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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. It is Monday, August 1st. Welcome to August. Summer always flies by, doesn't it? It being August 1st, we are now in a month when New York City Council, Mayor Adams, and the courts will have to finally figure out what the education budget is going to be for the coming school year so principals can know how many teachers they can hire and if they have to eliminate CHERISH programs.

We will talk to a member of council later this hour about that standoff of the council now being against the budget it voted for just a few weeks ago, and the mayor's refusal so far to restore the cuts even though he says he wants to restore the cuts and everybody blaming everybody else. We'll get to that. It being August 1st, it's the day before a first-of-its-kind referendum on abortion rights in the state of Kansas. That could be a litmus test for public opinion in more conservative states after Roe v. Wade was reversed, throwing it back to the states.

That vote could either preserve abortion rights that are in the Kansas state constitution or allow the legislature to limit them in any way, even ban abortion when the life of the mother is at stake. The ballot question explicitly mentions life-of-the-mother abortions as no longer to be protected in the state constitution if that referendum passes. It being August 1st, it's probably the day after the weekend when you did not win a million dollars in the Mega Millions lottery unless you're that certain person in Illinois happened to be listening right now.

Later in the show, we'll ask, why do you play and what's your threshold? If it's a $200 million prize, you don't bother. If it's a $1 billion prize, you do. Why does that make any sense? We'll take those calls. It being August 1st, Democrats decided they had to get more serious about trying to hold the House and Senate. They finally came to a deal on what used to be called Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda.

Right now, it's rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Act. Joe Manchin on board and no longer aims to make Biden the new FDR or the new LBJ. No more national childcare program, no more eldercare expansion, no more paid family leave. It does make potentially transformative investments in preventing climate change. It adds incentives for more fossil fuel production too in the short run. It makes corporations pay at least a minimum amount of tax and allows Medicare to begin negotiating the price of prescription drugs for seniors if it passes.

Manchin is on board, but we still don't know about Kyrsten Sinema. We'll talk about what's in and what's out of that bill and what it might mean for you with USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page in about an hour. It being August 1st, we are now in the month of the second New York primary for this year, the high stakes one that could help determine who controls Congress next year as much as any issue will.

There are four races in our immediate listening area in which the well-known incumbent has given up their seat and their parties are fighting in a new open playing field for control. Three of these seats are on Long Island, which is a very much swing district America now. You know the Democrat, Tom Suozzi, gave up his seat in Congress, or at least will at the end of this term, from the North Shore and a little bit of Northeast Queens to run for governor. That didn't work out for him obviously, but will his party lose that congressional seat too?

Kathleen Rice, a relatively centrist Democrat from Nassau County, also not running. That seat is very much in play. Lee Zeldin gave up his Suffolk County seat to be the Republican nominee for governor. Can the Dems take that one back this year? They had it in the years before Zeldin was elected. Anybody remember Congressman Tim Bishop, Democrat who eventually lost to Zeldin?

Antonio Delgado from the 19th district in the Hudson Valley and around Albany gave up his seat in Congress to become Kathy Hochul's lieutenant governor as many of you know. To complicate matters, that election this month is not a primary but to fill out the rest of Delgado's actual term. Our guest on that seat, Bill Mahoney from Politico, has an article called, This Election Could Answer the Biggest Midterm Question: Abortion or the Economy? Bill, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Bill Mahoney: Hey, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Joining us on the Long Island races is Newsday politics reporter, Candice Ferrette. Among her recent articles is one about Hillary Clinton getting involved with an endorsement in the race to fill the Tom Suozzi seat. Candice, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Candice Ferrette: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Candice, let me start with you. That race, the district under Suozzi, was Northeast Queens, Bayside, Little Neck, around there, and out along the North Shore to around Huntington. How is that district changing under the court-ordered redistricting this year?

Candice Ferrette: It's definitely changing slightly. I was on FiveThirtyEight and it--

Brian Lehrer: That politics data site, FiveThirtyEight, just so people know what you're talking about. Go ahead.

