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Brian Lehrer:

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and Ijeoma Oluo just before the break, was talking about the centrality of voting in your local elections as a way to make systemic change, and we're going to turn now to local elections coming up this month in New York state. There is an election coming up. It's New York's primary. With the presidential race all but decided, there is still something. There are many things to vote for. Every member of the House of Representatives is up for election or reelection, as are the state legislators. Election Day is June 23rd, but early voting starts on the 13th. So, this is around the corner, and many of us are using absentee ballots to vote by mail this time because of coronavirus. And if you live in New York, you probably have an absentee ballot application already sitting in your mailbox if you're a registered voter. So, with this region leaning so heavily Democratic, it is often the primary that determines who wins in November.

Brian Lehrer:

So, with voting being fundamental to this democracy and a sure way to affect change, let's not let these races fall off our radar. So, let's talk about some of the key contests, especially those in some open congressional seats with Ben Max, Executive Editor of Gotham Gazette and cohost of the Max and Murphy podcast, and Emily Ngo, politics reporter for NY1, who, in fact, brings us some breaking news in one of these contests, which we'll get to in a bit. So, welcome back to the show, Ben and Emily.

Emily Ngo:

Thanks for having us.

Ben Max:

Thanks, Brian. Good to be with you. Hi, Emily.

Brian Lehrer:

And listeners, we'll be talking more about the voting process itself, which is a little unusual, to say the least, in New York this year with WNYC's Brigid Bergen tomorrow and the impact of coronavirus on all of that. But that said, let's start with the open seats where there's no incumbent, and there are real contests. And in the city, that takes us right to New York's 15th congressional district where Representative Jose Serrano is retiring, and his Bronx district seat is you for grabs. There's some very familiar names on the ballot: Melissa Mark-Viverito, former city council speaker, council members Ritchie Torres and Ydanis Rodriguez, both prominent, Assembly member Michael Blake, prominent in the national DNC as well as in the New York State Assembly, plus activist Samelys Lopez, who's gotten the Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists endorsement. But there's another city council member, Ruben Diaz, Sr., who is infamous or famous for some of his conservative views, who actually stands a good chance of winning as the others split the vote in this district. So, Emily, want to start and tell us what's going on there?

Emily Ngo:

Sure. This is the district that is completely within the boundaries of the Bronx, NY-15. We have retiring council member Jose Serrano, who's been in power for three decades. And really, when it comes to those seeking to fill his seat, is a bit of a free-for-all. 12 Democratic candidates on the ballot, and it's hard to see who the front runner is for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. The top fundraiser, council member Ritchie Torres, has a lot of money from national LGBTQ groups, and then, there's also national groups campaigning explicitly against Reuben Diaz, Sr., who, of course, has deep name recognition in the borough, and it can be a bit of a wildcard. We don't know what turnout or "turnout", what with absentee balloting, will look like, and he does have a lot of loyalty in that district, in that region.

Emily Ngo:

He has, also, the endorsement of the PBA, the Police Benevolence Association, which also endorsed Chaim Deutsch, another bit of a wildcard in a separate race. He's the challenger to Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn. But it's sort of hard to see what's going to happen in the New York 15 race that have actively open seats because, as you said, even if you're not a top fundraiser like Torres or like Blake or like Mark-Viverito, you have Samelys Lopez, who has the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other big groups. So, a lot of factors in that race.

Brian Lehrer:

It would be weird if a social conservative with Police Benevolent Association endorsement, right at this moment, were able to sneak through in the Bronx and wind up going to Congress from that district, given everything that's going on because others split the vote. One other thing about that race, Ben, don't Melissa Mark-Viverito and Ydanis Rodriguez live in Manhattan? This is a district that, as Emily just said, is solely within the Bronx.

Ben Max:

They do, and I'm glad you brought that up because I found that a very strange element in this race that you have these two either former city council member or current city council member trying to run to represent a district they don't live in. Mark-Viverito at least represented part of the district in her city council seat, but still a little bit strange. You don't have to be a resident of the district while you run, but it is a strange element on the race. Rodriguez likes to talk about the fact that when he ran in the Public Advocate special election, which I think at least three of these candidates in New York 15 ran in that special election last year. Rodriguez likes to talk about how well he did in this congressional district. So, maybe that's part of the reason he ran. But there might also be some other political considerations behind his run. Just two other things on this race that I wanted to mention. I think the idea here is that Reuben Diaz, Sr., has his strong base of support, and the real question is whether the rest of the field is so fractured because there's so many candidates that his base just lets him win with something like 20% of the vote or even lower.

