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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. One of the dynamics already taking place in the 2024 election cycle is that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn is hoping to lead his party back to holding the House majority. In that scenario, he would likely become speaker. As we've talked about a lot on the show, the epicenter of retaking the House is not in what we might generally consider a swing state, a Wisconsin, or an Arizona, or a Georgia.

Elections there matter too, but it was the drubbing that Democrats took right in the New York City suburbs on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley especially that did most of the work of flipping the House to Republican control in 2022 last year. A report by CNN senior political reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere is especially relevant right now nationally as well as in New York. It's called, "Hakeem Jeffries is staging a takeover of the New York Democrats. His hope to become speaker depends on it." Edward-Isaac, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Hi, Brian. It's great to be back.

Brian Lehrer: Remind us of the context. You count six Republican freshmen serving in Democratic-leaning House districts from New York. What's the geographical span there?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Well, it's, as you said, in the Hudson Valley across to Long Island. It's the suburbs of New York. These are districts that, obviously, the lines of the districts changed with the redistricting last year and all of that drama that was there. Even so with the way that the lines are drawn now, these are districts that majority voted for Biden in 2020, so are generally seen as Democratic-friendly districts that are represented by Republicans currently.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk in a minute about the politics of how that happened and what the strategies for taking them back might be. I want to invite listeners in on this right away because, as I say, this is an early conversation for the 2024 election cycle, but this stuff is already happening. Of course, control of the House majority is about so much more than whether Hakeem Jeffries as an individual becomes Speaker of the House, makes history as the first Black speaker, gets another powerful position like that for New York.

Of course, Chuck Schumer, senator from New York, is the Senate Majority Leader, but all kinds of policy decisions go through the House of Representatives obviously. Who controls the House matters so much to so many Americans. Listeners, we would love to hear from you if you are in any district in New York that went Republican for the House last year. You know who you are on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.

If you're a Democrat, why do you think Republicans won where Democrats like Sean Patrick Maloney or Kathleen Rice or Tom Suozzi used to be at office and how should your party win these seats back in your opinion? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Hudson Valley Democrats, Long Island Democrats, you be the political analyst. Republicans, you too, same question. Why do you think your party won in these Democratic-leaning districts? Many of them voted for Biden but voted for a Republican for the House.

If you were a swing voter who swung red last year, what do you want to see from either party now if you're thinking independently and could go either way in 2024? Democrats, Republicans, independents, however you label yourselves, if you're in those districts, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also text your responses to that phone number. Obviously, we want to hear from you on the phone, so let your voices be heard. You be the political analysts, 212-433-WNYC. You be the strategists, 212-433-9692.

Manhattan, stay out of it. Western Queens, relax. Most of Brooklyn, this is not for you. We want to hear from those listeners in the swing districts themselves. There's a little bit of Queens here. The George Santos district is in Northeast Queens, as well as on to the Long Island counties of Nassau, and I think a little bit of Suffolk. Maybe if you're in Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston around there, but definitely from Long Island districts. All the Long Island districts are now represented by Republicans in the House that didn't used to be the case and the particular Hudson Valley districts. 212-433-WNYC.

You be the political analyst. You be the political strategist. Democrats, Republicans, independents, you're all invited in, 212-433-9692 for Edward-Isaac Dovere from CNN, whose new article is called, "Hakeem Jeffries is staging a takeover of the New York Democrats. His hope to become speaker depends on it." Isaac, you write that the state party would typically be controlled by the governor, in this case, Kathy Hochul, but Jeffries is taking control of much of the state Democratic Party's operations. How is he doing that?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Hakeem Jeffries, as your listeners probably know, is a man who does not leave a lot to chance. As a politician himself and as a political leader, he is very deliberate and methodical in the way that he approaches things. That's how he's approaching what's going on over the course of the next year and a half. The New York Democratic Party, all the different elements of the New York Democrats have been a dysfunctional, disastrous mess for as long as anyone can remember. Certainly, as long as I can remember. Jeffries is taking steps to put loyalists into key positions involved with what is called the coordinated campaign.

All the different campaigns will feed into one unified campaign. He is making moves to not endorse in primaries exactly because that would violate the rules of things but to make his preference pretty clearly known and urge things along in the direction that he wants it to go. He has taken a leading role in a lot of the fundraising that's going on, reaching out to donors, and also in bringing together the disparate elements of the Democratic-leaning groups all across the state, whether that's the Working Families Party or the types of folks who are big donors who go to fancy parties to meet with elected officials.

