City & State New York - Politics

Where’s Waldo? In the courtroom

Shenal Tissera — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 18:01:00 -0400

If you wear glasses and have dark hair, that is enough to garner the nickname, ‘Waldo,’ if you are friends with Michael Mazzio and Joseph Livreri – owners of a trucking company and pizza shop, respectively, and co-defendants on trial with former New York City Council Member Eric “Waldo” Ulrich.

That and more was revealed during the second day of Ulrich’s corruption trial where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution team played various phone calls they had recorded through wiretaps of Ulrich and various associates that unveiled some new insights into Ulrich’s conversations with former Mayor Eric Adams and other officials.

That included Ulrich’s November 2021 phone call with Livreri detailing an urgent task that Adams’ chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin asked him to do for the then-mayor-elect.

“Ingrid just called me, and we have to take care of something like ASAP … So they want tonight for a carting company to go to the campaign office to throw out a lot of stuff that they need to throw out … Nobody’s there tonight and they might be there tomorrow,” Ulrich said to Livreri as he enlisted his help. “She’s gonna text me right now. I’m gonna get it there by the time X, Y and Z and get rid of this stuff.”

When asked outside the courtroom after the trial concluded for the day what the items that were carted away were, Ulrich claimed it was simply trash from the annual Somos conference in Puerto Rico and other innocuous junk.

Ulrich also referenced concerns Adams shared regarding having to be “more careful with the circle,” now that he had won the mayoral election.

Even more wiretapped calls Ulrich made are expected to be introduced as evidence on Wednesday.

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Hochul, Blakeman talk kitchen table issues two weeks from Election Day

Rebecca C. Lewis and Nila Roper — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:40:16 -0400

Both Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, highlighted pocketbook issues exactly two weeks before Election Day, with the governor celebrating some fruits of one of her marquee budget proposals and Blakeman hammering her on utility costs.

Hochul announced 16 arrests across eight counties on Tuesday as part of her administration’s crackdown on auto insurance fraud, with the aim of lowering auto insurance rates.

“The average New Yorker pays some of the highest auto insurance rates in the entire country, about $4,000 a year, almost $1,500 more than the national average. … All that fraud drives up what New Yorkers pay in their insurance premium,” she said. Hochul also said her administration has seen a “triple-digit increase” in staged crashes, which were often followed by multiple insurance claims and falsified medical records.

Hochul fought hard to include auto insurance reform measures in this year’s state budget. Negotiations over her proposal were a major reason why lawmakers passed the spending plan a whopping 57 days late. The legislation was supported by Uber, which claimed both its drivers and riders would benefit from the legislation, while the New York State Trial Lawyers Association fought hard against it.

Months after winning the budget fight, Hochul finally had tangible results to share with New Yorkers shortly before Election Day. But even as she touted new arrests she claimed will save money, she admitted that New Yorkers won’t see tangible change for roughly two years.

But she didn’t stop at car insurance fraud. Hochul also discussed ongoing “months-long investigation” to combat Medicaid fraud in social adult daycare programs and “safeguarding taxpayer dollars.”

While Hochul shared some results she fought so hard for in the budget, Blakeman hit the campaign trail to attack the governor over her projections on estimated utility increases.

Blakeman campaigned Tuesday in Washington Heights with former Gov. George Pataki to denounce high utility costs in the state. “We should have an all-of-the-above attitude towards energy,” Blakeman said, reiterating his call to bring fracking back to the state. “People are really suffering. As I walk down the street here, people tell me wherever I go how expensive their utility bills are.” And he unveiled a new ad on X criticizing Hochul’s “failed energy plan,” also on Tuesday morning.

The new ad cited City & State’s reporting on a February memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority that suggested upstate gas and oil households could face over $4,100 in gross cost increases under requirements set in the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Law. Hochul advanced changes to the law’s statutory timeline she said were needed to avoid those cost increases this spring.

But that hasn’t stopped Blakeman from using the governor’s own estimates against her.

“I don’t think his numbers are accurate, just like he was rather certain I did not sign a bill that I had signed,” Hochul told reporters when asked about Blakeman’s comments on high utility prices, referring to Blakeman’s since-deleted social media postcriticizing the governor for signing legislation to increase a tax credit for firefighters she had in fact signed.

Hochul cited her administration’s $1 billion investment in the energy rebate check initiative, as well as the repayer protection plan, but deferred responsibility to President Donald Trump and the ongoing war with Iran for overall increases in energy prices in New York and across the country.

“I’ve yet to hear Bruce Blakeman give any blame to the Trump administration on why our costs have gone (up),” she said. She also pointed to Blakeman’s support for expanding data centers as evidence he has “no credibility” on the issue of energy affordability. “These are some of the largest energy consumers in the world, and to think that having those consume our limited supply is gonna drive down costs, he is so wrong.”

Returning to a reliable line of attack, Hochul again accused Blakeman of simply parroting empty promises from Trump, saying that her opponent should be speaking with the president about lowering energy prices instead. “He’s blaming me for everything,” she said. And, she added, “I think it’s an act of desperation.”

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Eric Ulrich goes to trial in first Adams-era corruption case

Shenal Tissera — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 16:41:00 -0400

Eric Adams might not be the mayor of New York City anymore but the fallout from his corruption scandal-ridden single term has a long tail.

Three years after his arrest, Eric Ulrich, a former City Council member who served as Department of Buildings commissioner under Adams, sat for the first day of his bench trial Monday, marking the first Adams administration corruption case to go to trial.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced five separate indictments against Ulrich in September 2023, just under a year after Ulrich resigned as commissioner amid swirling reports of a corruption probe. One of those indictments has since been dismissed, but Ulrich is now standing trial on charges of soliciting or accepting more than $150,000 in cash and gifts – including a bespoke suit and Mets season tickets – to benefit his friends with business before the city.

Brothers Anthony and Joseph Livreri, two of Ulrich’s codefendants, pleaded guilty last month to felony conspiracy charges and admitted to paying Ulrich $4,000 to have a vacate order lifted on a bakery in Queens.

In a cramped court room in Manhattan on Monday, where Bragg made a brief and quiet visit, attorneys for Ulrich and the DA’s office painted contrasting pictures of Ulrich and how he operated during his time in the Adams administration.

Ulrich’s defense described him as someone who was dealing with alcohol and gambling addictions and who was just borrowing money from close friends and confidantes to help him through hard times.

“These are the men he called when he needed help, advice and heck yes – money,” Ulrich’s lawyer, David J. Cohen, argued in court. “90% of the time, it was two hundred bucks here and two hundred bucks there.”

Ulrich’s defense team argued he didn’t have money to pay back what he borrowed, and argued the payments didn’t amount to bribery. Michael Mazzio, owner of Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing and another co-defendant in the trial, was Ulrich’s friend and thus didn’t need to bribe Ulrich in order to connect with high-ranking Adams administration officials or get his daughter a higher paying job, Cohen argued, adding that any payments that went from Mazzio and the Livreri brothers to Ulrich were meant to help a friend out with no strings attached.