Ben Max:

It's going to be a really low turnout election, most likely, because of the pandemic and other reasons, and this fracture field could let him sail through with the base that he has. I mean, Ritchie Torres is probably the person that would be able to stop him from doing that if he can consolidate enough support leading up to the vote here, but I think, as Emily's going to talk about with some news in another district, that might require one or two of these other bigger-named candidates sort of dropping out and endorsing Torres in the last minutes. But I don't know if that's going to happen because someone like Michael Blake, for example, has gotten an immense amount of labor union support in this race. And so, he might be thinking that if all of his labor support comes out to back him, he's got a real shot here.

Brian Lehrer:

And Ben, I know you moderated a debate in this contest via Zoom, I guess.

Ben Max:

Yeah.

Brian Lehrer:

Were there any central issues for people making up their mind on the issues?

Ben Max:

Well, I do want to say that basically of all of the candidates we invited, which were anybody that showed any fundraising or any real campaign activity, Reuben Diaz, Sr., was the only one who did not accept our invitation to debate. So, that's worth noting. One of the keys here, obviously, is the response to the coronavirus crisis and both its public health and economic fallouts because, of course, the Bronx and low-income communities are being hit very, very hard. And it's important to note that while Representative Serrano's been in this seat for decades, this is the congressional district with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is the district that, well before this coronavirus crisis, needed more resources and much more help. And so, there's a lot of sense of urgency among the candidates that it's about bringing resources back to the district, especially now.

Brian Lehrer:

Emily, I'm going to not keep our listeners in suspense anymore now that I tease that you have some breaking news in one of the other New York City congressional primaries. You want to break it?

Emily Ngo:

Sure, and I'll segue a little bit, too, from what Ben said about the effectively open seat with Jose Serrano's district, is it's the poorest congressional district in the country for several years running, and a lot of the candidates there are emphasizing their lived experiences, having been part of the working poor themselves. And we sort of have this same sentiment and trend in New York 16, which is the Bronx/Westchester seat currently held by Eliot Engel. NY1 was first to report this morning that there's been a consolidation of the progressive challengers to Engel. The congressman who is very senior in Washington. He's chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee is facing a pretty strong challenger in Jamaal Bowman, who has a lot of support from national progressive groups. He's got the Working Families Party behind him. He's got Justice Democrats, Democracy for America, and the other progressive challenger in the race who runs a little bit to the left of Bowman and certainly to the left of Engel, who actually identifies as a democratic socialist, Andom Ghebreghiorgis, had dropped out of the race and is endorsing Bowman.

Emily Ngo:

So, we see them joining forces against Engel. We're not going to have to worry about splitting the anti-incumbent vote, splitting of the progressive vote if we have these two effectively joining forces toward a collective goal, a common goal of unseating Engel. Susan Lerner of Common Cause pointing out that this is the kind of consolidation we could see when it comes to rank voting next year. It's not in effect now, but a lot more challengers in these House primaries all around than in 2018 for a lot of reasons, including the fact that they might have been inspired by AOC's win over ... her upset over Joe Crowley two years ago or inspired just about the rise of progressivism nationally.

Brian Lehrer:

And most New York democrats who are in Congress and running for reelection are not getting serious challenges from the AOC wing of the party, if you want to call it that. Eliot Engel is. Why is he a target?

Emily Ngo:

He's a target because, for one, and this wasn't a factor when the challengers announced their bids, but for one, he's 73 years old, and he hasn't been in the district since late March. He's been in Washington. He's been overseeing very important investigations into the Trump administration in the state department and also various pieces of legislation having to do with coronavirus response and coronavirus aid and relief. But they see him as vulnerable, and they see Jamaal Bowman, who I referenced earlier, has a lived experience in commonality with Andom Ghebreghiorgis as Black men in America during a time when lives remain. Black lives remain expendable as educators. Ben will know from his background. It's sort of rare to be a Black man in education, but they see him as vulnerable, and they see in Bowman just a figure that national progressives can get behind. Their consolidation, their alliance was brokered by the Working Families Party, which is really looking to build up its base in the Bronx in particular. We talked several times about Samelys Lopez, who is a House candidate who has their endorsement. But there's also an open Assembly seat, open, essentially, Assembly seat in the Bronx. We had Carmen Arroyo get kicked off the ballot for fraud, and now, the only candidate that remains in the Democratic primary for her Assembly seat is Amanda Septimo, who has also been endorsed by the WFP.

Brian Lehrer:

We'll continue in a minute with this preview of the congressional Democratic primary races on the ballot in New York this month. Stay with us.