Whether it's the spectrum from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Mike Bloomberg, Jeffries has positioned himself as the convener and as the person really setting the agenda so that everybody is at least trying to move in the same direction, in the same way. So far, he has been more successful than most people expected. That said, of course, it is July of 2023. They will have to hold this kind of thing together for almost a full year and a half until the elections next year.

Brian Lehrer: As you just indicated, this isn't just about next November. It's about Democratic primaries too. You wrote that Jeffries appeared to suppress a smirk when you asked him about the primaries. What words might you put to that suppressed smirk?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: [laughs] Well, I said to him something to the effect of, "Well, what I was just describing that you're not endorsing, but you're making it pretty clear which candidates you want, which is almost endorsing." He caught himself. He started to smile and he stopped and then he gave me a more politics answer of saying, "We'll see how things go."

Other people who are involved in this effort like Greg Meeks, who is a congressman from Queens, he's also the Queens County Democratic chairman, had been more clear with me. Meeks told me that they are making very clear to people where they want things to go. He's been involved there. He said to me, "We'll be looking at and talking to all possible candidates and trying to talk to folks and say, 'Who is more likely to beat the extreme Republican that they will be running against?'"

That is saying to folks, "Okay. You want to run. We don't think that you're really our best candidate to take on these Republican incumbents who, by the way, won last year. They are the incumbents. This is not going to be just a total layup for the Democrats. There's a lot of fight ahead. We don't know what the next year and a half of the campaign on the House level or all the way up to the presidential level is going to be like." Democrats are not taking this for granted. They know that they have a big mountain to climb here to win any of these seats and especially to win as many of them as they want to win to secure the path to the majority for them next year.

Brian Lehrer: Well, where do you see Jeffries on the scale of progressive to moderate Democrat in the context of New York politics in 2024? I remember last year, there was some talk that he might get primaried from the left for his own seat, but then it didn't really happen.

Edward-Isaac Dovere: I've had this conversation with Jeffries over the years. I covered him when he was first running for the assembly or, I guess, when he first won his assembly seat. I didn't cover his first race through the assembly in 2000. All through the years and in the summer of 2021, I spent some time with him driving around in his district in Brooklyn. I said to him, "What do you say to the progressives who say you're not going long enough with them and you're not a real progressive?"

He said to me in what was a very memorable quote, "I'm not going to bend the knee to progressives who want me to--" these institutional progressives who want him to just go along with everything that they say. He's been, for example, a skeptic of the Green New Deal at points. He has not been aligned with the Ocasio-Cortez-style politics in New York or in Washington. He said to me, "I am a Black progressive." That is what defines him in his mind.

What he sees as a progressive is maybe different from what some of the other people who identify themselves as progressives in politics would say. He doesn't believe that that's a true or substantive difference. It's more about power plays. Notably, as I said, he has been involved in bringing a lot of people to the same table, and the Working Families Party and their elements of the Working Families Party that were interested in being involved in that primary challenge to him that had been talked about but never materialized.

They have been very much aligned with Jefferies in this effort to win these House seats for next year. They have also said that they're not going to prioritize things in the campaigns that they're mounting like the Green New Deal or Medicare for All or billionaires tax. They're going to talk about Medicare and Social Security, these core meat and potatoes, traditional Democratic issues. Much more Joe Biden kind of Democratic issues than Bernie Sanders kind of Democratic issues.

They think that that's how they win. When I talked to the national director of the Working Families Party, he said to me that this is about winning these seats and what they need to do to win, and then they will have those conversations that are internal to the Democratic Party essentially of which progressive ideas to prioritize once they're in power if they're able to get there.

Brian Lehrer: Well, how's the Jeffries-AOC relationship in this context?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: She has been part of the, so far, unified agenda here. She's been involved in a lot of the things that have been going on. Jeffries, among the things that he's done as he's been having his regular dinners with the other Democratic members of the House delegation from New York and hearing them out, brainstorming sessions, and talking about what they want to do. From my reporting, Ocasio-Cortez has been pretty vocal in some of those dinners.