“Eric’s mistake was not corruption, it was trust,” Cohen said. “A bribe takes two.”

Bragg’s office, however, described Ulrich as a “compromised politician” who sold access to high-ranking officials in exchange for cash and expensive gifts, reporting none of it to the city’s Conflict of Interest Board.

“Public power, private gain. It is a betrayal of the city’s trust,” Assistant District Attorney Guy Tardanico said in court. “The evidence will show that these defendants saw an opportunity to benefit themselves without regard to anyone not in their inner circle.”

The trial is expected to take approximately one month to conclude according to a Manhattan District Attorney spokesperson.

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Why did Bruce Blakeman go 100% MAGA?

Rebecca C. Lewis — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

At the start of August, Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman found himself in Albany, fielding questions from members of the state Capitol press corps, who rarely see the Nassau County executive. Among the questions: Do you disagree with President Donald Trump on anything?

“I’m going to come out in the next couple of weeks and talk about things that I think are important that the administration may not agree upon,” Blakeman told the reporters in Albany. He didn’t give specifics, but alluded to “philosophical differences” on issues pertaining to the economy, immigration and guest visa programs.

It was a departure from his previous response to the question in April, when he said he would not disagree with the president in public and “would never be disloyal” to his “good friend.”

Once a prototypical Long Island Republican moderate, the Nassau County executive has leaned into his closeness to Trump in recent years, modeling his political style after the combative president. Blakeman has taken lessons from Trump’s bombastic rhetorical style and become a leading conservative figure on culture war issues and public safety, creating what has been criticized as an armed civilian militia and agreeing to establish a first-in-the-nation ban on trans women athletes competing on women’s teams at county facilities.

Blakeman’s shift in persona raised his profile after his upset victory over former Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat, in 2021 and in large part is what enabled him to become a statewide contender. But that was when Trump was out of office. Now, Trump is the deeply unpopular sitting president, and Blakeman is running for governor in what’s expected to be a “blue wave” midterm year.

“He can’t distance himself from Trump – he’s too closely aligned,” said Republican strategist and pollster Mike Dawidziak. “I think he would look bad doing it. I think he would look like a phony if he even tried to do it.”

And he hasn’t tried. Just days after the Albany press conference, Blakeman invited Trump to Nassau County for what was billed as a government event on crime rates and police training, but realistically served as a campaign rally. Trump returned to New York again this month for a bona fide campaign event in Syracuse, also at the invitation of Blakeman.

The Republican candidate for governor has still offered only scant details on where he differs from the president politically, aside from reiterating his support for a guest worker visa program for undocumented immigrants not backed by the White House and pointing to his being pro-choice in an interview with City & State, as well as in the Oct. 13 gubernatorial debate.

Despite their closeness, Blakeman hasn’t made his relationship with the president an explicit focal point of his campaign strategy. In fact, he rarely mentions Trump on the campaign trail, doesn’t directly invoke him in a slew of political videos and hardly says his name in his many posts on X. Politico New York even reported in April that Blakeman removed mention of working with the president from his campaign website.

“This is a campaign about issues and trust,” he told City & State in a recent interview. “And Kathy Hochul is on the wrong side of the issues, and people don’t trust her.”

But others say he doesn’t talk about Trump for another reason. “Donald Trump does not poll well in the state of New York. He has had a relationship with Blakeman, whether it’s personal (or) professional, or both,” state Sen. Anthony Palumbo, a Long Island Republican, told City & State. “I think that’s really going to loom large in this race.”

Simultaneously, Blakeman hasn’t actively sought to distance himself from Trump as much as other Republicans in competitive races, despite Trump’s unpopularity in New York and among the independent voters that Republicans need in order to win statewide races. The Trumpy strategy appears to be a clear appeal to the GOP base to drive a strong turnout. And the relatively narrow lead Gov. Kathy Hochul has held across many polls suggests the governor is at least somewhat vulnerable. But one-third of voters still don’t know who Blakeman is, according to the most recent Siena University poll. And if he’s unable to capture moderate and independent voters, the strategy may not be enough for him to become the first Republican governor in 20 years.

The MAGA math

Blakeman holds some traditionally more moderate positions that put him at odds with staunch conservatives, including being pro-choice and being in favor of some gun control measures. They helped him get elected in purple Nassau County and, in theory, could aid him in a statewide race, but those views don't necessarily rally the base. Some conservatives were therefore wary of the Long Islander when he announced his campaign late last year, essentially forcing out Rep. Elise Stefanik, the upstate right-wing firebrand who had already entered the race. Stefanik cited the impact a heated primary would have and a desire to spend more time with her son when she dropped out and decided not to seek reelection. Trump endorsed Blakeman as “MAGA all the way” one day later.

So who does Blakeman need nowadays?

“He’s nowhere without the base, and the base is very fickle,” said JC Polanco, a professor of political science at the University of Mount Saint Vincent and former Republican turned independent. “The MAGA base is a cult of personality, and I think that Blakeman understands this.”

Trump all but acknowledged that fickleness less than a month before Election Day, pleading with the thousands gathered in Syracuse for Blakeman’s rally. “When I’m on the ballot, we win everything. When I’m not on the ballot, 48% of you don’t vote,” the president said, lauding Blakeman as a “fantastic man.” “Please pretend I’m on the freaking ballot!”

Hochul’s campaign jumped on those comments, hearing a direct validation of its cornerstone strategy of tying Blakeman to Trump. Her ads and public statements mention the president constantly.

Ryan Radulovacki, a spokesperson for Hochul’s campaign, reiterated many of the same points the campaign has previously made about Trump in a statement to City & State. “Donald Trump is deeply unpopular in New York for a reason: he’s raised costs on everything from groceries to gas, his rogue, untrained ICE agents have caused chaos in our streets, and he’s attacked New Yorkers’ healthcare,” he said. “Bruce Blakeman has supported every single one of those things, and has said himself he ‘would never be disloyal’ to Trump. Three weeks from now he’ll see where that gets him.”

But Joe Borelli, a consultant and the former New York City Council minority leader, said Blakeman would be tied to Trump even if he didn’t lean into his relationship with the president – so he may as well appeal to the growing number of people who voted for Trump over the past three presidential elections.

“Trump got 3.6 million votes in New York state (in 2024),” Borelli said. “Trying to turn those people out is probably a more likely scenario to win than convincing people who hate Israel, believe in letting everyone out of jails (and) want to make energy prices higher to vote for Bruce Blakeman.”

Borelli acknowledged that circumstances in 2022 – when Trump was out of office and former Rep. Lee Zeldin lost to Hochul by just 6 points – were more favorable, but he expressed confidence that Blakeman is on a winning path. “Our best result in all those races was a downstate Republican from Long Island who was made out to be tied to Trump,” he said.