Candice Ferrette: I was just brushing up before getting on this call. That's the third congressional district where Tom Suozzi has been a household name for a long time. Obviously, in Nassau County, former mayor of Glen Cove, and former county executive of Nassau. He's held that for a while. They're listing it as a D+4 partisan lean. I do think that after redistricting, that seat and a few of the other ones have shifted a bit. I think that it's still primarily Democratic-leaning.

We've noticed a lot of people from Queens moving to that Great Neck peninsula and tending to vote a little more on the conservative side. That district also encompasses all of the town of North Hempstead, which has changed a bit in the last decade. I've noticed it myself just having covered politics in Nassau County for a little bit now. That is a pretty competitive primary right now. It's a five-way primary. It's pretty active, I'd say, of the four on Long Island. I would say that that's the one that's the most toss-up.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get into some of the candidates in a minute. I guess last year's election around Long Island was considered a wake-up call for the Democrats. The Republicans took the Nassau County executive seat away from a Democrat. They won DA in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. In the Northeast Queens, part of that Suozzi district, Bayside, Little Neck, around there, that went Republican in the New York City Council to a very conservative candidate, Vickie Paladino, who unseated a Democratic incumbent there. Some indications that that district, even though FiveThirtyEight list it as D+4, +4 for the Democrats, could be in play this year. If I'm seeing correctly, the Republicans have no primary in that district. They have a candidate for the general election already, correct?

Candice Ferrette: Correct, George Santos.

Brian Lehrer: Familiar with him?

Candice Ferrette: Not very. [laughs] To be honest, no.

Brian Lehrer: Not enough to say if he's very Trumpy if he would say the election was stolen for president, anything like that?

Candice Ferrette: The only thing that I know about him is I believe on his website, he came out, he's gay, which is not typical, I think, of Republican candidates. I think I can confidently say that. This, I think, is his second run for office. Otherwise, I really personally have not interviewed him. I don't know him very well. He is from Queens. I covered Nassau, so he wasn't really a household name for me personally.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, but the Republicans don't have a primary, the Democrats do. The names that I have on the Democratic side, Jon Kaiman, Joshua Lafazan, if I'm saying that correctly.

Candice Ferrette: It's Lafazan. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Lafazan, thank you, as you laugh as I mispronounced Lafazan.

Candice Ferrette: Sorry.

Brian Lehrer: Reema Rasool and Robert Zimmerman. Zimmerman is the one with the Hillary Clinton seal of approval. I'm missing one, right?

Candice Ferrette: Melanie D'Arrigo, I believe her last name is.

Brian Lehrer: Tell me about Zimmerman. Who is Zimmerman and why is Hillary Clinton staking out a candidate in this race at all?

Candice Ferrette: Well, Robert Zimmerman, he has quite a bit of name recognition here on Long Island. He's a businessman. He is a very popular communications executive. He was also a Democratic National Committee man since 2000, longtime Democratic activist, fundraiser, political commentator. I think he's been on CNN and MSNBC a few times.

He's done a lot of fundraising for the Clintons, met them during Bill's first run. I think it is definitely significant to have Hillary Clinton on Twitter singularly endorsing him. How that's going to play out in the general, I wouldn't know. We'll just have to wait and see, [chuckles] but he's definitely, I would say, one of the three that have the most name recognition in that five-way primary.

Brian Lehrer: To inform the people of that district, if they're coming in cold and like, "I don't know. Suozzi was my congressman, but I don't know any of these other people," we now know that teeny bit about Robert Zimmerman. Are you saying there are two others who would generally be considered the other front-runners?

Candice Ferrette: Yes, two others who have held public office in Nassau and who have been newsmakers in the past.

Brian Lehrer: Which ones were those?

Candice Ferrette: Josh Lafazan. He's actually the youngest member of the Nassau County Legislature. It took a long time for him to declare himself as a Democrat. He was always an independent. He's in his third term. He won his seat when he was 23. His launch into politics was actually at 18. We wrote a lot of stories about him doing that. He challenged the Syosset School Board and was a member of the school board when he was, I think, a senior or maybe right after graduation. My memory's a little fuzzy. This was like years ago.