She's also been involved with some of her colleagues in putting together a memo that is, of course, under the ages of what Jeffries is doing here. This memo went to the state party of suggesting things that they think that the state party needs to do. That was something she joined in on with several colleagues who are not the traditional Ocasio-Cortez allies, Grace Meng from Queens, Pat Ryan who won in the special election last year in north of New York City, and Brian Higgins from more Western New York.

That's the kind of coalition that Jeffries has been able-- again, so far, we'll see if it holds. So far, he's been able to hold together here, which does not have the usual suspect people saying that they don't want to be involved or they're going against it. Ocasio-Cortez, you might think, would be, based on some of the things that she's done in the past in New York politics and national politics, forging her own way here or criticizing what's going on. She is not. She's very much part of this team.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, with CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere, we're inviting you, if you live in swing districts that went Republican for the House of Representatives last year in the New York suburbs, to be the political analysts and the political strategists for either party as we head into 2024 and these New York swing districts being so crucial to who controls the House next year. As you may not be surprised to hear, we have a whole board full of would-be analysts and strategists. Let's hear first from Lisa, who might be interesting because she has a foot both in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley, she says. Hi, Lisa, you're on WNYC.

Lisa: Hi. I'm a big fan of Hakeem Jeffries. I'm not a big fan, I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I think I'm going independent. I'm waiting for someone to come along to bring everyone together. Also, I think one of the biggest problems in New York that we have right now is violence and violent people on the streets. I've been attacked twice just walking down the street. I see the subway as a very challenging place to be at times. People are having to defend themselves and then they--

Brian Lehrer: Let me jump in only because that's the Brooklyn Lisa talking. What's your connection to the Hudson Valley?

Lisa: Well, okay, so then I go to Hudson Valley. I went there because I had to do something. I wanted a place to go where I had some peace. That's one thing. I met a lot of people in the Hudson Valley. There are many Trump supporters up there, which I found very odd. I think that there is a portion of the population that feels very alienated and blamed for everything when these are basically working-class people. I'm not saying I'm appalled that they're Trump supporters. As a lifelong New Yorker, I'm totally appalled by that.

Brian Lehrer: Are you also saying that even as someone who's appalled by Trump and, to a large degree, you're saying by Trump supporters that you might consider voting for a Republican for Congress because of crime?

Lisa: You know what? It would have to do with a lot of their other stances. I'm not crazy about Republicans. I think they're nuts. The ones now are nuts. I just feel like each side is so extreme and everybody is trying to placate the other person. As a democracy and a reasonable mature democracy, we have to bridge these gaps. We have to have people who speak the language of all, who understand where people are coming from.

Brian Lehrer: What discontinuing to use--

Lisa: Address their fears.

Brian Lehrer: Address their fears. Because you said both sides are becoming too extreme, what's the extreme on the Democratic side to you?

Lisa: I often feel that AOC takes an extreme stance on things. I believe that the women that are part of the-- well, there are men too that are part of the so-called squad. I feel like they're angry all the time. They're angry and they're offensive and they're offended and they're hysterical. They're like the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the hysterical craziness. How about people who speak to each other like Katie Porter? She speaks like a reasonable human being. I like Katie Porter.

Brian Lehrer: Progressive Democrat from--

Lisa: I like Hakeem Jeffries.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you so much for putting so much on the table. Isaac, obviously, AOC herself and a lot of people who support the members of the squad would say that they don't agree. Maybe they're even offended to hear them compared to a Marjorie Taylor Greene. Based on your reporting, who do you think Lisa speaks for? How important is the kind of thing that we heard from Lisa or the kinds of things that we just heard from her in the swing districts?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: We don't need any evidence beyond what happened in the elections last year to know that crime and concerns of what's happening to society and what's happening in New York City and feeling under threat, both physically and culturally, were big factors in these elections. They were big factors in pretty much every one of the House seats that Republicans won last year. The crime rate hasn't completely changed over the course of the last six months.

We'll see what happens in the next year and a half, but it's also about perceptions of it. We'll see what happens with those. It does seem like that is one of the big vulnerabilities that Democrats need to figure out a way to address. If not the actual crime rate, then maybe it's more about people feeling unsafe. In a strange way, it was less of a factor for voters in New York City itself than for people in the suburbs of New York City feeling that the city was unsafe and that things have gotten very bad there.