“I think people saw how close things were four years ago, and are now saying to themselves, ‘Wow, if we get those extra votes, we can actually elect the Republican governor,’” said Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra. He said strong turnout among that base will be crucial. “To win statewide in New York, you obviously need those crossover votes, but we do need our base to be energized and engaged,” he said.

Threading the needle

With Trump in office now, the president may serve as an albatross for Blakeman, even as he attempts to appeal to the GOP base and the voters who backed the president in 2024. Recent polling has Trump’s job approval in New York consistently 20 to 30 points underwater. And a Siena University poll from September found the majority of likely voters considered Trump’s endorsement of Blakeman a negative.

“He’s taking an extraordinary risk staying so close to the president,” said one longtime Republican strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Republicans across the country are sprinting from Trump, while Blakeman is standing firm. He knows that without Trump voters showing up on Nov. 3, there’s zero chance of victory.” After all, it’s no accident many leading Onondaga County Republicans skipped Trump’s Syracuse appearance.

Still, conservatives’ previous concerns over Blakeman’s past moderate stances appear to have evaporated. “I’ve been all over, and I have seen literally thousands upon thousands of Bruce Blakeman’s signs,” said state Sen. George Borello, a Western New York conservative and chair of the state Senate Republican’s campaign arm. “I can count on one hand the number of Kathy Hochul signs. So anecdotally, he has done an excellent job of energizing the base.”

But whether that’s because of the strength of Blakeman’s campaign or of anti-Hochul fervor is less clear. The Blakeman campaign has hit some bumps in the road. It has already spent a ton of money to get his name out there. Between mid-July and mid-September, he spent over $10.5 million on the election, per campaign finance records, including hundreds of thousands of dollars on those ubiquitous lawn signs Borello mentioned.

Hochul spent a similar amount, but she had more than $18 million left in her account to spend in the race’s final month, Blakeman had only $178,000. That’s the smallest sum a gubernatorial candidate has had at that point in the election ever – and it may be even less when accounting for donations made over the contribution limit, erroneously reported repeated donations, potential mistakes in public matching claims and generally poor recordkeeping.

Republicans who spoke to City & State are banking in part on Hochul’s unpopularity to depress Democratic turnout, despite conventional wisdom that this midterm is looking like it will be a Democratic wave year. They point to polling – namely Siena – that has Blakeman within 9 points of the incumbent, as well as historically lackluster support of Hochul in surveys of voters. Her record high with Siena from February still only hit 49% of voters viewing her favorably, and a recent Emerson poll put her job approval at 46% negative and only 40% positive.

“A lot of it has to do with the dissatisfaction with Hochul. … She doesn’t generate a lot of excitement within her own party,” Dawidziak said. But he added Blakeman still hasn’t excited the moderates and independents that Republicans need to win statewide. “He can’t wait too much longer to tack more to the middle and address more of the moderates’ concerns and issues,” he said. “He’s got every MAGA vote in the state, he doesn’t have to do anything more for the MAGA vote.” Which makes the president’s upstate visit perhaps puzzling so close to the election at a time when one might expect him to double down on winning over independents and moderate Democrats.

Asked about Trump’s comment that voters should pretend he’s on the ballot, Blakeman told City & State, “It’s an appeal to people who support him to rally around our campaign.”

“But if you heard me that night, I also said how I am appealing to independent voters and what I call commonsense Democrats for their vote,” Blakeman added.

And banking on Hochul’s unpopularity this year is a greater risk than it was four years ago. Although she may not be the strongest politician at the top of the ticket for Democrats, polls show highly competitive races in key battlegrounds like the Hudson Valley’s 17th Congressional District and even the deep-red 21st Congressional District in the North Country in which the Democratic candidates heavily outperform her. They indicate Hochul may benefit from downballot energy outside of New York City rather than congressional candidates riding her coattails.

“I don’t think she has to be (an inspiring top of the ticket) this year, that’s the funny thing,” said one Long Island Democratic insider granted anonymity to speak candidly. The reason: Hochul wouldn’t necessarily drive them to the polls, but anger toward Trump would. “I think Democrats are so pissed,” the insider said.

Republicans know Blakeman needs to appeal beyond the base. Siena polls have consistently had him narrowly leading with independents. Emerson had Blakeman with a 20-point lead among independents. Quinnipiac was the only recent survey showing Hochul ahead with independents, along with a 19-point lead over Blakeman overall. Yet self-described moderates and suburban voters were split in the latest Siena poll, and the most recent Marist survey has the suburbs equally split as well. Those are also the kinds of voters and areas where Blakeman needs to rack up strong numbers, and some see the decision not to actively focus on the president as prudent.

“He’s not Donald Trump, he’s running for governor of New York state,” Palumbo said. “Donald Trump is done in two years, whether he likes it or not. So I think that he should focus on himself and his record, because Bruce Blakeman has his own record.”

The fadeaway

In the past few weeks, Blakeman has started appealing to disaffected Democrats and independents. He has touted his endorsement by former staunch anti-Trump, Democratic celebrity Debra Messing as evidence of his independence and crossover support and began posting video endorsements from registered Democrats on his X account. And he unveiled a new AI ad featuring fictional suburban voters discussing their support of Blakeman in hushed tones.

After concluding his hour-long rally speech in Syracuse, Trump invited Blakeman back on stage to address the crowd together. “We love America, and we love Donald J. Trump,” Blakeman yelled out to cheers with the president at his side.

But a few days later, Blakeman took the stage in the first and only gubernatorial debate. As Hochul hammered him on his loyalty to the president, pointing to those exact words from the rally, Blakeman changed his tune.

“At a rally, as you know, it’s a cheering section, and you say things to get the crowd worked up,” Blakeman said. When Hochul criticized Blakeman for previously calling Trump the greatest president of his lifetime, he walked the comment back. “In retrospect, I would say that Dwight D. Eisenhower was the greatest president,” he said. He added, “But Donald Trump has two more years, so let’s see where it goes.”

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The 2026 congressional general election races to watch

City & State — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:14:00 -0400

Could 2026 be another “blue wave”? The answer could very well be found in New York.

From the wealthiest enclaves of Long Island to the remote reaches of Northern New York, control of the House of Representatives will likely come down to a couple dozen battleground districts, including a few in the Empire State.

That includes some of the tightest toss-ups, such as Republican Rep. Mike Lawler’s precarious bid to hold onto his Lower Hudson Valley seat, and Democrats’ attempts to do the same in a couple of mercurial Long Island districts.

But if there are common themes to these competitive seats – the Trump factor, the copious outside spending, a steady stream of opposition research – they each hold their own eccentricities and colorful characters.

City & State broke down everything you need to know about the most competitive congressional general election races in New York. This post was last updated on Oct. 15.

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Encountering AI in elected officials’ statements

Shenal Tissera — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

As New York City elected officials grapple with whether they can have a role in regulating artificial intelligence, City & State is grappling with AI’s encroachment on how elected officials communicate with news outlets like ours.