I believe the last time I was even on your show, we were talking about a bill that he sponsored having to do with first responders. He's a friend to the PBA and law enforcement, but also was a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. He hasn't been as active, I don't think, on the Nassau County Legislature as he was when he first was elected, but he certainly has been, at least in the beginning when he was first elected, that voice who really spoke to some of the young people on Long Island about the affordability issue here.

He was even living for a long time in his parents' basement and made that part of his platform when he ran for legislature. He's pretty well-known in local politics. Then there's Jon Kaiman. He's from Great Neck. He's making his second run for Congress in that third district. For the last few years, I'm not sure exactly when, maybe 2017, worked as a deputy county executive in Suffolk County under Steve Bellone. He's somebody who also has that name recognition. The reason why that's important is because he tends to raise more money and more money. The political campaign world is good.

Brian Lehrer: Does anything make these Democratic candidates-- and then we're going to move on to the other races that are in open seats in our area this year, including this really interesting one that Bill Mahoney's going to tell us about that we might call Poughkeepsie versus Woodstock [chuckles] on either side of the Hudson River in the Hudson Valley.

To the people who are going to vote in this Democratic primary for who might succeed Tom Suozzi in Congress from that district, does anything jump out at you as distinguishing these three Democrats from each other, just focusing on these presumed front-runners? Is one more Democratic socialist, one more something else than the others on the issues, or is it just a matter of what their experience is and they're arguing who's going to be more effective and things like that?

Candice Ferrette: I think it's the latter actually. They're all somewhat centrists. I think for that district, you have to be. It's a pretty well-heeled area. The property values there are quite high. The SALT deduction is a very big issue there and one that Tom Suozzi was really ahead of. I think he had the nickname in Congress, Mr. SALT or something. I wouldn't call any of them socialists.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, we saw how Tom Suozzi ran for governor coming out of that district. An indication that whoever gets the Democratic nomination there is likely to be on the moderate side of that party. All right, we're going to take a break, then we're going to continue with Candice Ferrette from Newsday. There are other Long Island races to talk about in this month's New York congressional primary.

We're going to go upstate with the very patient Bill Mahoney from Politico, who has sat through the first piece of this conversation as we talk about this fascinating race. That's not even a primary. This will send somebody to Congress and it will either be the Ulster County executive or the Dutchess County executive. It's reflective of this whole strange dynamic that if you go up the Thruway or go up the Taconic, on one side, it's more Republican. On the other side, it's more Democrat. We'll get into that with Bill Mahoney right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're talking about the high-stakes New York congressional primary coming up this month on August 23rd, particularly for this conversation in four districts where the incumbents are all leaving or have already left their seats open races, plus that one special election that we're going to talk about now where the winner on August 23rd actually goes to Congress.

Bill Mahoney from Politico, let's go upstate, at least for listeners in the city and the immediate suburbs, to look at this. The race to replace Democratic Congressman Antonio Delgado, who has already left that seat to become Kathy Hochul's lieutenant governor. This is, again, actually to go to Congress for the rest of this year, not just the primary. Your article headline, which I mentioned before, is This Election Could Answer the Biggest Midterm Question: Abortion or the Economy? Bill, why do you frame it that way?

Bill Mahoney: Sure. Well, this is the most competitive regular congressional election we have in terms of a non-primary from anywhere in the country, really between the Roe decision in June and the general election in November. Now, both Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, the Democrat who's running, and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the Republican, they're talking about plenty of issues.

Molinaro's out there about crime. Ryan's out there on his own issues of the economy. A lot of their messaging, if you look at what their campaign ads boils down to, what they're saying at news conferences, they're hammering on certain issues. In the case of Molinaro, he's hammering on the economy and inflation and how difficult that makes life for regular New Yorkers. Pat Ryan, his first campaign ad, I think his second ad, many of his fundraising appeals, he's really laser-focused on this issue of the Supreme Court, particularly on things like its Roe decision.