That sort of thing is very much on Democrats' minds as they try to figure out their way through into winning next year. That larger concern that she spoke to of the working-class voters feeling like they have been ignored or passed over, that obviously is something that Donald Trump tapped into in 2016 and continued to tap into in 2020 and continues to tap into now. Whether that will be enough to help bring voters to the polls who will vote for Republicans for these House seats is another thing that is very much on many Democrats' minds.

Brian Lehrer: We heard from Lisa, who has a foot in Brooklyn and a foot in the Hudson Valley. After we come back from a break, we're going to get to a couple of Long Island callers next. Meg in Rockville Centre, we see you. Susan in Huntington. We're also going to play a clip from yesterday's show from David Leonhardt, The New York Times columnist who had an analysis of exactly what we're talking about, how Democrats can win next year in swing districts. That was kind of counterintuitive to what a lot of you may think. We're going to replay that David Leonhardt clip and get a reaction from today's guest, Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN senior political reporter. Edward-Isaac, more of your calls and texts. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Edward-Isaac Dovere from CNN and his article on how Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn is taking over the New York State Democratic Party apparatus in pursuit of the House Republican majority next year. So many of the important swing districts nationally are right in the New York suburbs. Meg is in one of them, Rockville Centre. Meg, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Meg: Hi, good morning, Brian. I just wanted to say that I think the Democratic Party is stuck. Yesterday, you had a couple of men on Politico and someone from the newspaper. They make so much sense about what the Democratic Party should be doing, but we don't do it. The elections on Long Island, there was just no interest. The people don't speak out.

In Republican Party, you have all these lunatics who are always out saying things that most people don't agree with, but yet they're out there saying it, and our party, the Democratic Party, says nothing. We need to be able to speak common sense to people and not just keep going progressive, conservative, liberal-conservative. The labels don't help anyone because as soon as they hear that, they don't listen to anything else.

Brian Lehrer: What's common sense?

Meg: Sure, crime is bad, but it's--

Brian Lehrer: What's common sense? Give me an example.

Meg: The things that most people relate to. I'm trying to think of what your caller said yesterday where they should be going in the Democratic Party leaning to. We should be talking about why the country needs to be diversified. We need to talk about immigration, not whether it's open and close the border, but why do we need immigrants? How do we solve the problem, not just keep saying we're going to solve it?

Common sense says we shouldn't let everyone cross the border, but do we need immigrants? Yes, in this country. They provide diversity. They also take jobs that Americans don't want. They are the ones that go out and work in the fields. They are the ones that take jobs that are getting low pay. Why don't we talk about that to the people? We just keep saying the same things over and over again.

Anything from the White House, it's the establishment. Now, I heard someone yesterday on one of the shows say that Joe Biden is the example of the establishment, whereas someone like Trump and I guess DeSantis are anti-establishment. What does that mean? Does it mean that we have to take every wacko idea they have, every lie, and that's our choice of silence versus that?

Brian Lehrer: Meg, thank you so much for chiming in. Meg referred to a few things that David Leonhardt, The New York Times columnist, said on the show yesterday. We are going to play an excerpt from that in just a second, but let me get another Long Island caller in here first. Susan in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan. Thanks for calling in.

Susan: Hi, thanks. Thanks for taking my call. The previous callers had a lot of good things to say and I agree with them. I don't really like to engage in the name-calling because I don't think it's productive by saying they're not and they're lunatics because many of these people are our friends and family. From the Long Island perspective, my district was slightly reorganized.

It had been Democratic. Tom Suozzi had been our representative and he decided to resign. It went to a Republican, Nick LaLota. I saw very little in the way of campaigning on Long Island. Hochul squeaked a win and there was very little presence of hers on Long Island. I agree. I don't think the Democrats are that organized and pushing back. People keep bringing up the issue of crime.

I think that is stoking fear in people of crime. Look, we don't have the kind of crime that many urban areas have, but Long Island does have its amount of crime. The other aspect for Long Island is we are a highly-segregated area. That too is, I think, contributing to disparity in a lot of things. I just think the Democrats need to get out there and push back when Republicans say, "Well, they're for open borders."

No, Democrats are not for open borders, but nobody hears that. Everybody hears the Republican message because I think they're pretty good on messaging. I think they don't fear and I really would like to see the Democrats. I admire Mr. Jeffries tremendously, Representative Jeffries. He's a lifelong legislator. He knows how to get things done. I wish him so much success in getting more Democrats back into the House next season.