In reporting our story on how City Council members are responding to the new Affordable Housing Fast Track list, we came to a realization as we reached out to dozens of council members: Statements sent out by elected officials were being crafted by AI.

We reached out to 29 council members over email for that story, hoping to survey the members affected by the new fast track, and received 18 statements and quotes from them or their teams in response. While editing our story, we conducted a check for AI use in the written statements we intended to quote, as we’re aware that elected officials – along with plenty others – are increasingly using AI for drafting and editing.

Every statement we intended to quote in the story was flagged by the AI-detection tool Pangram for seeming to be partially or entirely AI-generated. Pangram is an imperfect tool, but one that’s widely used as a first pass to detect possibly AI-generated content. (We’ve adopted it as part of our practice to screen op-ed submissions for AI content.)

After running all of the responses we received through Pangram, seven statements were flagged as completely AI-generated or AI-generated with a mix of AI-assisted or human writing. That included statements from Council Members Frank Morano, Mercedes Narcisse, Chris Banks, Farah Louis, Shahana Hanif, Vickie Paladino and Phil Wong. Three of them, from Morano, Narcisse and Hanif, were flagged as 100% AI-generated.

This phenomenon isn’t new. Elected officials, politicians and their staff have been variably upfront about using AI for research, while New York Focus brought to light recently how elected officials have used AI in drafting op-eds.

For this story, some council members acknowledged using AI, while others denied it outright. Morano said he used AI in drafting his statement. “I sometimes use AI to help me draft or clean up responses, just like I use staff input, notes and other tools,” Morano said over the phone, when City & State asked him about his earlier statement. “The positions and opinions I sent you are mine, and I approved the language before sending it.”

Morano said he also employs AI to analyze data and large PDF documents, such as the Mayor’s Management Report. He felt the “100% AI-generated” classification his response received on Pangram was not totally accurate as he claimed he edited the output he got back from the large language model.

A spokesperson for Hanif said they first drafted their statement without AI but later used AI to condense and refine the initial draft before sending it. “The responses accurately reflect the opinions of our office,” Simone Lavin said in a written statement.

Narcisse said the flagged response they sent to us was crafted by someone in their fellowship program who was no longer there. In a phone call, Narcisse said she only used AI for research purposes on subjects she is unfamiliar with.

Wong’s chief of staff, Daniel Kurzyna, said their office uses AI solely as a grammar check, much like one would use a tool like Grammarly.

Paladino’s team, who only had one quote from the entire statement sent to us flagged by the AI detector, said they didn’t understand the question.

Banks denied using AI at all to generate a response and said that he only uses the technology to check for grammar mistakes. “Our response was consistent with a lot of the language that I have used in the past,” Banks said on a phone call with City & State. “Everything we do, it originates from me. When we are asked by the media to give statements or quotes, it’s coming from me.”

Louis’ team also denied using AI altogether, suggesting the finding was a false positive and said they try to avoid its use for all external-facing content.

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Jeffries to stump for Conley, Johnson to stump for Lawler

Kate Lisa — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:15:00 -0400

A slate of political heavy hitters, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, will visit the 17th Congressional District in the next few weeks to stump for Rep. Mike Lawler and Democrat Cait Conley, both campaigns exclusively told City & State. Jeffries will hold an event with Conley on Oct. 24 to kick off early voting and Johnson’s Oct. 27 rally for Lawler will be held in Rockland County.

Both candidates, deadlocked in one of the most competitive races that could determine which party controls Congress, are holding a series of rallies in the Lower Hudson Valley district to drive turnout.

This weekend, House Chief Deputy Whip Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, former Gov. George Pataki and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman will kick off a canvass for Lawler in Mount Pleasant. Then, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, the former Long Island congressman who came within 6 percentage points of defeating Hochul in 2022, will make appearances with Lawler for two days. They’ll be in Rockland on Sunday and then head to southern Dutchess County for an energy press conference Monday with U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Teamsters international president Sean O’Brien, one of the few labor leaders to cozy up to President Donald Trump, is expected to hold a large Oct. 22 rally for Lawler in Elmsford with House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer.

Meanwhile, several House Democrats are planning to come to the district to galvanize voters for Conley, a veteran and White House Security Council's former director for counterterrorism. Rep. Jamie Raskin will rally for Conley in Nyack on Saturday, and Rep. Lauren Underwood, a Democrat from Illinois, will rally for the on Oct. 23. And Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Democrat from Washington who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, will stump for Conley on Oct. 31, with others possible before Election Day.

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With new ads, progressive super PAC looks to deploy Mamdani voters for Hochul

Rebecca C. Lewis — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 06:00:00 -0400

As progressives wade into the gubernatorial super PAC game, a new independent expenditure committee known as Left Hook released a series of ads Friday blasting Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s immigration policies – and imploring the left-wing coalitions that helped elect New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to turn out for the moderate Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The ads are set to run on Meta platforms and streaming services through Election Day. Make the Road Action, the 501(c)(4) political arm of Make the Road New York, has so far raised $500,000 for the endeavour, most of which has gone toward this first ad buy, according to Amit Singh Bagga, a progressive Democratic strategist and former Hochul staffer working on the PAC, though he would not say how much the ads cost in total. Make the Road Action gave $325,000 of that Tuesday according to campaign finance records.

The super PAC tapped Melted Solids to produce them, the company behind many of Mamdani’s hugely successful campaign ads during his run for mayor. One of the new ads features unscripted, man-on-the-street style interviews with voters. “I’m voting for Kathy Hochul because we need her on Zohran’s side,” said one person in the ad. “Let’s see what our mayor and the governor can do together,” said another.

Another ad, featuring a brief voiceover from Make the Road Action co-Director Daniel Coates, who is affiliated with the IE, is a more traditional attack ad featuring Blakeman and President Donald Trump, highlighting Blakeman’s support of the president and of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It also directly invokes the mayor through a brief interview clip of Mamdani criticizing Blakeman.

“Kathy Hochul is fighting back against Trump and the MAGA Republicans, so we can’t let this guy become governor,” Coates says in the ad. In a statement to City & State, he added, “This election is a referendum on how New York wants to deal with immigration enforcement, and we must make sure that voters understand what is at stake.”

Both ads ended with a graphic directing New Yorkers to vote for Hochul specifically on the progressive Working Families Party line. In the wake of Mamdani’s outstanding victory in the mayoral election last year, progressives and democratic socialist organizers came out of the June primaries with even more victories at both the state and federal levels. Nearly every candidate on the New York City Democratic Socialists of America slate won their race, and a record number of DSA members will be in the state Legislature next year. Left Hook is hoping to rally those voters not only for Hochul to win, but to pad her margin of victory.

Mamdani has been expected to stump for Hochul in some capacity, the first example coming on Thursday. He posted an on-brand, quirky social media video praising his partnership with Hochul and bashing Blakeman, paid for by the governor’s campaign. It’s not an ad that will run on television, streaming or social media, but Mamdani’s online reach alone is vast – and probably the target demographic, anyway.

