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Brain Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific primary day exit poll. Who did you vote for? For mayor of New York, New York city comptroller, Manhattan DA, borough president in any of the five boroughs for your local city council seat or any other race on the ballot? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer and joining us for a few minutes now Juan Manuel Benitez, host of Pura Política, pure politics on NY1 Noticias, NY1 Spanish language channel, and he reports in English on English NY1. I think he's in Harlem this morning.

Is that right Juan Manuel Benitez?

Juan Manuel Benitez: That's right, Brian. I'm at home right now, getting ready for tonight to report on the results and I've been walking around my neighborhood and I have to tell you, I don't want to be the cranky caller today on your show, but it's never been this easy to vote in a local, actually in New York city. I hope New Yorkers come out and participate in democracy because the polling sites that I've walked by today, no lines, nobody there. I think we have to do a better job when it comes to our civic duty of voting in an election.

Brain Lehrer: It's a great point I was making it at the beginning of the show as well, that it is so easy to vote. You're saying it's even easier than it would be if there were lines, because there are no lines, that's depressing but it's also easy. I think some of the coverage of ranked-choice voting has made people think it's hard when you come right down to it, it's hard for the people who count the votes because there's this whole formula with 13 candidates on the mayoral ballot.

It's easy for the people who cast the votes. You don't have to rank past your first choice, but if you choose to all it is, is saying who your favorite is, who your second favorite is, who your third favorite is and fourth and fifth, if you go that far, that's not hard, right?

Juan Manuel Benitez: It's so hard and it makes it even easier because how many times New Yorkers have gone to the polls and they have thought, "Listen, I like this candidate A, but I like this one other better B, I don't know which one to pick." Now you have the option to rank at five. It's even easier to make up your mind.

It's a really important election, Brian. We've been talking about this for so many months. We're coming out of the pandemic. The city is in a crisis, a lot of New Yorkers we speak to, they say that they are worried about public safety. There's no reason for New Yorkers who are registered Democrat or Republican, not to participate. There's no reason not to participate in this election.

Brain Lehrer: Have you gotten to talk to voters as you've been walking around today and getting a sense of what's on their minds as they cast their ballots?

Juan Manuel Benitez: Yes. I've been talking to voters for the last few weeks, and I know that a lot of people who are listening right now to your show, they think that the media, the reporters who are pushing this conversation of public safety too hard, but it's a reality. I speak to so many New Yorkers and the number one concern that they tell me that they have right now is public safety.

It's not that us in the media, we want to talk about crime. It's going up a little bit in the city right now, even though we are still at levels that we didn't see 20 years ago or 10 years ago, even in some ways.

Public safety is a top concern right now and New Yorkers are voting depending on how they want that issue tackled. I was at a campaign rally for Maya Wiley last night in Brooklyn and I heard one line from a public advocate, Jumaane Williams, who is supporting Maya Wiley in the mayor's race. He said something that has stuck with me because I haven't heard Progressive's talk about this that much. He said that defunding the police doesn't mean defunding public safety. I think that's a better message. I think it's more effective, that kind of message for Progressive's if they really want to win this election.

We know that there are a few progressive mayoral candidates and also down the ballot. That's a message that they are sending right now because a lot of the New Yorkers feel that progressive now they just want to defund the police. Many of your callers even said that they are concerned about some candidates being too soft when it comes to handling matters of public safety.

Brain Lehrer: How about the final days back and forth between the various camps over Yang and Garcia campaigning together? I saw you reporting that story on television last night. Does it seem to be influencing votes?

Juan Manuel Benitez: I think so. I been listening to your show this morning and that so many callers that they are even deciding in the last minute, who their tough choices or number two person is. I do think that Yang and Garcia were really smart last weekend, trying to use the tools that ranked-choice voting is giving candidates to form coalitions so voters have some sort of an option either to vote for Yang number one, and then Garcia number two or vice versa, even though we know that Kathryn Garcia never told her supporters to vote for Yang number two.

It was striking that Eric Adams, who is the assumed front runner in this race, his campaign was saying that that was voter suppression. I thought that that strategy used by Eric Adams driving that conversation, pushing that conversation of voter suppression in the last week and before our primary day was just a way to energize his voting base that for the most part is Black and Latino voters, working-class voters. What Eric Adams and his campaign was telling them, is like, "Listen, they're going to take this away from us so don't forget to vote. Make sure you go to the polls and vote for Eric Adams in this case."

Brain Lehrer: How's ranked-choice voting going for people who you're talking to at polling places.

