ALBANY – New York voters from Buffalo to Long Island on Tuesday appeared to hit the pause button on many liberal causes and candidates in one of the nation's bluest states – outcomes that will certainly shape statewide and other races in the state in 2022.
The results left Republicans and Conservatives cheering, but also made clear that a battle very much rages within the Democratic Party – the dominant party in New York State – between a very liberal wing, old-school liberals and moderates.
“The message is that the Democratic Party is perceived as too liberal – the national Democratic Party and the state and local parties. The races in Virginia, New Jersey, Long Island and Buffalo all indicate that voters want more moderate candidates," said Douglas Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College.
“I think the voters are looking for order and stability," he added of the races in the state and elsewhere.
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Far-left candidates from New York City have enjoyed some of their best showings in recent years, defeating longtime, more traditional liberal state lawmakers and sending a half-dozen, self-described socialists to the state Legislature.
Besides the potential impact in the 2022 statewide primary and general election contests, from governor to the U.S. Senate seat held by Charles Schumer, the results in New York on Tuesday are likely to further tensions between liberal and moderate blocs within the state Assembly and Senate in the 2022 session.
The results in various New York races – and three constitutional amendment proposals on the statewide ballot – made politicians in all parties take notice.
It was a night for more moderate leanings by voters in a number of races across the state.
In Buffalo, a more moderate Democrat, Mayor Byron Brown, claimed victory against democratic socialist India Walton, a blow to the far left of the Democratic Party, based more heavily in New York City, that spent time and money trying to get Walton elected.
In New York City, moderate Eric Adams, a 20-year veteran of the city’s police department, had already defeated a full slate of liberal Democrats in a June primary and handily beat a GOP challenger to become the 110th mayor of the nation’s largest city. He will replace liberal outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio, who on Tuesday launched an exploratory committee to run for governor.
Not all was bad news for liberal Democrats. The New York City Council, despite several wins by Republicans, will still be dominated by left-of-center Democrats. And city voters elected a progressive new city comptroller and re-elected New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who also is looking at a 2022 gubernatorial run that already has Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James running for the post.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Democrats locally did comparatively better than their brethren elsewhere. The county Legislature maintained its Democratic majority, and Democratic County Legislator Kevin Hardwick was a rarity: a Democrat who won an open, countywide seat where there was no prior Democratic incumbent.
Randy Hoak, who worked under Poloncarz, also won the open Town of Hamburg supervisor’s seat.
“We did very well last night,” Poloncarz said. “It was not the case for Democrats across New York State.”
On Long Island, moderate to conservative Republicans enjoyed key victories Tuesday night, in a host of town, village and county races.
Republican district attorney candidates in both Nassau and Suffolk counties were victorious after mounting campaigns depicting their Democratic foes as too liberal on an array of criminal justice matters, including the state’s controversial changes to bail laws.
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran was trailing her Republican candidate, Bruce Blakeman, who declared victory.
State Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy called Tuesday’s results “an amazing red tidal wave on Long Island.”
Statewide, Democrats who pushed several major changes to the state’s constitution were dealt blows that could be a 2022 wake-up call. While backed by Democratic lawmakers, some watchdog groups and some unions, the effort to get three proposals approved was lackluster, at best.
That gave a major opening for the state Republican and Conservative parties to launch what turned out to be successful “no” vote campaigns.
One proposal would have altered the state’s once-a-decade redistricting process in such a way as to gut any remaining role of Republicans to have some limited say in how state legislative and congressional district boundaries are drawn.
Another would have led to a path to permit New York State to permit residents to register to vote as late as Election Day. And a third would have introduced a “no excuses” system for residents to vote via absentee ballots.
Critics said the plans were all about building up even more of an advantage for Democratic candidates, and would leave the state open to voting abuses.
Those three plans lost, in part, because of New York City voters’ failure to flip over their ballots and make a selection on the constitutional amendment proposals. Upstate voters did not make that mistake.
In upstate counties, small percentages – sometimes 1% or 2% – of residents who voted on races Tuesday then ended up failing to vote on the proposal. In many of those counties, the no votes led the way against yes votes on the three ballot proposals.
But in New York City, it was a far different story.
Consider the Bronx. Forty-eight percent of voters supported the redistricting proposal and 26% did not. But 26% of Bronx voters did not make any selection on the ballot plan. In Manhattan, 57% voted yes and just 21% voted no; but, importantly, 23% of voters did not vote yes or no, simply leaving the question unanswered.
In blue state New York in recent years, there has been little for right-of-center groups to boast about when it comes to elections in the state. Not Tuesday. Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar in a written statement touted its role in helping to defeat three “shockingly un-democratic” ballot proposals.
Kassar praised New York voters for having “exposed” a ploy by Democrats “to subvert democracy” and undermine long-standing election law protections that would end up favoring Democratic candidates.
The key opposition efforts focused on the three ballot proposals regarding redistricting, absentee and early voting. Left largely alone in those efforts: Proposal two, which asked New Yorkers to change the constitution to declare that clean air and water is a fundamental right for all residents. It passed easily.
In Albany Wednesday, Langworthy, the GOP chairman, was on a victory tour; he had been traveling the state in recent weeks pushing Republican candidates and to build opposition to the constitutional amendment ballot proposal on a campaign he dubbed “Just Say No.” The state GOP also spent money on mailings to oppose Walton’s campaign in Buffalo.
Langworthy, an Erie County Republican, said the constitutional amendment proposals were defeated not just by Republican and Conservative party voters, but also Democrats. He touted victories in New York City Council races, and contests in the mid-Hudson Valley, Long Island and the defeat of the socialist mayoral candidate in Buffalo.
The GOP leader said turnout by Republicans was strong and driven by a rejection of the national policies of President Biden. Langworthy said the party, with a nod to Tuesday’s results, will be working to attract mainstream voters of all parties to the GOP’s chief task in 2022: electing a Republican governor.
He added the 2019 bail law changes – ending cash bail for misdemeanor and nonviolent felony arrests – had its first real test at the ballot on Tuesday, and helped bring out voters to reject Democratic candidates in places like Long Island.
“We are appealing to people of all party affiliations," Langworthy said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon outside the state Capitol.
Meanwhile on Wednesday night, with the political dust not yet settled, Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chairman, said on Spectrum's "Capital Tonight" show that Democrats need to circle around a strategy that advances what he called a "moderate progressive agenda."
"Democrats underperformed in this election, not just here in New York State, not just on Long Island, but all across the country," he told the cable TV news show. Republicans, meanwhile, "were energized" going into Tuesday's elections.
News Staff Reporter Sandra Tan contributed to this article.