We're a few months away from knowing things for sure, but that seems to be the major parties' campaign messages throughout the country everywhere this year. It's a preview of what we're seeing, what we're probably going to see in September or October where they'll both be hammering on these messages. They both hope that these will drive voters out to the poll. This will be the best test we have before November really of how well these messages resonate.

Brian Lehrer: You reported that one of the candidates challenged the other to a single-issue debate on one of these things?

Bill Mahoney: Yes, that was Ryan. He is a Democrat. Like I said, like everybody else, he's focused on plenty of issues, but abortion is one he's really hammering on. That was highlighted, I think, just a couple of weeks ago when he came out and challenged Molinaro to a debate just on abortion, and trying to get him more on the record on this topic and make it more the center of the campaign. That's probably the type of thing we'll be seeing in many other races as we get closer to the general elections, where the Democrats, particularly in these swing districts, are going to really try to put Republicans on the record on this issue.

Brian Lehrer: I presume Molinaro did not accept that debate.

Bill Mahoney: I have not heard anything from him yet. It's not an issue that he has talked about a ton over the years.

Brian Lehrer: What is Molinaro's position since he might wind up in Congress? If there's a Republican Congress as Mitch McConnell said, they might vote to ban abortion nationally. Do we know how Molinaro would vote on that or any other restrictions at the federal level?

Bill Mahoney: No, it's not something he's talked about a ton. He did say in the past, he made-- A few years ago, when we were codifying Roe v. Wade and making some other changes to the abortion law in New York, that was all being debated when he was the Republican nominee for governor against Andrew Cuomo in 2018. Cuomo really made his unwillingness to talk about this issue a center of his campaign four years ago.

Molinaro did say that he was open to some changes like, previously, the abortion law in New York was treated under the criminal code where rather than a health issue, it was treated as a type of crime when it was illegal to have an abortion. He said he was open to taking it out of there, making it more of a health issue, but he did ultimately oppose the bill that we passed in New York that made things like third-trimester abortions legal in certain circumstances. I don't think he's as supportive of abortion as most New Yorkers, but it's never been an issue that he's been too happy to make the center of debate.

Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, we can take your calls, your comments, or your questions on any of these four races that we're talking about where, on August 23rd, New Yorkers, depending on your party registration, will be able to vote, in most cases, in a primary, in this case, in a general election for who goes to Congress in seats that have been vacated. Tom Suozzi is leaving his seat. Lee Zeldin is leaving his seat. We'll get to that one. Kathleen Rice is leaving her seat. Antonio Delgado already left his seat.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet your comment or your question @BrianLehrer for Bill Mahoney from Politico, who we're with now, and Candice Ferrette from Newsday, who's here on the Long Island races. Let's stay with this New York 19 Hudson Valley race. The candidates as you say are the current Ulster County executive and the current Dutchess County executive. That, in and of itself, is really interesting.

For people downstate who don't know the Hudson Valley that well, this is the Thruway side of the Hudson River versus the Taconic side of the Hudson River if you want to look at it as a drive-by country, or the Poughkeepsie side of the river versus the New Paltz and Woodstock side of the river. What makes them different enough politically, Bill, that Dutchess County on the Poughkeepsie side has a Republican county executive, Molinaro, and Ulster County west of the Hudson River on the New Paltz-Woodstock side elected a Democrat, Pat Ryan?

Bill Mahoney: One thing that I think is notable when you were talking about Long Island, the idea of Queens people moving out to Great Neck came up, but this whole migration from New York City is even more pronounced out here in the Hudson Valley. It's happening everywhere. I was out in Rhinebeck, which was actually on the Dutchess County side, five years ago before Antonio Delgado won his first election to Congress.

There was an effort out there to recruit New York City residents who own second homes in the area to register to vote in this competitive congressional district rather than voting in Brooklyn or Manhattan, where the general elections are never really a doubt. We've seen that going to hyperdrive in the past few years, this general trend of New York City people in places like Hudson and places like Woodstock and Kingston that you mentioned.

The housing prices are through the roof the past couple of years. When people talk about people fleeing the city due to the pandemic or relocating to a quieter life upstate, this is the exact congressional district that they're moving to in many cases. That's more pronounced in Ulster County, I think, than in Dutchess. Ulster County has always been very progressive in some parts of it.

