a remarkably inspiring speech. It was bit surprising that she was the keynote speaker, I think, after a number of years since she's been specifically in the state scene I suppose. I think that her speech itself was the one that provided the clearest message of what the party would like to achieve, and how they think they're going to get there or will try to get there this fall.

Brigid: Let's shift to what's coming next week in Garden City. Zack, how is the gubernatorial Republican field shaping up? There was a bit of a shake up just this week, a new candidate for governor and an LG pick. Can you bring us up to speed there?

Zack: Well, let's start. Well the caller mentioned Andrew Giuliani, he is in the race, Robert Astorino who ran once against Cuomo, he's in the race, and of course, Lee Zeldin, the congressman from Long Island has been in the race for quite some time, and has garnered a lot of the institutional support with the county chairs throughout New York State. He is expected to win overwhelmingly the delegate votes at the convention early next week. Harry Wilson, who has kind of been out of politics for many years, businessman, someone who ran against Tom DiNapoli in 2010, he ran as a Republican, Wilson did, and came within five percentage points of unseating him.

He did better than any Republican statewide in quite some time. He's now jumping into the race for governor. It's a little late. There are some who believe the party has changed drastically since 2010, merely the advent of Trump, and now you have to show your allegiance to Trump in order to be a bona fide member of the Republican party. Nevertheless, this guy, Wilson, is certainly not coming in without some electoral success in the past, which many Republicans have not had in statewide races so it should be interesting.

Brigid: Anna how much do we know about some of the other challengers who are emerging for some of these other statewide offices?

Anna: Not too much. I don't think that they have garnered that many headlines so far. The gubernatorial race, especially as Zack mentioned, how it's shaping up now, I think is really taking center stage. We just saw Zeldin picked his lieutenant governor candidate. I think that the main focus will be primarily on what happens with these various challengers, especially with Zeldin as the party's front runner, but a lot of other folks jockeying to get their names in.

Brigid: Let's go to one of our callers. Jane in the Bronx. Jane, welcome to WNYC.

Jane: Hi, good morning. I'm wondering if you could comment on why people run when they have-- for the Republican an almost zero chance, and for, Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi, very little chance. What is the gain in that politically? Is it a practice run? Is it garnering support for a future run? Why do people run when they pretty much don't have a chance?

Brigid: I would like to offer my two experienced political reporters a chance to give their theories on that, Anna, Zack?

Anna: I would say that no one would admit to that necessarily until anything is over, but a number of people, specifically when Attorney General Tish James was also thinking of running for governor, were expecting that Jumaane Williams would either drop out of the race or would just remain in the race in order to drive the conversation more toward the further left policies that he and some of his supporters and backers cared about.

Especially when we're seeing a more modern candidate taking the lead like Kathy Hochul, the idea that there would be this other voice keeping these progressive issues in the conversations might either drive those candidates to the left, or would at least keep their issues up whether or not they were ultimately expecting on winning.

Brigid: Zack, you want to add anything?

Zack: Yes, sure. I think that's a really good point, that Anna just made, which is that very often, you can have an instance where someone runs to make them address your issues. However, as someone who's covered politics a long time, I don't want to downplay that many people who run for office genuinely believe they're going to win, even if the odds are completely stacked against them. It's a certain psychology that I personally don't have myself, but I have observed very often in politics.

One final point, I think just on that, is that I don't think the Republicans are destined to lose at all. I don't think that it's a probability a Republican wins the gubernatorial election this year, but I think for the first time in over a decade, it is a possibility. The mood has changed.

Brigid: On that note, in our last moments together, if you had to pick one thing you're going to be watching for from next week, really briefly, what are you going to be watching for Anna?

Anna: I'm really curious what interest and hype we see around Andrew Giuliani. I know that there's already been some doubt expressed on this show about him, but we just saw a poll this week that showed he has more favorability than any other candidates, across the board. Mostly, just because he has more name recognition, even than Lee Zeldin. That's an interesting dynamic. I think with the addition of Wilson into the race, it could shift things a little bit as far as what we are thinking we will get for Zeldin.

Brigid: How about you, Zack? Real quick.

Zack: I think that the Trump factor is significant. Zeldin's trying to walk a very fine line here. Trump is doing a fundraiser for him on April 1st. He has to keep the MAGA crowd happy while at the same time not fully embracing it. I'm very curious to see how much they expect Trump to be a part of someone who's in this room, who's not literally in this room.

Brigid: Thank you to you both. We're going to leave it there. Thank you, Anna Gronewold, a reporter for Politico who writes the AM and PM New York Playbooks and Zack Fink, statehouse reporter for Spectrum News NY1 and host of the Off Topic/On Politics podcast. Thanks so much for being here.

Anna: Thank you.

Zack: Thanks for having me.

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