Brian Lehrer: Susan, thank you so much for your call. Isaac, one of the themes that we're hearing from these callers that you also write about in your article is that the Democrats are perceived by some of their own as not getting their message out as effectively in the swing districts last year as the Republicans got their message out. You place it somewhat in terms of disappointing turnout in 2022.

That brings up a whole other dynamic as I'm sure you think about, which is, "Well, one way to win elections is to appeal to the swing voters by having more moderation in your message maybe and some of the other things we've been hearing from the callers." Another way or combined with that is to make sure your base is fired up enough to turn out. Sometimes those things compete with each other for what a candidate is going to say on the stump. Talk about turnout last year as you reported it and how you think it relates to what we've been hearing from the callers.

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Well, the turnout for Democrats was not good. The turnout for independents went more toward Republican candidates than for Democrats. That's the explanation of what happened in those elections pretty much in a nutshell. All of these things are on the minds of the people who are looking at how to win these campaigns for Democrats.

One of the things that Jeffries has been eager to make happen and is trying to make happen is to figure out how to get all the candidates on the same page when it comes to talking about controversial issues, whether it's crime or immigration, some of the other things that callers brought up, and to help them develop things not necessarily so they're all saying exactly the same thing, but that they're at least not undercutting each other district to district, and that they are getting the resources and support that candidates running for office don't often get. As that is happening, there's a group called the House Majority PAC.

It's a super PAC that supports Democrats running for the House and is very much aligned with Jeffries. They have set up a New York-specific operation that plans to spend, they say, $45 million over the course of this election cycle to mostly just go after Republicans who are in these seats and say to the voters what they think is wrong with those Republicans and how they are too much aligned with the extremes of the Republican Party, which is something that Jeffries himself spoke to me directly about, saying that he feels like part of the job of Democrats going into next year is going to be saying that these Republican incumbents say back in their districts that they're moderates and that they're bipartisan, but then they vote with the extremes of the Republican Party in Washington.

Should be said that a number of the Republican incumbents that I spoke to say that that's ridiculous and that Jeffries is just playing politics when he says that. Another point that is going to be a big factor in these elections next year is abortion. We know that that issue remains, even a year after the Dobbs decision, very much on voters' minds. Next November, the legislature pushed along by Governor Hochul has put a ballot measure on the ballot, which is about ensuring that abortion rights and equal rights overall are never up for debate. It would be part of the Constitution in New York. There's a lot of money going behind that, which is about the issue itself, but it's also about driving Democratic turnout in these districts.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that's so interesting because we've talked on this show about trying to drive Democratic turnout in swing states next year by putting abortion rights referenda on the ballot in states where abortion rights might actually be more immediately threatened. New York is considered a safe state, at least in the near and medium term. You're saying, even here, an abortion rights referendum is being developed to drive Democratic turnout. That's really interesting.

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Well, it's already been developed. It's already there. It will be on the ballot. That is very much on Democrats' minds as a way that they will help get Democratic voters to turn out. Of course, it'll be a presidential election and turnout tends to be higher in presidential elections.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe with last week's, I should say, Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, on undoing the student loan forgiveness program, on allowing businesses to refuse to serve gay customers in some cases, those also could drive various Democratic Party constituencies, depending on how the party plays it. Here's that clip from yesterday's show of New York Times columnist David Leonhardt on what kinds of Democrats actually win elections in swing districts. He refers in this clip to a certain kind of moderate Democrat, but one who's the opposite of a Mike Bloomberg moderate. He's talking here in the context of a study done by the progressive think tank Data for Progress.

David Leonhardt: They went out and they looked at a whole bunch of the messages that Democrats used in the midterms and then they basically tried to subject these messages to the rigors of a social science test. You give different people in a survey different messages and you ask what appeals to them. The kind of Democrats who have done really well are the kind who have talked about border security, who have talked about the importance of bringing down crime, who have talked in nuanced ways about a lot of these social issues, and who also tend to be really quite populist on economic issues, right?

This notion that the way to appeal to the American middle is some sort of Mike Bloomberg-style, socially liberal, and economically conservative. I have enormous regard for many of the things Mike Bloomberg accomplished as New York mayor. The notion that that's where the American center lies is almost exactly flipped.

