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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and as early and mail-in voting take place in the New York primary this week we've been devoting part of the show each day to selected races in each borough. Monday was Brooklyn. Tuesday was Queens, Wednesday Manhattan. Yesterday we talked about the Bronx and as we have gone in order of population size. Today we will end the set with Staten Island. Staten Island is a place where according to SIlive.com of the 216,000 votes cast in the presidential election last year, Donald Trump received 57% of them.

That was also a 33% increase in total votes for Trump from what he received in the borough in 2016. Unlike the other boroughs, both the democratic and Republican primaries may be of interest. Joining me now to talk about some of the races and key issues on Staten Island is primary is Clifford Michel, who covers Staten Island and South Brooklyn for the nonprofit news organization, the city. Hi Clifford, thanks a lot for coming on with us.

Clifford Michel: No problem at all. Thank you for having me on, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start by maybe reminding people in the other four boroughs, the political breakdown of Staten Island a little bit. Can you paint a picture for listeners of the political affiliations of either various areas of Staten Island or the borough as a whole?

Clifford Michel: Yes, definitely. Staten Island is absolutely New York City's Republican bastion. It's the only borough in NYC with a majority of white residents. It's kind of broken up into three areas. You have the borough's north shore, which is closest to Brooklyn and Manhattan, but the Verrazano bridge of Staten Island ferry. That area is diverse. Just as dense as any other New York city neighborhood you might run into.

Outside of that area, across the Staten Island expressway, which extends from the Verrazano Bridge, the Goethals Bridge, which is lovingly referred to by older folks in the borough as Staten Island's Mason Dixon line. That lies the mid-island area and the south shore, which is more of a suburban area with lots of park space. That is where the Republican stronghold lies. T

he borough has voted for a Republican president, three out of the last four presidential elections, and a democratic member of Congress hasn't won a reelection bid since 1978. As you said, Brian, they came out hard for Trump in 2016, there was a surge in 2020, and even in 2021, there are some lingering effects of Trumpism even in these local races.

Brian Lehrer: The Republican mayoral primary, I was one of the questioners in the televised debate between Curtis Sliwa and Fernando Mateo. Do you happen to know what percentage of all Republican mayoral primary votes are likely to come from Staten island?

Clifford Michel: I'm not exactly sure about percentage, but I can say that for Republican nominees, Staten Island is the true base. They work really hard with the GOP machine out there, and as well as the Staten Island elected officials to really drive that get out the vote efforts because they know that those areas of Staten Island, voters are engaged and that they're going to come out strong. It's the primary focus for any Republican nominees before targeting select areas in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and so on and so forth.

Brian Lehrer: Are there major themes in the Republican primary as they're playing out on Staten Island?

Clifford Michel: Definitely law enforcement and support of law enforcement has absolutely stolen the show-up and down the ballot. Curtis Sliwa and Fernanda Mateo have been talking about it nonstop. In the borough presidents race of advisory role that doesn't have to do much with the NYPD still, candidates are posting, for example, Steven Matteo the party back candidate about his police endorsements in other areas of the city that'd be considered kryptonite for a candidate, but on Staten Island, it's considered candy for voters.

Leticia Remora, the Republican, the conservative choice for borough president has also touted her connections to the NYPD and basically all the city council candidates. Well in the south shore and in the big island are promising that they will be a voice against defunding the police and refunding them to some extent and supporting them culturally as well.

Brian Lehrer: Do they have big spikes in crime in those areas that they don't want the police defunded?

Clifford Michel: No, not necessarily. I think just like the rest of New York City there has been a spike in crime. It hasn't been tremendous on Staten Island at all, but that hasn't stopped some candidates like Marco Kepi, who basically a marine who's running to the right in the mid-island area of city council recorded a young man getting arrested after stealing a purse. Then immediately after held a press conference about that petty crime and complained about the individual potentially getting released. That's how the Republicans are choosing to campaign this cycle regardless of where the numbers stand.

Brian Lehrer: We always hear there are a lot of police officers who live on Staten Island and that's one of the reasons the pro-police position on these kinds of issues is so dominant. What percentage of voters are actually police officers on Staten Island or their family members? Do you happen to know a number?

Clifford Michel: I don't have the exact number of residents for you. Sorry. If Staten Island is the densest, has the highest concentration I believe of city employees. In New York city a lot of municipal workers out there, a lot of firefighters, and a lot of police officers. I don't have the exact headcount though of how many police officers are there.

Brian Lehrer: On the Democratic primary, in the big Malice poll that came out this week, Eric Adams leads in all the other boroughs substantially accept Manhattan and among Blacks and Latinos, he leads substantially, but not among Whites. Katherine Garcia is the top choice among those White and Manhattan voters. She also ties Adams among college-educated voters. Her core base is college-educated White Manhattanites. I'm curious if that translates to Staten Island with its relative concentration of White voters in the Democratic primary.