Hochul did also recently appear in the Hudson Valley alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to discuss artificial intelligence and data center regulations, which has become a cornerstone of her campaign.

“Facing the (real) threat of Bruce Blakeman, now’s the time to shelve ideological sibling rivalries and join forces as una familia,” Bagga said in a statement. “If you voted for Dari(aliza Avila Chevalier) or Claire (Valdez); for Christian (Celeste Tate) or Eon (Huntely) and all that we are fighting for – be a part of delivering not just a victory, but a mandate.”

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Poll: Nine months into Mamdani’s tenure, affordability remains serious problem

Sahalie Donaldson — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

New York City’s cost-of-living crisis continues to be crushing. Nearly half of a sample of New York City voters surveyed in a new poll said they are likely to leave the five boroughs within the next five years due to the cost of living.

That’s just one example of the financial strain New Yorkers are grappling with measured in the Honan Strategy Group’s latest 5 Borough Barometer survey, which was shared exclusively with City & State ahead of its release.

For many New Yorkers, the situation is dire. Of the 46% of New York City voters who said they’re likely to leave the city in the next five years, 31% said they were very likely to do so. The crisis has hit New Yorkers at the most basic level. Utilities, groceries and healthcare were each described by a majority of respondents as a major financial strain for their household. Paying for rent or a mortgage posed the single greatest burden, with 46% selecting it as the biggest financial strain. As the city grapples with soaring rents and a historic vacancy rate, the latter comes as little surprise.

The survey comes nearly a year after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made history when he triumphed over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the November general election, galvanizing New Yorkers with promises to make the city more affordable. His platform’s focus on economic populist initiatives like universal childcare, holding rents steady for the city’s rent-controlled apartments, building more affordable housing and making buses free resonated with voters. More than 2 million New Yorkers ended up casting ballots in the mayoral election – the greatest turnout since 1969.

Nine months into Mamdani’s tenure, it’s no secret the affordability crisis remains top of mind – and far from solved. The poll found nearly universal agreement that the cost of living is a serious problem in the city, with 92% describing it as such. In terms of how respondents’ household financial situation fares now compared to a year ago, 53% said things are worse and 42% said they are about the same. Just 5% said better.

New York City voters have contended with the crisis in different ways. To make ends meet in the past year, 56% said they cut back on groceries, 47% borrowed money or piled up credit card debt, 37% skipped out on meals and 34% said they went without or pushed back medical care. Nearly a third of respondents said they fell behind on rent or bills. Just over a quarter reported taking on a second job or working extra hours.

Despite the majority saying that their financial situation had worsened over the past year, New York City voters were divided on who they consider to be most responsible for the city’s high cost of living. Only 18% pointed the blame at city government and the Mamdani administration. Landlords and real estate developers, meanwhile, garnered the most scorn, with 25% of respondents charging that they were the party most responsible. Twenty-one percent pointed to the federal government, 14% to the state government and 13% to big corporations.

Bradley Honan, CEO and president of Honan Strategy Group, said that for now, people are pleased with the mayor’s advocacy around issues of affordability and aren’t yet “holding his feet to the fire” in terms of whether he’s actually bringing down the cost of living.

“Right now, the focus is on the rents they pay once a month and Donald Trump,” Honan said. “We’ll keep polling on this, but I think right now we are still in early days where (Mamdani is) getting a pass. A lot of his image is being an advocate and talking in ways people want to hear.”

The Honan Strategy Group surveyed a representative sample of 1,302 New York City voters between Oct. 2 and Oct. 7 for the poll. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.72%.

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A more confident Conley takes on Lawler in second NY-17 debate

Sophie Krichevsky and Kate Lisa — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 23:38:00 -0400

The themes in the second and final debate between Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic challenger Cait Conley in the 17th Congressional District – a race locked in a dead heat – were largely the same as the first. Conley sought to tie Lawler to President Donald Trump and MAGA, while Lawler tried to tie Conley to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and socialism. But the lines that at times sounded like a tired crutch for Conley in the first debate landed differently Wednesday night, perhaps because of her more confident delivery the second time around.

Conley once again repeatedly returned to her line that the sitting member of Congress “votes with Trump 100% of the time.” Lawler – and even moderator Dan Mannarino of PIX 11 – pointed out that figure is closer to 90%. Lawler may have been equally exasperated with the line, but this time, Conley largely did not engage with his objections. In doing so, Conley suggested those details didn’t matter to her – and therefore shouldn’t matter to voters, either. And it probably won’t to moderates critical in the swingy seat who are sick of high costs that Conley blames on Lawler’s multiple votes for tariffs, and to continue the war in Iran. Instead, Conley appeared level-headed – and the moments when she did engage with Lawler’s pushback seemed to pay off. The debate’s sole extended back-and-forth ended with an off-hand comment from Conley: “If you wanted to be the moderator, you could’ve volunteered,” she quipped.

The remark was an effort to redeem her weak, and somewhat confusing, answer on immigration leading up to it. Conley danced around a question about her support of the state’s new immigration law that limits when local police should work with federal immigration agents, and was vague about how she thought federal immigration enforcement should be held accountable, even when pressed by the moderator more than once.

The parents of Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old from Yorktown who was killed by an undocumented man in Chicago earlier this year, asked Conley the same question at last month’s debate, and she didn’t give a straight answer then, either – a decision Lawler blasted her for Wednesday night. Conley was quick to condemn Gorman’s death, and said her killer should have been deported, but once again sidestepped the larger question about the law. It illustrated a weak spot for the campaign: Conley’s political infancy shows, particularly next to Lawler, a seasoned policymaker with deep mastery of the issues.

With less than three weeks to go before Election Day, the race for the Lower Hudson Valley seat remains one of the most closely watched congressional contests in the country, and could determine control of the House of Representatives.

The pair had their most tense moment while discussing the Cornell University gang rape case. After Lawler dinged Conley for accepting donations from disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whom he said trafficked a young woman across state lines, Conley shot back, “I’m sorry, I do not need you to mansplain to me what domestic abuse and sexual assault against is.”

And Lawler’s attempt to group Conley with a progressive like Mamdani didn’t seem to stick nearly as well as it did in the first debate, when he repeatedly asked her to condemn the democratic socialist mayor. Conley didn’t hesitate to denounce Mamdani’s controversial statement he made on the third anniversary of Oct. 7. But Lawler wasn’t impressed. “Great, it shouldn’t have taken you until today to denounce it,” he said.

Lawler did his best to hold Trump at arm’s length. Asked specifically where he differs with the president, he said he objected to the public execution of the Ford Hood shooter and that he disagrees with Trump’s recent decisions in the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Nikki Lucas, prospective Brooklyn Democratic Party chair, sued over campaign debts

Sahalie Donaldson — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:28:47 -0400

Assembly Member Nikki Lucas, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn’s pick to succeed her as leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, is being sued over debts associated with her 2021 City Council campaign, City & State has learned.

