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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. We'll get some takes on the New York primary now from Christina Greer, Fordham University, political science professor, and author of the book Black Ethnics and Harry Siegel, Daily Beast editor and Daily News colonists. Together they host a podcast called FAQ NYC. Harry, welcome back, Christina welcome back to WNYC.

Christina Greer: Morning Brian.

Harry Siegel: Hi Brian.

Brian: In the spirit of your podcast titled FAQ NYC, I will tee you two up with the frequently asked question this morning. Does Eric Adams have an insurmountable lead with 10 points over Maya Wiley, 12 points over Katherine Garcia as they go to the absentee ballot round and the ranked-choice voting calculation round? Harry, you want to take it first?

Harry Siegel: We don't know. It's a big lead and it would be really surprising if that disappeared entirely in the ranked-choice process. Looking at other cities so much smaller ones that have different rank to it systems, somebody with a 10 point lead after the first round with eight candidates in. I'm not sure that there's a comparable circumstance in which someone has lost, but this is New York City.

We saw Donald Trump, of all people, get elected president. We've seen some wild upsets, but it's looking very strong for Adams who gave what amounted to a victory of speech without quite saying so. We actually said, whoa, wow, via a rank choice process to continue. It's looking very good for him without being definitive yet.

Brian: Christina, same question.

Christina Greer: I agree. My dad always says there's a lot of slip between cup and lip, so I wouldn't celebrate anything until all the votes are in, but Adam's clearly had a lead and held it throughout election day. If you look at the map with the exception of Manhattan, it seems the other four boroughs really resonated with whatever message he put out there. It's looking good for him. I think these next few days we'll see him behaving as though he is the soon to be 110th mayor of the city of New York.

Brian: let's talk about that map. Harry, I got this from you because I was looking at your Twitter feed and you tweeted this fascinating electoral map of the in-person votes that they counted yesterday. The map made by Steve Romalewski gave the CUNY graduate center. Even though there were no public exit polls last night, you can start to glean some demographics here by race and probably by age?

Harry Siegel: Yes, indeed. This is a color-coded map. Literally, and metaphorically, Manhattan is all green and behind Garcia. Then as you look at Brooklyn and Queens, there are these huge swats of blue for Eric Adams, who in that speech last night had a crack directed partly at Andrew Yang about how social media doesn't decide things. People on social security decide things.

Brian: We are going to play that clip in a minute just as a preview, but go ahead.

Harry Siegel: Forgive me, I was up until about four quitting this podcast though, my brain just took a turn. The truth is that the map shows a city in which even though we don't have great exit polling, probably aren't going to, because of this ranked-choice system, that just makes it much more expensive to do polling and met without less of it throughout. It was pretty clear that Black voters and older voters, I strongly assume, wind up behind Adam's message, and the public safety as a prerequisite to prosperity as he puts it seem to resonate. Again, we don't have a final result here, but the map which is just first choices, and we'll see what happens with second, third, fourth, fifth, really a striking. It shows Manhattan just in a very different political conversation than the rest of the city, which we also may have seen in the district attorney [unintelligible 00:04:18]

Brian: Christina, let's stay on the map, and here's some of my reading of it and you tell me what you make of it. Adams totally raped in the Bronx and east and central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens. Very Black and Latino neighborhoods also did pretty well in upper Manhattan largely Dominican and other Latino area. It looks like Garcia won in Park Slope, in Brooklyn Heights, plus most of what we might call majority-White Manhattan, Manhattan below Harlem, except for Chinatown won by Yang, and some of the east village won by Wiley.

Yang also won in Northeast Queens, the heavily Asian American areas from flushing out to the Nassau county line in the Northern part of the borough. Yang also won in Borough Park and Williamsburg, according to my reading of the maps, so he did win over some groups of Orthodox Jews. Other Wiley strongholds were in Greenpoint and Ridgewood and Northwest Queens, where Queens is represented by AOC in Congress.

A story, and it looks like Long Island City and maybe Sunny Side, if I'm reading the map right. These are progressive strongholds and fairly White or mixed areas with fairly large percentage of White voters. That's a partial geographic breakdown for what it's worth, at least the way these color-coded neighborhoods look to my eye. What would you add or change?