Brian Lehrer:

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and we're previewing this month's congressional primaries in New York state. Primary Day is June 23rd, but there's early voting that begins before that starting on June 13th. Early voting still new in New York state. So, if you're not used to it, you're going to be able to vote, for many of you, for the first time as an early voter coming right up. So, it's time to get your heads around these races if you've got a congressional primary in your district. Then, of course, the presidential primary is back on, even though all of the other candidates have conceded to Joe Biden. Andrew Yang went to court and got the presidential primary reinstated. So, you'll be able to vote for whoever's on the ballot in the Democratic presidential race. But the ones that are still actively being contested for federal positions are for Congress, and we've been going over some of these with Emily Ngo from NY1 and Ben Max from the Gotham Gazette. And Ben, you mentioned one of the others that's considered a potentially close race with an incumbent, and that is the one that involves Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn's 9th congressional district. Tell us about that race.

Ben Max:

Yeah. So, this is one of a couple semi-rematches. I mean, you can't quite call it a rematch because it's a more crowded feel than the one-on-one contest two years ago, but in Brooklyn's 9th district, Yvette Clarke is trying to hold her seat again. Adem Bunkeddeko, who gave her a real run for her money two years ago, is back, but now, there's three other Democratic candidates in the running, the most prominent of which, as Emily mentioned before, which is city council member, Chaim Deutsch, and he really throws a wrinkle into the race because he brings a base of support from southern Brooklyn, from Orthodox Jewish communities. And it's really not clear what kind of impact he might have. I mean, of course, he could possibly win, but when you look at Clarke coming back as the incumbent and Bunkeddeko, who came within just a couple thousand votes of her last time, it's a very interesting race again now that he has that run under his belt from last time. Of course, the pandemic also throws a real wrench into his attempt at overcoming the deficit that he couldn't quite make up last time.

Brian Lehrer:

And Emily, staying on that race, who is Adem Bunkeddeko?

Emily Ngo:

He had-

Brian Lehrer:

If you've covered it.

Emily Ngo:

Yeah. I have. It's so interesting because there's been a swell of progressive challengers. Like Ben said, this is not a rematch, per se, but it is his second time running. These progressive challengers are running against progressive incumbents. They might not be as progressive as some New Yorkers would like, but by national standards, they're certainly progressive. So, in Adem Bunkeddeko and Isiah Jones, we have two progressives, Isiah Jones. This dynamic reminds me a lot of the Eliot Engel race in that there's two progressives, one further left than the other, but the front runner, who is a little closer to the center would be ... has more fundraising, is a stronger sort of challenger. But I don't believer that this will be as close as it was last time. I think that a lot of elected officials are consolidating behind Yvette Clarke. They want to make sure that she doesn't squeeze by again by 1800 votes. She had a pretty massive virtual campaign rally two weekends ago where the likes of Cory Johnson and Brad Lander and Michael Blake came to support her. It's significant that Yvette Clarke holds this seat as a Black woman legislator, a seat that was formally held by Shirley Chisholm. And it's significant, also, that all her challengers that raced are men. But Bunkeddeko certainly, like Ben said, gave her a run for her money, but I feel that she's much more on her toes this time around.

Brian Lehrer:

And there were also two-

Ben Max:

Yeah, I was-

Brian Lehrer:

Let me jump in just so I can touch in our last two minutes another couple of seats, and listeners, we're not going to get to Carolyn Maloney, New York City incumbent facing challengers again, but two more empty seats. Peter King, Republican from Long Island, is retiring, and Nita Lowey, Democrat from Westchester, is retiring. Very briefly on the Peter King seat, is there any chance that this becomes a serious swing seat with Democrats taking the suburbs so much more in recent years, Ben?

Ben Max:

I think that's going to be pretty challenging for Democrats this cycle, but one of the most important things as we look ahead that's, of course, for November, as we look ahead for November, it's going to be a matter of how well, from the top of the ticket down, the Democrats are able to do, assuming it is, indeed, Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, how much he, as the candidate, is able to sort of move those swing districts. And we know Long Island can very much fit that category.

Brian Lehrer:

And briefly, in 30 seconds, on the Nita Lowey seat, Emily, are you watching it? Because that's out of the city, or is it not on your beat?

Emily Ngo:

I am. Open races are always very exciting. There's seven challengers with the exit of Catherine Parker, who is a county legislator, and it really could go anywhere with Mondaire Jones as the progressive in the race. There's several progressives, of course, that's endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro. So, we'll see how that goes. Not as concerned as we are with the Peter King district about it swinging one way or another. It's likely to remain Democratic, but a pretty heated contest up there.

Brian Lehrer:

Emily Ngo from NY1, Ben Max from Gotham Gazette, thank you so, so much for joining us and filling us in on these races.

Ben Max:

Thanks, Brian.

Emily Ngo:

Thank you.

Brian Lehrer:

And our coverage will continue tomorrow. We'll be covering the New York primary a lot between now and when voting starts on the 13th and ends on the 23rd. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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