Attorney Ed Hartzog contends that Lucas owes him more than $6,000 for legal services he provided her while she ran for outgoing Council Member Inez Barron’s seat in East New York five years ago. That includes two outstanding invoices, one totaling $1,500 for compliance counsel services provided during 2021 and another totaling $4,651.84 for litigation fees and expenditures dated August 2021, according to documents reviewed by City & State. (Lucas ultimately lost the 2021 City Council race to Inez’s husband Charles Barron, but she went on to win his state Assembly seat in a special election in 2022. Lucas has represented the district ever since.)

After multiple requests to her campaign for payment were unsuccessful, Hartzog sued Lucas in New York County Civil Court this July. While a hearing had been set for Sept. 30, it was adjourned and rescheduled for Feb. 8 after Lucas didn’t appear.

Separately, Steve Kramer, president of political consulting firm Get Out the Vote, told City & State that Lucas owes him around $2,000 for voter mobilization services he provided to her 2021 campaign. It’s not unusual for a candidate to carry some debt from previous campaigns, but while Kramer said he doesn’t intend to sue over the outstanding amount, he argued that the prospective chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party shouldn’t have unsettled campaign debts.

Vernon Jones, a spokesperson for Lucas, referred to the invoices as “disputed” and said they “are under review.”

Lucas, if allowed by the courts to remain leader of the party, would preside over an organization with its own debt issues. The political machine has historically played an important role in boosting candidates for office, nominating judges and organizing Brooklyn Democrats. Though its influence in the political ecosystem has waned over time, the party still wields considerable resources – both in members and its ability to fundraise. It also has a history of debt. The party reportedly owed more than $226,000 when its former chair, Frank Seddio, passed the reins to Bichotte Hermelyn in 2020. While Bichotte Hermelyn turned the party’s finances around in the ensuing years, a string of recent legal challenges has led the reformist district leaders who oppose her to again raise concerns about the party’s financial standing.

The party’s county committee reported $431,207.60 in the bank at the end of the most recent filing period, according to a July 15 filing with the state Board of Elections – far more than it had in the bank in 2020. But it also reported a $288,587.47 debt to Abrams Fensterman LLP, the party’s longtime law firm, and a $41,462.50 debt to Grassi, an accounting firm. It’s unclear where those currently stand or what specific legal work the payment to Abrams Fensterman covered. Bichotte Hermelyn did not respond to a request for comment about the party’s finances, but the party filed multiple legal challenges against reformist district leader candidates in an attempt to knock them from the ballot for the June primary. It’s unclear how much the latest legal fight is costing.

Bichotte Hermelyn, Lucas and their allies are currently locked in a battle with a coalition of reformist district leaders over the future of the county party. This very long, complicated saga kicked off in June when the coalition won a majority of seats on the party’s executive committee, essentially giving them the power to oust Bichotte Hermelyn and appoint one of their own as leader – or so they thought. Concerned that the reformers would vote her out of power, Bichotte Hermelyn held a vote to approve rules adding dozens of new members to the committee. Reformers sued, ultimately winning in both the lower and appeals courts, but the battle has continued. (Hellgate has a solid timeline of the chaos.)

On Oct. 5, an increasingly desperate Bichotte Hermelyn and allies held a virtual meeting where they voted – potentially in violation of a court order – to make Lucas chair of the party. Lawyers for the reformist coalition immediately filed paperwork asking the judge to hold participants in contempt of court. That contempt hearing is currently scheduled for Oct. 19.

Lucas has come under additional scrutiny as her profile has risen during the leadership battle. . In 2021, she was one of eight people named in a 2021 deed theft suit, which claimed she’d helped transfer ownership of a $3.4 million-valued Southern Baptist Church in East New York for free, the New York Post reported.

She also paid more than $7,400 in traffic tickets over the past five years, including over $1,700 in late fees and interest, Politico New York recently reported. But she’s not entirely in the clear – as of two weeks ago, she was reportedly overdue on two tickets issued over the summer totaling $500.

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5 moments that defined the gubernatorial debate

Rebecca C. Lewis and Kate Lisa — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 22:55:00 -0400

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, her Republican challenger, couldn’t stop talking over each other – or the moderators – throughout the only scheduled debate of the gubernatorial race Tuesday night.

“What have you got to lose?” Blakeman said in an appeal to voters during his opening statement. If their performances were any indication, Hochul and Blakeman, it seemed, had everything to lose.

Both candidates came prepared for combat as they spent the bulk of the one-hour debate on Spectrum News/NY1 responding to each other rather than answering moderators’ specific questions. Each had their share of clever quips and upper cuts, but things never got personal, and at times, they even seemed to enjoy themselves. As the incumbent with a comfortable lead over her opponent, Hochul naturally had a lower bar to clear heading into the debate, needing only to steer clear of any missteps. And she seems to have succeeded.

These are five moments that defined Tuesday night’s debate.

The 15-minute exchange on immigration

It went on longer than anyone expected but moderators Susan Arbetter and Errol Louis allowed Hochul and Blakeman to go back and forth on immigration policy nearly uninterrupted to open the debate. Immigration policy already emerged as a defining issues in the race, but a shooting by a U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agent in New York City forced it back into the limelight, with Hochul decrying the use of force by undertrained federal agents and Blakeman criticizing state policy banning formal cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement.

“(Blakeman) refused to condemn what ICE did,” Hochul said. “So he basically says, in the state of New York, he’d be fine if ICE agents … shoot guns into vehicles, not knowing who’s inside.” Blakeman shot back that cooperating with law enforcement would have prevented such an incident. “It never would have happened but for your sanctuary policy,” Blakeman charged, adding later, “We didn’t have any incidents in my county because we were allowed to cooperate with local law enforcement, but you took that tool away.”

While Blakeman blamed “sanctuary state” policies for permitting undocumented immigrants to remain in the state despite criminal records, Hochul used the opportunity to attack her Republican opponent for failing to condemn ICE shooting deaths of American citizens in the past two years under President Donald Trump, and for incidents in Blakeman’s own Nassau County. “To say nothing happened in Nassau County? Tell that to the man who, on camera, had his head rammed into a brick wall by ICE agents,” Hochul said. Blakeman responded with the murder of a 30-year-old woman by an undocumented immigrant in his county. “This never would have happened, Kathy, if it wasn’t for your policies.

The moment even allowed Blakeman to tout his own public safety record in Nassau as county executive, and for Hochul to hit a clearly pre-planned line of attack about how Nassau was initially named the safest county in America under Blakeman’s Democratic predecessor. All in all, it was an extended moment of civility in what wound up a contentious debate that permitted both candidates to hit rehearsed debate points.