Christina Greer: I would add, looking at Manhattan, I would have thought that would be a Stringer stronghold before some of the allegations came and we see that Garcia essentially took quite a bit of what I would have thought would be a lock for Stringer. I think we can't forget about Staten island. When we look at Northern Staten island, I call it the Wu-Tang area, which is where much of the Wu-Tang clan is from.

Eric Adams did incredibly well there. Also when we're looking at parts of Brooklyn where Garcia cleaned u,p that could have been a Wiley stronghold had Garcia not surged in the past few weeks especially after her New York Times endorsement. The musical chairs of who took first place in these districts is quite interesting, but I'm also fascinated. I'll be interested to see who got second place in a lot of these neighborhoods because that could make a difference in the final stretch

Brian: That could make a difference in the final outcome. What do you make of the racial breakdown implied by this map where it would seem like Wiley's defund the police message or closer to defund the police message did not resonate as much as Eric Adams trying to walk that line between yes, I will bring justice because I know police brutality, but I'm going to crack down on guns.

Christina Greer: When you think about Black homeowners and White homeowners and White conservatives who were registered Democrats, and same with Black conservatives who have registered as Democrats, Eric Adams speaks to them. Even last night in his long acceptance, not acceptance speech, he says things where it's not surprising to me that someone could vote for Wiley and Adams because he says unequivocally Black lives matter.

We saw that all last summer, we've seen that for the past five years. Liberal Black and White voters saying Black lives matter. We must say that we must believe that. He then quickly pivots to, it can't just be about policing, it has to also be about Black on Black crime.

That's a very conservative talking point for White voters and also older Black voters as well. It makes sense that Adams would do so well in these neighborhoods where they're Black homeowners, but also White moderates as well, because he's saying a message that resonates with them where he's not just putting it on a liberal talking point in some ways that's Black lives matter or a liberal policy point of Black lives matter.

He's also pivoting to an understanding of a more nuance complication of Black people interacting, not just with police, but in their own communities, which tends to be more of the moderate and conservative vein. I think that really resonated with voters as well.

Brian: I want to stay on this issue of age in a minute, but listeners we'll open up the phones. Your questions about, or interpretations of the New York primary results as much as they are known so far. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Anything about the mayoral race or any of the other races, we'll touch on some of the others too as we go with Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham and author of the book, Black Ethnics and Harry Siegel, Daily Beast editor, and Daily News colonist. Together, they host the podcast FAQ NYC. Harry, what's this about the Adams campaign denying entrance last night to two reporters who had written critical pieces, David Freelander from New York magazine and political journalist, Ross Barkan, are you aware of this?

Harry Siegel: They said that this was an accident. I believe it was also [unintelligible 00:09:42] If I'm not mispronouncing that of the city also had trouble getting in, but she was saying it's an accident. One thing it seems both reporters have been critical of Adams. Barkan had actually just written for the Beast about Adams. Dave Freelander with this long well-reported piece for New York magazine that was not flattering and then Adams at one point called a racist without elaborating on how. This definitely seemed like a form of punishment and may be an ominous sign for how Adams would handle the press presuming that he does become our next mayor. By the way, the power of press passes is moving from the NYPD to the mayor directly.

Brian Lehrer: In your experience as a reporter, Harry, and a columnist, is there any precedent for this barring journalist, and maybe an election night party is different from a news conference or some other kinds of official functions? I'm just trying to see how much nuance there is here if there is any nuance, how much precedent is there for selectively telling reporters who have been critical of you that they can't come in to anything that a candidate or potentially a mayor is doing in New York City.

Harry Siegel: Regrettably there's a fair amount of this, usually at the margins. In slightly more complicated situations like this, where they say it was a confusion with the list, but that's a little hard to buy when the confusion only goes to reporters who've been really critical and biting about you. I recall when Levy who covered the NYPD having losing his press pass at one point and not being able to report directly there, or he called Rudy punishing reporters.

Mike Bloomberg of course, calling former WMSC reporter, Azi Paybarah a disgrace who does not get to ask questions was actually a really big deal with de Blasio just this year during the pandemic, as everything shifted over to Zoom and they carefully stage-managed who couldn't and could not ask. I stopped calling into those pressers because I had my hand up for consecutive weeks, and this was happening in the middle of other parts of my workday.