Juan Manuel Benitez: Listen, when it comes to the mayor's race, if you are a New Yorker who knew was going to vote in this election, you have many opportunities to really learn about the candidates, to inform yourself, to do the research but then, and I hear that from your callers as well, you have all these different racist, comptrollers race, that, Brian, is so hard every time there's an election for comptroller is so hard to get the listeners or the viewers interested in that race.

Some voters they haven't done a lot of research and they're just going with the name recognition and in this case, maybe Corey Johnson is a favorite in this race, just because most people know who the city council speaker is. Then you have the city council races with so many different candidates in every single district, that is extremely hard for a lot of voters.

That's why sometimes the voter guide is really important because it's the last chance sometimes for the voter to learn about the candidates before that person heads out of the House and goes to vote. I think New Yorkers are finding it a little harder this time when it comes to electing their city council representatives.

Brain Lehrer: I hope you haven't scheduled a vacation on the week of July 12th like I have, thinking that that was going to be far enough past primary day when we would know the winner, but now they're saying it may actually be the week of July 12th after various rounds of taking in absentee ballots and doing the ranked-choice round one, round two, round three might be the week of July 12th before we know who won the mayoral primary.

Juan Manuel Benitez: I hope not, Brian. I hope you can go on vacation knowing who the winner of this mayoral election is. The truth is that for the most part we'll have a sense-- Well, first of all, we'll know tonight who is a front runner in the race after tallying all those first choices of the people voting early and the people voting today on primary day.

Then in a week from today, we might have a better sense of who won, because we'll know a little bit of, the after calculating the ranked-choice voting, at least doing a couple of rounds. Yes, are we going to have to wait for the board of elections to certify the final result on mid July maybe, or even later? Let's hope that this becomes easier, Brian, because at some point we're going to have to go on vacation this year.

Brain Lehrer: At some point we will just be forced to. Juan Manuel Benitez who seems to never be on vacation because I always see you on NY1. We will watch you and everybody else on that coverage tonight. Thank you for giving us a few minutes as you're out and about today.

Juan Manuel Benitez: Thank you, Brian and good luck tonight.

Brain Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific primary day exit poll. Who did you choose for mayor of New York or in any other race? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. My producer reminds me that at least on July 12th and 13th, when I'm away, the guest hosts will be Brigid Bergin, our senior political reporter, who along with Liz Kim has been our primary mayoral race reporter. If we have the final result on that day, we will be well covered on this show to talk about it with a very informed host. Thomas in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Thomas?

Thomas: Hi, Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine. Who'd you vote for mayor?

Thomas: How are you doing? I have a list of five and I chose candidates really based on number one, who I think can win and should win and then the other candidates like my ideological preferences. I went with Maya Wiley first and then my other four are Dianne Morales, Art Chang, Joycelyn Taylor and the fifth, I'm going to write in Brian Lehrer because I think you would make a great mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Oh no. If elected I will not serve.

Thomas: I wanted to speak about Maya Wiley and what she had said that made me really happy to vote for her and it was in the context of this whole discussion about mental illness and Andrew Yang, people categorize it as like a heartless dehumanizing response to people with mental illness. As a contrast to that, Maya Wiley had what I thought was the most specific and best idea of the whole campaign, which was introducing trauma informed care in public schools and having therapists in public schools.

I just thought that was such a counterpoint to what other people are saying. The way they talk about-- talk about people with mental illness as if they should just be hidden away and you can't even see them and they're all violent criminals and all this.

Here we have a candidate talking about how children are suffering and we can do this right now to introduce a way to help all of these children who will grow up to be adults and if you can help children when they're young and you introduce Trauma-Informed Childcare, which I'm a new York, I grew up, when it was really bad in New York city and I wish we had that when we were kids. If we can introduce that now, I think, it's just like the compassion.

Brian Lehrer: Thomas, you mentioned in your top five, a few of the people who are not in those eight leading mayoral candidates, who've gotten all the attention and have been in the debate. There are 13 total candidates on the ballot. Who are those other two? Very briefly, why did you decide to include them?

Thomas: Art Chang, Dianne Morales and Joycelyn Taylor, really because of their [unintelligible 00:12:38]

[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Dianne Morales is in. Dianne Morales people know. Art Chang and Joycelyn Taylor.

Thomas: Jocelyn Taylor, really because for their platforms on policing and criminal justice and really abolition of the entire criminal justice system. One of the things on Joycelyn Taylor's page is ending the school to prison pipeline. My opinion it's like, take the police out of schools and put in therapists and you're solving a whole generation worth of problems in the future.

Brian Lehrer: Who'd you vote for, for comptroller?