The Cornell rape case and the voluntary intoxication loophole

A 2024 alleged gang rape at Cornell University that’s drawn national outcry has become a late flashpoint in this year’s election, and discussion about the case marked one of the debate’s most surprising moments.

Hochul has promised to change state rape laws after a former Cornell student known as Jane Doe alleged she was raped by seven men at a fraternity house, and plans to work with the Legislature to address the state’s “voluntary intoxication loophole” that makes it more difficult to prosecute sex crimes.

Despite having been largely mum on the lack of criminal charges in the case until Tuesday night, Blakeman didn’t hesitate to tell moderators that he’d also change the law should he become governor, noting that someone doesn’t have the capacity to consent if they’re visibly impaired by drugs or alcohol.

But Blakeman then blamed Hochul for not doing enough to prevent the attack in the first place or change the university’s culture. Hochul is an ex officio member of the university’s Board of Trustees, meaning she carries political influence on the board, but does not have a formal vote.

Tensions rose when Hochul replied: “That’s pretty pathetic to blame me for what happened in a fraternity – my gosh.”

Blakeman distances himself from Trump

Blakeman clearly came into the debate with a goal in mind, and that goal was to demonstrate that he is not a “puppet” of Trump, as the Hochul campaign has accused him. That emerged in two key moments: Blakeman’s emphasis of two “very significant policy differences” between him and the president, and walking back past statements that Trump is the best president of his lifetime. On the former, Blakeman pointed to being pro-choice and to his support for a guest worker visa program for undocumented immigrants with a long history in the United States. After making sure to say that during the debate, even as moderators attempted to move on, Blakeman’s campaign posted the statement on social media as well.

On Trump being the best president, Blakeman said that “in retrospect,” he would actually call Dwight D. Eisenhower the best president in his lifetime. The walkback came after Hochul had the chance to ask her opponent directly about his staunch support of the president on most issues. “But Donald Trump has two more years, so let’s see where it goes,” Blakeman added as an addendum to his new political ranking.

After an entire campaign of Hochul tying Blakeman to the president, the shift for Blakeman is notable. While he has not campaigned on his relationship to or support of the president, Blakeman has remained a fairly staunch defender of the unpopular Republican national leader, even rallying with him in New York as recently as last week to boost his campaign. But winning with MAGA alone is not enough to win in New York.

As an aside on this issue, Blakeman also downplayed his connection to Trump, saying the president had indeed endorsed him – but so had some high-profile Democratic activists as well.

Mamdani who?

In a surprise, Blakeman avoided mentioning New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani until the last 15 minutes of the debate, instead staying hyperfocused on attacking the incumbent Democratic governor. Blakeman first mentioned Mamdani in an apparent attempt at a quip as moderators prompted the debaters to move onto the next question.

But he had another chance to get his digs in at the mayor after in the debate’s final 10 minutes, when Blakeman was asked about a recent New York Times article about comments he made to Hasidic Jewish leaders regarding Mamdani. And Blakeman unleashed. “Zohran Mamdani is an antisemite, I believe he’s anti-Christian, and I don’t think he has American values” he said, making sure to tie Hochul to the mayor. After an entire debate of not mentioning the democratic socialist boogeyman who has a surprisingly cordial relationship with Trump, Blakeman made sure to use those final moments effectively.

Hochul’s labor troubles

It’s no secret Hochul’s hasn’t had the easiest go in her most recent term when it comes to labor efforts, and Blakeman made sure debate watchers knew it. At one point, moderators asked about a 56% vacancy rate among prison workers after last year’s unsanctioned wildcat correction officers’ strike that resulted in Hochul firing more than 2,000 officers. Taxpayers have paid over $1 billion for thousands of members of the state’s National Guard to man facilities (and counting).

Blakeman threw that decision in Hochul’s face. In a nod back to the governor’s frequent criticism of Blakeman for his Nassau County militia – or force of armed “citizen deputies” – Blakeman suggested her staffing solution was hypocritical: “You’re the one who used a militia, not me!”

He took it beyond the prison strike, though, saying, “Everybody strikes under Kathy Hochul.” And he isn’t completely wrong: Hochul has endured two additional high-profile strikes this year, including a nurses strike and the short-lived Long Island Rail Road strike that briefly disrupted service this past spring.

Hochul, who has broad labor support in her reelection bid, defended her decision to fire the correction officers who refused to end their illegal strike last winter, and stood by staffing prisons with the National Guard, saying she needs to keep people inside safe while recruitment remains low.

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What we’re watching for in the gubernatorial debate

Rebecca C. Lewis, Sophie Krichevsky, and Kate Lisa — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:15:48 -0400

It’s debate night in New York as Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman will square off on Spectrum News’ NY1 at 7 p.m. for the sole debate of this year’s race for the Executive Mansion. With three weeks to go before Election Day, Hochul will look to maintain her lead over the Nassau County executive, with recent polls showing her up anywhere between 9 percentage points and 19 points (though the most recent sit at 11 and 12). As for Blakeman, while any challenger needs things to go smoothly on debate night, he really needs things to go off without a hitch. With his campaign war chest dwindling and errors in reporting his finances, not only could Blakeman use the free media, but he’s running out of time with his statewide name recognition still limited. Here are five things we’ll have our eyes on during the debate.

The elephants in the room

Both candidates have made it clear they are campaigning against a surrogate for the movements they oppose as much as they are against each other. For Hochul, that’s President Donald Trump, and for Blakeman, that’s New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul has made tying “100% MAGA” Blakeman to his “good friend” Trump a cornerstone of her campaign strategy. Hardly an ad or public statement goes by without the governor invoking Trump when discussing Blakeman.

Blakeman has similarly attempted to use democratic socialist Mamdani as a left-wing boogeyman and as evidence that the moderate Hochul – who has endorsed the mayor – is simply another far-left progressive radical. So expect to hear both the mayor’s and president’s names plenty of times out of the mouths of the candidates as they attempt to negatively associate each other with high-profile officials who won’t actually appear on the November ballot.

Gaffe watch

Though her lead in the polls may not be quite as comfortable as some would like for an incumbent Democrat in an expected blue wave year, Hochul is still the incumbent governor and the frontrunner. But let’s not forget: It took until August for the governor to agree to a debate (Blakeman is participating in the public matching funds program, which means he is legally required to partake in a debate; Hochul did not opt into the program). As much as that gives her the upper hand going into Tuesday night’s debate, she also runs the risk of failing to meet expectations. And that means avoiding a gaffe. Hochul may be seasoned and enthusiastic in front of a crowd, but she’s had her own missteps, too – like when she suggested some Black kids in the Bronx “don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is” or when she urged members of a Black church in Buffalo not to spend their inflation reduction checks at the liquor store (she has apologized for both). Those are reasons to be wary of going off script, as Blakeman could seek to attack her for them or it could alienate parts of the base. At the same time, a rigid Hochul likely won’t inspire more voters to turn out.