Clifford Michel: I think it does. Both Garcia and Adams has definitely try to campaign on Staten Island and win over moderate White voters over there. Garcia has given a lot of lip service to the fact that there isn't a public hospital on Staten Island and that she would use the city's health and hospitals budget to expand public health presence in the borough. Early on, Eric Adams was flirting a lot with then borough, president Jimmy Oddo and they brought up the idea about having a fast ferry to Brooklyn from Staten Island.

That was very popular with some SI polls, it got folks excited because with de Blasio it was just kind of a non-starter and it sent out and has only gotten their first fast ferry over there now. I think overall, the moderate messaging of Adams and Garcia, it definitely speaks to some of the Kennedy Democrats out here on Staten Island.

Brian Lehrer: Broadly looking at Staten Island, you have an article now on the city news site called Democratic and GOP candidates: Rage against the Staten island political machines. Can you tell us about each machine a little bit, or give us an example of a race, maybe that's a good way to do it. Borough president, or pick a city council race, even if you would like to and what machine politics dictates in one party or the other, and how this is playing out in a race.

Clifford Michel: Definitely the Staten Island Republican machine it runs a very tight ship. If you talk to some of the elected officials out here or potential candidates, they describe it as a boys club. The mid-island council race, for example, since 1999, it has been handed off from past chief of staff and they become the council member and then the previous chief of staff who is also an active member of the Republican party gets the nomination.

All of the Republicans corral and make decisions about who is viable and who they're going to back. Even when other candidates jump in, they are just so overwhelmed by the support from other elected officials who can also direct donors to those candidates. That's the same thing for borough hall. They choose one candidates was Jimmy Oddo for a while before that was James P Molinaro and that person, everyone rallies around them and they usually win that election with that overwhelming support.

It very much is a party of loyalty. I think what we're seeing in 2021 and that I think they started with Nicole Martin is who she wanted to run in Congress as early as 2015 and basically, the executive committee said, no, we want another candidate. They went with district attorney Dan Donovan at the time. Now, what we're seeing in 2021 with matching funds and a reduced threshold for political petitions.

Candidates are coming out of the woodwork and raising at the very least a hundred thousand dollars making very competitive bids against party-backed candidates who would rather focus on kitchen-table issues, such as council members and minority webs, even Mateo but you have candidates like Latisha Moore who were saying, "Listen, Mateo is not conservative enough. He's not being a beacon for Republicans enough. She's spoken like, Hey, I want a Trump library on Staten Island."

That's sort of the politics that the Republican party is being pushed into with these party outsiders. On the Democratic side as well, they have a lot of control over who is supported, who is viable, but we're seeing more of an activist culture coming out of the Trump era where candidates don't care if the party is going to support them and they're still going for these positions.

Brian Lehrer: On the Republican side, that story you just told about the candidate who wants a Trump library on Staten Island, is it stolen election, Republicans versus Biden actually won Republicans at all, or is that all beside the point politically in local races?

Clifford Michel: To an extent, it's besides the point, at least in Republican primaries. I think Republicans who believe Biden won privately, they don't want to say so publicly. There are some candidates now who are just saying it proudly that at the very least, I think the standard position was that the elections deserve to be looked into. I think that is the most reasonable position for some candidates at this point and the Republican races.

Brian Lehrer: Regina, on Staten Island. You're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Regina: Hello? Is this me?

Brian Lehrer: It is you. Are you Regina?

Regina: Yes, I am. Thank you so much for taking my call. By the way, I did want to say that the fed now does don't all speak in triple negatives, like we've mentioned on your show last Friday. I did want to call in because I would like to say--

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] That was somebody's joke. We don't want none of that. No way kind of thing. Yes, go ahead.

Regina: Right. Now, I know. I did want to say, I'm a White middle-class woman on Staten Island who is Democrat and liberal. I belong to a group that has invited various candidates where religious leaders speak with us this year on Zooms, but we've had Max Rose in the past, Mike Cusick, who was the head of the Democratic party in Staten Island. Recently we met with Nicole Malliotakis and I was very pleased that she was willing to meet with us, knowing that we mostly were democratic liberals.

We trying to agenda communication between different parties on set now and because it's got very divided as you know. One person though, I would like to learn more about the city council elections in my area. I'm sorry, I don't know the district, but there is one man running Sam Pirozzolo who was very obnoxious during the Trump years. Huge signs on his lawn and so on. I know he's someone I could not support.

He's running, of course, Republican as is George Weinberger. I don't find that the democratic candidate has made much of a plug for themselves in this area. I don't know if the person you have online could tell me anything about the candidate running against Sam Pirozzolo and George Weinberger.