Nobody thinks of New Paltz, a college town, that, I think, was tied with San Francisco for the first place in the country to try to legalize same-sex marriage a couple of decades ago, or Woodstock. Those aren't exactly famous for being conservative strongholds, but we're seeing an increase in the population in places like this. That definitely helps solidify the culture, which, a decade ago, I would've said would've been a pretty strong swing district in the state. It's getting to be as blue as can be.

That's a definite contributing factor is that we just keep on seeing this increase in population from places that are-- People who are moving from Brooklyn, they're not usually Republicans because there's not too many Republicans in Brooklyn or Manhattan to move to a place like Hudson. It's definitely increasing the Democratic population there and turn some of these parts of the district into more solidly Democratic than they ever have been before.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Let's take a phone call. This is on the race to succeed Tom Suozzi on the North Shore that we were talking about before. Lynn in Huntington, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lynn.

Lynn: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me on. I am a huge Melanie D'Arrigo fan. Melanie is the only progressive in the race. She would be the first woman, sadly, ever to hold that seat in all of these years that we've had a CD3. We have a terrible problem on Long Island when it comes to the police and funding campaigns. Josh Lafazan, in many progressive opinions, works for the police. As soon as he announced, he got $340,000 from them.

Melanie doesn't take any cop money. It's just a very difficult thing. When Josh was on the county legislature in Nassau, he proposed a bill to make police a protected class, which, thankfully, was vetoed and the veto wasn't able to be override. What you've got here are a lot of establishment candidates. Of course, all men. Then you have Melanie, who is a healthcare advocate, who is really fighting for the people.

I have to say, Nassau and Suffolk got just destroyed in the last election. People called it a red wave, but it wasn't a red wave. There weren't more Republicans coming out. There were just less progressives because they got tired of the same old thing. Democrats didn't come out and I'm afraid that's what happens all the time now. The powers that be are not putting up candidates that most people want, and so the progressives stay home. Melanie, she is the real deal in this race. I hope the people can get behind her.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting, Lynn. Do you have any theory as to why Hillary Clinton, who would have made history herself obviously, or did make history as the first woman to do a number of things but would have made history as the first woman president and somebody who, earlier in her life when she was First Lady, tried to do a big healthcare reform when her husband was president, why she would have come out for Zimmerman in this race and not for Melanie D'Arrigo?

Lynn: For Melanie, yes. I think they just have long ties going back. Bob Zimmerman's a very nice man. He's a very nice man. I have no problem with him. He's just the same old, same old. I just think they have a long-standing relationship together. In politics, as in everything else, relationships matter.

Brian Lehrer: Lynn, thank you so much for your call. Candice Ferrette from Newsday, obviously, that caller had a particular candidate who she supports. That's fine, but what do you think of her analysis of Long Island turnout last year, progressive stayed home, more Republicans showed up, and the context of that race as seen through Lynn in Huntington's phone call?

Candice Ferrette: She brings up some really interesting points. I don't want to overestimate the number of progressives on Long Island though. I know that during the last campaign season when we had the county-wide races, the Republicans really hammered away on bill reform. Their DA candidate won. If you'll remember, State Senator Todd Kaminsky was running for DA last year and really, by most people's accounts, did not help the Democratic Party in Nassau County during the last election.

There are well-moneyed law enforcement unions here. That is 100% fact. During the Cuomo administration, if you'll remember Executive Order 203, it ordered all municipalities to get involved with reforming the police practices in Nassau. A lot of people believed that it was somewhat unnecessary, that we already had the practices in place to ensure that anti-implicit bias training was happening. The police are just a very favored group. Their influence in Long Island politics cannot be underestimated.

She is absolutely right about that. When you look at the numbers, when you look at the political action committees that we have, particularly in Suffolk politics, they fund the campaigns. You can see why someone who had always been an independent, even though he caucused with the Democrats on the legislature, would want to curry favor with the PBA and the other law enforcement organizations in Nassau.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting context for people not from Long Island on the influence of the police in all kinds of elections.