Brian Lehrer: David Leonhardt here yesterday. Isaac, is that the kind of Democrat you see Jeffries as or Jeffries as cultivating for the suburbs, populist on economics, moderate on social issues?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: These districts are similar in a number of ways, but they're also different in ways that Hudson Valley is not exactly where voters are in Long Island, but there is a lot of similarity there that they're trying to tap into. It does seem like the populist economic feeling is one that's not just popular in swing districts but is popular in a lot of places around the country. Certainly, these districts in New York would suggest that they'd agree with that too.

They are digging in here to try to figure out what the right candidate profile is. Of course, it's not fully their control who runs. There are candidates who are starting to announce their campaigns and even start to rack up a lot of donations here. Importantly, on top of all of this, it's going to be, as I said, a presidential election, a national election. These things tend to run in ways that are national referendum on the parties.

That's a big part of why Democrats here are not only focusing on building up their candidates and the kind of campaigns and operations that'll be running but to try to say that these Republicans are really out of sync with their districts and are much more out of sync than they want to make themselves out to be that they are extreme and that they don't fit these swing districts. The Republicans will be pushing back on that quite hard.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. June in Rockland County, you're on WNYC. Hi, June.

June: Hi. I am a very frustrated Democrat. When Lawler won over Sean Patrick Maloney, you could not find a Maloney sign. I drove around a bit. You could not find it to the point where I try to find a Democratic headquarters to get assigned and to volunteer and couldn't find that either. This area is very low crime, but we don't have a local paper that tells you that or a TV station. They merged Rockland with Westchester and it's mostly Westchester. If you get crime, it's White Plains and Yonkers.

Somehow we live in a news desert and I find it extremely frustrating. If I listen to the TV station after a ton of bad stuff in Westchester, maybe three days later, they'll mention Rockland once. Of course, the theory is if it bleeds, it leads, but this county is full of people who work in the New York Police because this area is so safe. This really is an area where people can keep their doors unlocked, can keep their cars unlocked, but they don't seem to know it.

Brian Lehrer: June, thank you very much for your call. Isaac, let me follow up on one thing that she said at the beginning of her call about the lawn signs. So many lawn signs for the Republican. For Congress there, Mike Lawler. Hardly any lawn signs for Sean Patrick Maloney, the Democrat as she saw it. We talked about this after last year's election with respect to how many-- Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor, lawn signs there were around the state compared to Kathy Hochul lawn signs.

We had, as one of our guests, Jay Jacobs, the much-embattled head of the Democratic Party statewide. I asked him about the lawn signs because that kept coming up from callers all over the place in New York State. Was it not a failure of Jay Jacobs and his Democratic Party organization to get those lawn signs out on Democratic lawns just like there were all those Zeldin and I guess Mike Lawler signs and other ones?

He said that it wasn't a failure on his part. It's that Republicans went around taking out the Hochul signs as little acts of vandalism. While Democrats aren't built that way, they didn't go around taking out the Lee Zeldin signs like Republicans went around taking out the Kathy Hochul signs. I don't know. On first blush, that strikes me as an excuse. It can't be that simple. Did you ever report on that?

Edward-Isaac Dovere: I did not specifically on what was going on in those districts, but the question of lawn signs is one that comes around every election because they are the most visible way of seeing the activity of a campaign and also the way of voters showing their support to their communities and their neighbors obviously. In that district, the district that was Sean Patrick Maloney's and that Mike Lawler is now the congressman from, I believe Governor Hochul lost that district by 10 or 11 points.

You may say that that is about lawn signs in part, but that's about a lot of things that obviously went wrong there. Maloney obviously, even though he was running the House Democrats' national campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he ended up being targeted by Republicans and was not able to adequately respond obviously to hold on to his own seat.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. We haven't mentioned redistricting yet, which also helped Republicans in those congressional elections in New York State last year, including that Sean Patrick Maloney district that isn't the same district really that he had been elected to previously. In fact, I see Mondaire Jones, who got redistricted out or he would have had to run against Sean Patrick Maloney to continue to run in what much of his northern suburbs district was.

He's thrown his hat into the ring now to try to get the Democratic nomination to go against Mike Lawler for next year. That's one of the many dynamics that we'll be watching, of course. All right, and there we will leave it with Edward-Isaac Dovere, senior reporter for CNN. His new article is about Hakeem Jeffries' takeover of the Democratic Party in New York State, as it's described, aimed at taking back the House for the Dems next year. Isaac, thanks so much.

Edward-Isaac Dovere: Thanks, Brian.

 

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