Again, this is happening over Zoom, and they clearly made a decision after I'd asked, I think some difficult questions that they simply were not going through calling me. This did reach a point where other reporters have to publicly bring this up. In every administration, this is something that gets wrestled with, but having this happen on a presumed victory night, very good night, Eric Adams is an ominous sign about how he might think about the press going forward and what he does and doesn't need from them and how willing he is to punish reporters who step out of line as he sees it.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Adams from his speech last night seeming to refer to these reporters among possibly others in a section of his speech, where he talked about reporters of different generations.

Eric Adams: I just wanted to take a moment to just talk about the senior more seasoned reporters in this city, because there's a different level of reporters in the city. You have this senior and seasoned reporters and they know me, they've watched me for years. They said from time to time that Eric, not only did you put your career on the line, you put your life on the line. You couldn't do what you did Eric for fame and fortune. You could only do it for families. My advice to the younger reporters, understand that Twitter is not academic research.

Brian Lehrer: Big laugh line at his headquarters last night, understand that Twitter is not academic research and he capped it off like this.

Adams: Social media does not pick a candidate, people on social security picks a candidate.

Brian Lehrer: Whoa, Christina Greer.

Christina Greer: Great lines. Well, I constantly talk about the frequency in which Adams communicates with his supporters. By that, I mean the decibels in which they hear what he is saying. I think far too many people get caught up with how he's saying things and not what he's saying. As someone who's been a public servant for 20 something years, but still presents himself as the underdog.

He's essentially saying these young cats who communicate in this kind of inner circle on social media don't really know what's on the ground. As you could hear with the Hmms and amens, there are a lot of people who agreed with him on that and so the social media versus social security he's making an age distinction, but I think he's also making a class and racial distinction, somewhat subversively.

I think that's what's going to be fascinating for the next four years where I do think that some members of the press are ill-equipped to fully understand race in class in some of the outer boroughs of New York City, where Eric Adams has a real stronghold and a real fundamental understanding of New York. A lot of liberal New Yorkers for the past 20 years have had a very permanent seat at the table when it comes to De Blasio and even Bloomberg.

We saw how Bloomberg clean streets and snow removal and how he catered to particular folks. Eric Adams is saying, I'm not going to push you out of the table, but it's very clear that I don't owe you anything and you might not be my priority. I think that's going to be a real awakening for a lot of New Yorkers who were accustomed to having a mayor look at them and their needs as a priority.

Brian Lehrer: Talk more about that. How do you see the age thing? Because the age thing is clear, we saw it in the mayors poll a couple of weeks ago, Adams was winning by far among voters over 45, Maya Wiley was winning among voters under 45. You could say there's a more progressive, less progressive split by age right there and so in Eric Adam says social media doesn't determine winners of mayoral elections, people on social security do, that's literally true. What's the race and class intersection with that, that you were just referring to?

Christina Greer: Well, I think a lot of the Adam's voters aren't necessarily on Twitter and Instagram following along. I think some of them are out of the workforce either because they've been pushed out of the workforce or they're retired. They're on relatively fixed incomes and he's essentially saying, I see you. I recognize that your New York looks very different than the one that De Blasio and Bloomberg have set up for New Yorkers that are of a particular class and this isn't even dealing with COVID.

For older Black voters and White voters and immigrant voters appears that he has been speaking to them in a consistent basis, not just during this election season. In many ways, Garcia and Wiley has come on the scene and introduce themselves in new and exciting, and dynamic ways, which explains why younger voters by and large have been galvanized by their campaigns.

I think Eric Adams's campaign seems to represent people who have been in the electoral process have been faithful in the electoral process, but haven't necessarily gotten much on their return. He's essentially saying, I'm a straight shooter literally and figuratively and what you see is what you get and if you look at my record, the past 20 something years, I've been straightforward with you.

Now that that comes with an Astros, I think. He has presented the case, I've been straightforward with you so I'm not going to get to Gracie's mansion, essentially an act brand new. I think people appreciate that and they're excited about that and that might be enough to carry him across the finish line.