Brian Lehrer: Those would be in primaries, I guess, because the Democrat versus Republican election wouldn't be until November, but can you give the rest of our listeners any context for this, Clifford?

Clifford Michel: Definitely. Definitely. She's talking about the mid-island area of Staten Island which has some swing neighborhoods there. If they find the right Democrat they might go for them. An example is Michael Cusick who won his race, even though the area went for Trump. I'll talk to you a little bit about your candidate. His name is Sal Albany. He's a former city councilperson in Brooklyn.

I believe the party chose him mainly because one, he's a former politician, he could raise money, but he also has a bit of a reform streak against him. He ran against Bill de Blasio on a third-party line. I've also been wondering, where is he on the campaign trail? I think the answer there is that because he doesn't have a primary he's raising money right now, sitting pretty on that campaign cash, and waiting out this six-way Republican primary.

I think over the next couple of months, you'll probably see a little bit more of him. Some ads probably getting more, active in forums or should definitely invite them to your political club. I think he's the type to show up. Yes. I think that answers a question. He's a reform-minded Democrat from Southern Brooklyn was his last city council seat before being term-limited out was in Southern Brooklyn. He has that streak of moderate politics to an extent which could play well for him in that mid-island area.

Brian Lehrer: Regina, I hope that helps. I want to get to the city council race on the democratic side on the north shore. That's the 49th council district. This district is currently represented by a Democrat, Deborah Rose. She's a second-generation, I should say, Staten Island native. She's the first African-American from Staten Island who have been elected to any public office and she's term-limited out. The post-Deborah Rose era is upon us and maybe you could tell our listeners the top contenders for that seat.

Clifford Michel: Definitely. I think one candidate who was sticking out right now it cannot be denied is Kamillah M Hanks, a nonprofit leader who works in the Stapleton neighborhood, which folks might know from the Wu-Tang clan. She does work there with young Black and Brown individuals. She ran Debbie Rose really hard in 2017, saying that you should have negotiated harder with the number of mega projects that are near the Staten Island ferry.

There's a lot of city-owned land there where the city has released RFPs and there were unfinished projects there that ran into various issues. She lost that race ultimately to Debi Rose, but this time she's earned the support of two Democratic politicians, state Senator Diane Savino and Assemblymember Charles Fall. She's also won a slew of endorsement, New York state troopers, two firefighters union, Sierra Club in New York, various others.

Another really tough candidate out there is Amoy Barnes. She's won the support of the Working Families Party 1199 SEIU, the Healthcare Workers Union and District Council 37, the Municipal Workers Union out there. Definitely, one of the mainstream progressive candidates. She and Kamillah are up there, neck and neck in terms of fundraising. Another candidate who cannot be counted out is Selena Gray, who has the absolute backing of Debi Rose.

She was a political operative for her, worked on her past campaigns and they're very close friends and Debi Rose, unlike in the borough presidents race, hasn't made a second endorsement there and has gone all out for her in that race. She also, I believe, answered all the questions correctly for AOC political PAC and was listed out there. Those are three very-- Then you have Ranti Ogunleye, a former head of the Stapleton Community Center was ranked assembly member of Charles Falls' second choice has raised a decent amount of cash and just a lot of buzz about him and the stand on Democratic party, especially in the executive committee.

Brian Lehrer: On Staten Island, unlike most other places in the city, there may be some competitive races in November between the parties primary day is not as determinative on Staten Island, as it is most other places in the five boroughs. Do you foresee an interesting borough president's race in November, regardless of who wins these primaries and what's at stake really in a borough president's race with respect to their relationship to city hall or anything else?

Clifford Michel: I'll start with the city hall part. There's definitely going to be an interesting election out there. Borough Hall is kind of an advisory role, but for Staten Island, Borough Hall often points city hall in the right direction because city hall often doesn't understand what's that nine lenders need or want. We've seen this in the past with the closing of the Staten Island dump under mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Again, that's the benefit of one Staten Island serves as the political base for a mayor. They get these big favors done and it's the only time that happens. In the last eight years, the current borough president Jimmy Oddo and mayor, Bill de Blasio, have a very rich friendship. They go to dinner together. They've been to a baseball game together and Oddo has been successful in directing city hall to projects that he likes and ideas that he likes, getting a hundred million dollar swimming pool, getting them to consider a certain zoning for families, pushing for a fast ferry on the north shore of Staten Island.

Brian Lehrer: We have 15 secondsleft.

Clifford Michel: Okay. Got it. There's five Democrats running for borough president. All of the four local activists and a party-backed candidate. They're putting up more of a fight than they do in the usual years.

Brian Lehrer: Clifford Michel covers Staten Island and South Brooklyn for the city. Thank you so much. So informative.

Clifford Michel: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Brian. Really appreciate it.

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