Candice Ferrette: I also want to say that a lot of NYPD live particularly on the South Shore of Long Island.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and that's always a debate in the city should there be a residency requirement for members of the NYPD, but, of course, at the moment, there is not. Bill Mahoney from Politico, I know you got to go in a couple of minutes. Let me touch two things real quickly with you. We were talking about the Hudson Valley congressional race, Ryan versus Molinaro. Whoever wins on August 23rd is actually going to go to Congress for the rest of this year to replace Delgado, who became Hochul's lieutenant governor. Weirdly, because of redistricting, both of these candidates, win or lose, will be candidates again in separate congressional races in November. Do I have that right?

Bill Mahoney: Yes, so the race they're running for is actually probably to serve just three or four months, however long it takes them to certify the election of Delgado's term, but they're going to be on the ballot. The district that they're running in is being split up to a northern part and a southern part in November. Actually, on the same day that Pat Ryan is going to be on this special election ballot, he has a primary opponent. It doesn't seem like too serious of a primary opponent, but he's going to be on a primary ballot in some towns that are not part of the special election. People who live in Molinaro's hometown in Dutchess County, they're not going to be able to vote for him in November because the district that he's running in is actually different.

It gets really confusing too because based on the fact that there's this special the same day there's the primaries, there's actually seven different permeations of ballots in the district that people will be able to vote on because some people will be living in a Southern Tier district in November. Some people will be living in the Sean Patrick Maloney district because they're moving around. There are some people who are voting in the Molinaro-Ryan special election. On the same day, they'll be able to cast ballots in the Sean Patrick Maloney-Alessandra Biaggi primary because they're going to be in that district in November, so try to think that.

Brian Lehrer: All I can say about that, Bill, is no one to turn out as low in some of these races when these things keep shifting around and nobody even knows who's on the ballot in their neighborhoods, right?

Bill Mahoney: Yes, especially this time of year, I'm not optimistic. Too many people have looked at the multiple sets of maps and calendars they need to figure out which elections they can vote in and when, so there will be plenty of people showing up to the poll surprised to learn they can or cannot vote on any particular race when they do.

Brian Lehrer: One other weirdness about this. I'll get Candice on this too after you go, but isn't there some special rule this time where you can register on the day of the primary in a different party than you're usually registered in? Is there something like that?

Bill Mahoney: Yes, it's due to the whole court case with redistricting that created this whole mess that we're in where you have these August primaries in the first place. The election law was written with the assumption that all the primaries would be in August, so it basically said primary-- If you switch your party registration, it takes effect immediately unless you do it between February and June, basically with the idea that people couldn't switch their party registration too close before a primary.

We're no longer in February through June, so the part of the law that refers to it taking effect immediately is fully in effect. Somebody can show up to the polls a day of and switch their registration if they want. I don't know how many people are going to do that. I'm skeptical. There's a ton of people who will plan on going to the polls and be, "You know what? I'm going to turn from a Republican to a Democrat for a day just so I can vote in this one election."

People tend to not like a lot of paperwork, but I do think there will be some effect in some people who-- Every year, we see people who show up thinking they're going to vote for Bernie Sanders or somebody like that, thinking that they are able to but didn't realize they're registered as an independent or a Working Families Party member and they're ineligible to vote in the primaries.

Those people who are shown up to the polls will have the option to switch so that they can vote in the primaries. I think there might be a little bit of a boost from there for people who genuinely don't know what parties they're registered in, but we've never seen anything like this before, so it's tough to say how much of an increase in turnout that might lead to.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so heads up, listeners. You can change a party to vote in the August 23rd primary in New York State in case you want to be a sleuth or anything like that. Bill, later in the show, we're going to talk with Susan Page from USA Today about something related where Democrats are trying to support some of the more extreme Republican candidates and their congressional primaries around the country, hoping that they'll nominate somebody who's so extreme that they'll lose to the Democrats. This goes on on both sides over the years. There's, "Oh yes, you cross over and vote in that primary so that guy who's going to lose gets in." We'll see if anybody actually does that in New York State on August 23rd. Bill Mahoney from Politico, thank you very much for joining us.