Brian Lehrer: When he says people on social security determine who wins elections, he's being hyperbolic, but it is mathematically true because again, the mayor's poll is not the election. We'll see if the actual election results track the mayor's poll but the mayors' polls show the over 45 being two-thirds of the electorate and under 45 only being one-third. Every age group is not created equal when it comes to turnout. Here's a caller who is calling in from Rikers Island, William you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling. Hi.

William: Good morning Mr. Lehrer. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. I know you've called in before from that facility called The Boat. You want to talk about the election today, right?

William: Yes, that's my comment. To begin Mr. Lehrer, I'd like to just say that there was a question here that was sent to us here within these institutions that was attached to our voters' registration form. There's a picture of course, and a description of all of the candidates' whom and what they will do with regards to criminal justice and incarceration. Eric Adams fail to respond. He's the only out of eight that did not respond to the questionnaire.

However, we have been given the right to vote here within these institutions. Unfortunately, they have not given any real education to the guys with, how do you pick a candidate? What are some of the things that you look for? There are 50 men in my unit and only two were able to vote, but I think that overall that if in fact a proper education was done that potentially this may change the candidates, this may change those who choose a particular candidate.

My last comment is I want to make that many of the guys here we're not in support of Eric Adams, although we look very much forward to seeing of what he will do, because he stands on this platform that if you don't educate, you will incarcerate, but what will he do with regards to the criminal justice system and those who are incarcerated. I grew up with him in Queens, New York.

I'm 54 years old and I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, and I remember Shawn Bell and some of the things that he's mentioned and him starting to 100 Black officers who care, but I didn't really see them doing very much for the community. There was something that was more being said to officers and the injustices that were taking place with regards to Black men within that particular realm, but I didn't see much happening in the community.

We look very much forward to see exactly what he's going to do for those of us, or those men who are incarcerated. They've come from the Black and Brown neighborhoods that he is standing upon and we'll just have to see.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask who your first choice for mayor was?

William: My first choice was Maya Wiley, and then after her was Katherine Garcia, and then Diane Morales.

Brian Lehrer: William, thank you for checking in with us. We really appreciate your perspective from the vote and Christina Greer, I know you've got to go in one minute, but we've talked about Eric Adams. Everybody's talked a lot about Eric Adams and crime on the streets, what about Eric Adams and corrections policy? There's so much scandal and horribleness at Rikers.

Christine Greer: I think that that's going to be a real hard needle to thread for Adams because as your studio caller pointed out, Adams has played both sides of the fence with the NYPD as both an insider and outsider. I think that their critiques on both sides with that behavior. I don't know if with this truncated election season, yes, we, the three of us have been talking about this for a very long time, the voters since paid attention in these last final weeks, the real scrutiny of what exactly would an Adams mayority team look like in dealing with the in NYPD explicitly?

We know that he had the arrest when he was 15, we know that he started various organizations with Black police officers, but how will he lead the NYPD? Who will he choose to assist him as commissioner to lead the NYPD so that we can figure out how to decrease the population of Rikers, whether or not we close Rikers. Those questions are still relatively unanswered and I don't know if they will be answered explicitly between now and November if Adams is the presumptive Democratic nominee. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Hang on one second Harry because I know I have to let Christine go to another appointment. Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham, host of the book Black Ethnics, and co-host of FAQ NYC. Christine Greer, you always appreciated.

Christine Greer: Thank you, Brian. Talk to you soon Harry.

Harry Siegel: Bye Christine.

Brian Lehrer: Still with us for another few minutes, the co-host of that same podcast, FAQ NYC, also Daily Beast editor and Daily News columnist, Harry Siegel. Harry, what did you want to say?

Harry Siegel: With workers, in particular, there is a plan to close it that the next mayor is going to inherit, but that plan demands that smaller jails get built in the boroughs so that there's someplace to hold prisoners in New York City so that they can get to court and all that stuff. Notably, Eric Adams, Katherine Garcia, and Maya Wiley, just three people could still potentially be our next mayor have all been very iffy on those plans.

Eric Adams says he doesn't support the new facility in Manhattan, that we've dumped on Chinatown is enough, which is where that would be. Katherine Garcia agreed, Maya Wiley say she's against building any new jails, but also wants to close Rikers. This is going to be a big where the rubber meets the road issue for the next administration. As candidates are running, they're have been not that many bullets on Rikers, even though people there can vote now.

