Forecasting the race to succeed Sheldon Silver

New York state Sen. Bill Perkins once explained to me, while referring to the Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood, that it was not a melting pot, but instead a gumbo. In other words, its array of demographics have not assimilated together as much as they form a more integrated and colorful mix of distinctive populations living peacefully amongst each other.

A similar statement can be made about Lower Manhattan, and more specifically the neighborhoods comprising the 65th Assembly District, where there is currently a heated Democratic primary race underway to replace former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who last November was convicted on seven counts of corruption.

Technically, Silver has already been replaced by Alice Cancel, a veteran Democratic district leader running as the Democratic incumbent, who survived a fiercely competitive, five-way special election as the party’s endorsed candidate over current competitor, Yuh-Line Niou, by roughly 1,200 votes.

There are generally two types of winning election strategies. The first requires campaigns to routinely hew to their voter bases while at the same time making significant efforts to expand voter outreach to populations beyond their comfort zones, whether they be ethnic; income, age, gender or sexual identity based; religious; or geographic. The second obligates candidates to focus primarily on maximizing turnout among voter blocs who most resemble and affiliate with them, while making smaller secondary efforts to contend with specific competitive constituencies.

The best approach for any given campaign depends largely on the many unique circumstances of that race. Success in the 65th District will be determined by which candidate best deploys a campaign more constructed around the latter strategy.

This task is more complicated for three of the aspirants, Yuh-Line Niou, Gigi Li and Don Lee, who are vying for a base of Chinese voters whose electoral choices are often based more on transactional politics and constituent service-based issues rather than political ideology or specific issue-driven platforms. Two other candidates, Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumar, will battle for progressives, and Cancel, along with her incumbency, enjoys the unique advantage of being the only Latina in the race.

Political operatives often describe Grand Street as the most significant voting bloc in the district, but times have changed.

Once a stalwart stronghold for Silver or a Silver-backed candidate, the Grand Street area should prove to be a rare and critical battleground for the first time in decades. Once defined by a significant Orthodox Jewish plurality, the neighborhood has become much more diverse, housing many more white, Latino and Asian residents as the Orthodox community gradually diminishes.

In the past, Chinese political clubs often acquiesced and supported candidates Silver endorsed over those from their own community, but with Silver out of the picture, the Chinese community is finding its own political voice, a significant advantage to the Asian candidate who best manages to capture their collective imagination.

The Working Families Party, which had seen recent success in a 2015 special election by supporting Assemblywoman Diana Richardson in Brooklyn’s 43rd District, threw their weight behind Niou, a former aide to Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim.

The WFP’s well-financed campaign for Niou, while impressive in defeat, failed to adequately excite the largely Democratic district in which another Chinese candidate, Republican/Independent Lester Chang, siphoned off votes. It remains to be seen if Niou can galvanize that vote more successfully this September. Her main hurdle comes in the form of Gigi Li, another Chinese woman running with the endorsement of City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, whose district largely overlaps the 65th.

Rajkumar, a Democratic district leader, will look to turn out women and middle- and upper-income voters from Battery Park City, an area where there are probably not enough winnable votes to form a significant base. Rajkumar waged a notable campaign for City Council against Chin in 2013, when she was bested by a 2-1 margin, but relied heavily on voters with anti-Chin sentiments rather than a legitimate base loyal to her candidacy. She has yet to resonate with white liberals as effectively as Newell, who incidentally had much to do with Rajkumar’s foray into electoral politics in the first place.

Newell, arguably the frontrunner in the race, has the honor of being the one candidate who most actively took on Silver and his ethical missteps, including during a prior run against him in 2008, where the speaker defeated him by a roughly 3-1 margin.

The key to Newell’s success is to avoid past inclinations toward rhetorical turgidity and stick to a fundamentally well-disciplined campaign waged with a strong field operation and clear message. While Cancel, Niou and Li will make ethnic appeals a centerpiece of their campaigns, Newell must appeal to progressives based on sound intellectual arguments advocating reform in Albany, and effectively communicating substantive plans on how to do so.

The contest should come down to Cancel and Newell vying for first place in a competition pitting a base of Latino voters against a base of progressives, with Grand Street voters as the likely tipping point. Competition for Asian votes between Li and Lee may be too much for Niou to bear, especially since she will lose a significant number of white voters she attracted in the special election to Newell and Rajkumar.

Elections are rarely pretty. They are clumsily surgical and often appeal to our most base motivations. But the primary intention of a campaign is to win, not as an exercise in political correctness, but as a strong tug on the collective viscera of the voters it seeks to energize. The winner in the 65th will come down to who pulls the hardest.

Michael Oliva is a political and media strategist. Follow him on Twitter @olivamichael.