Bill Mahoney: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Candice Ferrette from Newsday, before we went out of time with you, let's go back to Long Island and go out to the East End, where Lee Zeldin is leaving his Suffolk County congressional seat to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee. This is Smithtown, Brookhaven, Riverhead, The Hamptons. In this case, the Democrats have no primary, but the Republicans do. This district by way of history was represented by Democrat Tim Bishop for a number of years before Zeldin defeated him in 2014. Why did Eastern Long Island go GOP in 2014 while Barack Obama was president?

Candice Ferrette: That's a great question. There's a center of Suffolk County that is very Trump. While Barack Obama was president, I think there's always been that faction. When Trump entered the field, I think that he really spoke to a certain segment of Suffolk County and that segment is very alive and well right now. I don't know--

Brian Lehrer: How would you describe that segment of Suffolk County in terms of what they really care about issues-wise?

Candice Ferrette: Safety, very pro-law enforcement. There are "Back the Blue" signs all over that area.

Brian Lehrer: Back to the police influence on Long Island.

Candice Ferrette: Back to the police influence in the schools, pretty conservative when it comes to a lot of the issues, the political identity issues, the LGBT issues. Newsday writes about a lot of these very heated discussions at school board meetings where displays on gender identity are not really welcomed. I think the county executive in Nassau, Bruce Blakeman, while he has really subscribed to a lot of the right ideologies, this is really homegrown here in Suffolk County and has been for decades.

Brian Lehrer: Was Zeldin himself previously seen as more moderate out there? I know he became a big Trump supporter in the impeachments and voted against certifying the election on January 6th. How has he changed and does it reflect how the district has changed?

Candice Ferrette: It might. I think that he's born out of a very blue-collar, middle-class area, the "family values." He did align with Trump, voted with him often, and was very vocal about it. I think that, definitely, a Trump candidate in the primaries would do very well. I'm not sure because you did mention other areas of that district that include The Hamptons, which tends to be a little less Trump. I think he probably did change during that administration and what helped him and what would hurt him.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, who are the Republicans hoping to succeed Lee Zeldin in that seat, and is how pro-Trump to be an issue in that race?

Candice Ferrette: Well, to my knowledge in that, I don't know if things have changed over the weekend, but I don't think that there is a Trump-endorsed candidate yet in the first congressional district out there. Michelle Bond is making it a little bit more interesting. She's the president of a cryptocurrency trade group. She has a lot of personal money that she's put into that race. She was sort of a late entry. I wrote about that in June when she entered the race. A lot of the House members have held their seats for a very long time.

My colleague, Yancey Roy, up in Albany did a great piece actually on the incumbents leaving and how this is bringing such an opportunity to a lot of the newcomers. I wanted to just make sure that I noted his story on that. This possible three-way, this Republican primary in the first, it's Michelle Bond, the cryptocurrency-funded candidate. Anthony Figliola of Setauket. He's a more grassroots, I would say, candidate. Nick LaLota, who is the Suffolk County Republican Committee's designated candidate for the party nomination, he's definitely more a recognized name.

Brian Lehrer: What makes Figliola grassroots as you described him?

Candice Ferrette: The last time I looked at his filings, there were more smaller donations. He fashions himself as, really, the family man, the Christian values, conservative candidate. I do believe that they are all pro-life. He's the person, I think, compared to LaLota who didn't have as much experience in local Suffolk politics.

Brian Lehrer: I guess if Michelle Bond, the cryptocurrency person, loses, she can always take an image of the ballot, chop it up into NFTs, and make a million dollars selling investments in it online, or maybe not.

Candice Ferrette: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with Candice Ferrette, politics reporter for Newsday, on some of the August 23rd congressional primaries in New York, particularly on Long Island and particularly the ones where the current members of Congress are giving up their seats. Candice, thanks for all the info. We really appreciate it.

Candice Ferrette: No problem. Thanks, Brian.

 

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