The lots of votes in those neighborhoods and in the boroughs, everyone has been really suspicious on how they'd handle this and potentially going to blow up a reform that would mean incarcerating fewer New Yorkers that's been years and decades in the making. That's something I think that there's lingering out there at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Can we go, Mary, can you put up a caller for us that I can click on right now? Do you see Matt in Crown Heights? I think it's line seven or Juliana, do you see that call. Matt in crown Heights calling about the Brooklyn Borough President's race, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Matt: Hey Brian. Thanks for taking my call and thanks for all this coverage. I'm sure me and many New Yorkers found it completely invaluable for the last couple of months.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Matt: Let's talk about the borough president since Eric Adams was borough president and his replacement. The race for his replacement, I think is really interesting because we see, it looks like Antonio Reynoso who further left Progressive working family parties endorsed candidate is way ahead of someone like Robert Cornegy, who in my mind, as a district 36 member is really the same politics as Eric Adams and similar being in the in the Brooklyn policy team for a little while.

I guess we just wanted to see if there were any thoughts on that and how the borough president is moving towards more progressive, even though Eric Adams also performed really well in the mayoral race.

Brian Lehrer: That's a great question. We could generalize it to controller two where the progressive candidate, Brad Lander has a lead and maybe headed for victory after ranked-choice voting similar to Eric Adams, but Harry, what do you think?

Harry Siegel: The borough president positions are widely ceremonial, but they're also a stepping stone to be mayor so they are really important that way. In Brooklyn, Reynoso is up after these first council first choices by about 10 points, which is a really big lead and striking. In Queens, there's a fascinating rematch with Donovan Richards who just won a special lab to get in barely ahead of Elizabeth Crowley, who lost to him in that special election.

All around the city, these races are fascinating. In Staten Island, which is always its own world within the city, a beautiful cellar, the former Congressman who left after it turns out he had a secret second family, looks like he may have the Republican nomination and the one borough that's akin to victory in the general election. I do think that when you look down-ballot that this was a pretty strong showing for progressives in a number of races even as they appear to have wakely come up short city-wide.

You can see that in the Manhattan district attorney race, where Alvin, Bragg has the lead and Tiffany Caban almost was elected district attorney in Queens in her city council race. The question I think for Progressives is if they can find some way to channel the energy that they've succeeded with in smaller races and with real organizing, going door to door and activity of the sort the Democratic party used to provide and really no longer does and translate that into this bigger turnout mayors race at some point.

So far I think it looks like they're going to continue to fall short there, but I do think that those races are though weather of the direction the city is going in assuming that these younger more progressive voters stay more progressive as they age, which I would not take as a given.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. To wrap it up, related to this, among the in-person voters for a mayor, those are the only ones who were counted, Maya Wiley did have what she called Maya mentum and she overtook Katherine Garcia for second place. Among the in-person voters, 22% of the vote compared to Katherine Garcia's 20%. How does it seem like that happened, Harry, because for so much of the race, Wiley was in fourth place behind Adams and Garcia, and Yang.

Harry Siegel: Well, Yang stated AOC came very late and I think a little reluctantly to Maya, but I think that that really helped. There started to be a clarity as voters came in late about what the selection was about and that these two polls, in certain ways you had Eric Adams, who's talking about reforming, but also the NYPD and I mean, you do more to create public safety, and Maya Wiley, who in essence, was running against the NYPD and particularly the police unions and saying that they were the danger in many communities to public safety.

I do think that that resonated with younger voters and as the other potential progressives in the race, fell off for different reasons, stringer with the harassment accusations that the professor Greer mentioned and right now is as her campaign imploded and what I think was actually a pretty poster thin progressive campaign got exposed for that as more time passed. That left Wiley as the one progressive standing and gave her space to space to move up. I'm very interested to see what happens with her and Garcia with second, third, fourth, and fifth picks as the rank choice system continues, and if the two of them move around positionally, even if not other than passes Adams.

Brian Lehrer: Harry Siegel, read them in the daily news and the daily beast and hear him on the podcast, FAQ NYC, Harry, thanks for coming on with almost no sleep to break this all down for us today.

Harry Siegel: Thanks so much, Brian.

[00:30:08] [END OF AUDIO]

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