Thomas: I'm going to do a Brad Lander, number one, even though I disagree with some of the things and then Kevin Parker, Reshma Patel and I don't like Corey Johnson. I'm a union member, I don't like that all of our unions endorsed him. I think it's machine politics. I also think the comptrollers should be a check on the mayor and not like, Corey Johnson, Eric Adams campaigning for each other, which is the, I think I heard it on your show, actually someone was saying that that the comptroller is supposed to be a check on the mayor.

Brian Lehrer: That's one of the roles. Thomas, I'm going to leave it there and get some other voices on. Thank you so much for calling in. Winthrop in Lower Manhattan. you're on WNYC. Hello, Winthrop? Is it Winthrop?

Winthrop: Hi?

Brian Lehrer: Hi?

Winthrop: This is Winthrop, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine. Who'd you vote for, for mayor?

Winthrop: Great. Ray McGuire.

Brian Lehrer: Why Ray McGuire? You're our first Ray McGuire caller today?

Winthrop: Okay. Well, good. 44 short years ago, on the 4th of July of 1976, I think the math is right 44 years, but 1976, we had a up sale and you might be old enough to recall that if you remember. That was the point of the turnaround from New York city during the '70s when everybody had written off New York including our president and [unintelligible 00:15:02] led the turnaround.

My sense is that we are back at that point today when we elected Michael Bloomberg, we had 13 years of prosperity, which cured a whole host of problems. Many of which your callers are talking about this morning. My belief is that the economic program and leadership that a Ray Maguire can bring to the city at this point is essential for our long-term survival.

Brian Lehrer: Winthrop. Thank you so much, we appreciate that. We're going to go next to Martha and Brooklyn. See if we can get a couple more in here before we ran out of time. Hi, Martha you're on WNYC. Who'd you vote for, for mayor?

Marcia: Are you talking to me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes you.

Marcia: Hi, it's Marcia from Brooklyn. First of all, I appreciate all the previous callers because I feel all of their issues as a lifelong born Brooklyn [unintelligible 00:16:07] . My grandparents, immigrants were socialists who ended up becoming developers and building 180 units rent-stabilized and rent controlled housing, which unfortunately, none of us kids took an interest in and they sold it in the early '80s before they turned into their '90s and passed away, that was their memory.

My grandmother used to invite me to dinner at her house and open up her books every Sunday and say, when you take care of the tenants, they take care of you. Wendell Berry, the former SAS and environmentalist has a similar thing.

When you take care of the community, you are taken care of. That is my base political place from where I operate. Every issue that everyone has mentioned, including that young father from Queens, who's a centrist Democrat. I'm probably 30 years older than him. I started out with Bella Abzug first campaign against Bill Ryan on the upper west side, the democratic socialist candidates talk about thoughtful, stain, moderate policies that we spoke about for decades that got lost the last few decades, particularly under mayor Bloomberg.

Brian Lehrer: With all of that philosophical underpinning and I appreciate your depth of analysis here, whether people agree with you or not on your opinions, because we're going to run out of time. Who'd you vote for?

Marcia: I'm going to tell you who I voted for. In my city council, 39th district, I went for Brandon West who took an hour and a half of his time to go through each issue with me on progressive politics that I felt needed to have more nuanced, thoughtful discussions around, even though slogans are sometimes necessary to get your point across. I really hope he wins that because I'm done with pseudo self-described mostly white, too comfortable, progressive. I want authentic progressive.

For mayor, I was very sad what happened to Ms. Morales campaign. I was in the hospital and didn't have enough time to investigate. I went with Maya for the same reason the prior caller talked about, I thought she had very nuanced, thoughtful policies on her platform. Then I went from Ms. Morales and then I went for Kathryn Garcia and I voted for none of the men though I know Eric Adams and he is right that we need to address violence in marginalized communities, but I don't think he's right on many other of the issues.

Brian Lehrer: Marcia, I'm going to have to leave it there. You got your one, two and three in there and I appreciate it. Again, I appreciate the history lesson in there and the family history that you gave us as well. Thank you and thank you to everybody who called in this morning for our informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific primary day exit poll here on the Brian Lehrer Show. It was great to hear so many of you voting for so many different candidates.

Obviously this is not a poll. This is why we call it thoroughly unscientific. This is to keep the narrative going, this is to hear your stories, this is to pick your brains about how you came to your decisions, sometimes agonizingly so. Thank you for sharing them with us. If you're not sick of me, I will be on Channel 13 with Christiane Amanpour at four o'clock this afternoon, talking about primary day and I will be back tonight at eight o'clock for our primary night special. I'll talk to some of you then.

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