Top issues

While debates rarely change voters’ minds, some issues will draw more attention than others – namely affordability, immigration and artificial intelligence. Hochul and Blakeman likely won’t stray from their tried- and-true strategy: blast each other for their respective records – or lack thereof – as opposed to offering more detailed proposals. It doesn’t mean that either candidate won’t make any broad promises, but it’s more unlikely at this stage of the game, as Blakeman and Hochul will want to avoid opening themselves up to new attacks.

Lowering the cost of living will likely be the main event, as recent polling shows the issue is the top concern for New Yorkers, but the pair is known to clash on data centers and AI, especially since Hochul enacted a one-year pause on new data center construction, which Blakeman has criticized as bad for businesses and developers. And it’s tied to the parties’ longstanding stalemate over climate issues, high utility bills and strain on the grid.

Democrats and Republicans continue to be divided along clear ideological lines over federal immigration policies, and the state's new law restricting local law enforcement from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in civil enforcement matters. The issue is more motivating for Republicans compared to Democrats, per the latest Quinnipiac poll, and blasting the new policy continues to be a public safety talking point for Blakeman and the GOP.

Blakeman’s elevator pitch

As Blakeman tries to convince New Yorkers it's time for a new face in the Executive Mansion, he’ll have to decide if he wants to spend the last few weeks of the race primarily bashing Hochul's record or selling himself as the stronger leader. He’s quick to blame the governor for things like high taxes, and his campaign has proposed broad cuts to services that could have broad, uncertain consequences. But he has failed to adequately flesh out his own policy platform.

It’s easy to criticize Hochul's actions, like the data center moratorium or immigration policies, but his arguments must go beyond the quick sound bite to prove he’s got the chops for the job. Doing both isn’t easy, as will be on display Tuesday night.

Courting the base vs. appealing to independents

In a midterm election with an unpopular sitting president from the opposing party in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one, Hochul’s best course of action is probably rallying the base. Delivering a strong debate performance to energize that base is easier for the frontrunner, and easier than trying to walk a tightrope in hopes of winning over independents in a state where most voters already have an opinion of her.

For Blakeman, the calculus is different, as he’s still unknown to about one-third of voters. A statewide televised debate is one of his best shots to make a good impression with voters – especially independents who may be on the fence or don’t know him.Though Blakeman has certainly run a campaign that seems focused on energizing the MAGA base, the debate could offer him his last real chance at courting disaffected voters who may otherwise stay home.

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ICE shooting tests limits of Mamdani-Trump relationship

Sahalie Donaldson — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:51:33 -0400

Federal immigration authorities’ shooting of an immigrant New Yorker is putting new strain on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump’s dynamic, testing the mayor’s ability to leverage his unexpectedly cordial relationship with the president to the city’s advantage.

So far, Mamdani’s efforts to get Trump to heed his demands appear to have been unsuccessful – at least in the roughly 24-hour period since a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and wounded 28-year-old Oscar Belgal Thursday afternoon. The agent, who has not been named, fired at least seven shots into Belgal’s vehicle while attempting to apprehend him on a Marble Hill street. Belgal’s five-year-old child was in the car at the time.

As furious protesters roared for justice late Thursday night, Mamdani told reporters that he’d failed to negotiate Belgal’s release during a two-hour call with Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Instead of working with the city, the mayor said, federal immigration authorities took Belgal out of the hospital, put him “in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away.”

Federal officials meanwhile have given zero indication that they would heed Mamdani’s demand that they halt immigration enforcement across the five boroughs.

In a press conference Friday morning, Mullin repeatedly characterized Belgal as “a thug” and the “worst of the worst,” blaming the city’s sanctuary policies for creating “an environment for criminal activity to thrive.” He took direct aim at Mamdani several times, claiming that the mayor’s words condemning ICE are “dangerous and incite hostility.”

Despite their vastly different political views, Trump and Mamdani have established a publicly cordial relationship over the past year. It’s bordered on friendly at times – especially on the side of the president, who has come across as fond, even adoring, of the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor ever since their first meeting at the White House last November. Mamdani, for his part, has emphasized areas of common ground with the president, like building housing, while voicing his disagreements over issues like immigration.

“I want what’s good for New York, I want what’s good for the country,” Trump said of Mamdani after visiting with him at Gracie Mansion several weeks ago. “I want him to be a great mayor, and he’s certainly got potential, got great potential.”

A running theory is that Mamdani has sought to keep the peace in hopes of keeping the Trump administration from targeting the city with sweeping funding cuts, deploying the National Guard or surging federal immigration enforcement.

It’s impossible to take a conclusive stance on whether the approach has worked so early into Mamdani’s tenure. Thus far, City Hall has touted successes of Mamdani’s ability to work with Trump, including successfully advocating for the release of Columbia University student from federal immigration custody in February, and ongoing discussion about federal investment in housing at Sunnyside Yard – though Trump has made no concrete commitments on the latter.

But this week’s shooting presents one of the clearest and most urgent tests of Mamdani’s approach with Trump so far – with the result so far being unanswered demands to release Belgal and end ICE operations in New York, that call into question what leverage Mamdani has to demand anything from Trump. Even before the shooting, ICE activity has surged across the five boroughs over the past nine months despite Mamdani’s adamant opposition.

Murad Awawdeh, president and executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, was skeptical. While he believes in advocating for the safety of immigrant New Yorkers, he expressed doubts that Mamdani will be able to convince the president to end ICE operations in the city.

“At the end of the day, what I am most concerned about is the people who call New York home – and I don’t care what we have to do to protect them, but our number one goal is to protect them,” Awawdeh said. “If this relationship gets us that, great. I’m not holding my breath though considering this morning they were back at it across the city of New York doing enforcement."

Democratic strategist Trip Yang said that Mamdani has had to be creative in how he engages with Trump given the city’s limited power over the federal government. While he can’t veto actions or threaten to pull federal funding, Mamdani can appeal to Trump’s business interests and their commonality as New Yorkers, according to Yang. And while there’s no guarantee that the president will do as he says, Yang thinks Mamdani could still use their relationship to his advantage.

“Personal affection in politics often gets you access. It cannot guarantee results,” Yang said. “Just getting in the president’s ear is half the battle, and that comes from a relationship.”

Democratic strategist Amit Singh Bagga argued that Mamdani’s ability to get on the phone with Trump and Mullin so quickly after the shooting occurred “speaks volumes” about his approach.

“While the average observer or voter may judge the success of that relationship solely by outcomes, a major aspect of the strength of this relationship should be judged by the access,” Bagga said. “The mayor and the president couldn’t be further apart on this issue. That the president, who is likely not accustomed to taking calls from mayors, engaged Mayor Mamdani for two hours, however frustrating the outcome, is an indication of the high degree of capital a democratic socialist mayor has with this president.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul also said that she spoke with Trump on Thursday night, though it’s unclear for how long.

Belgal is currently being held at Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, according to The New York Times. For now, that’s where he’ll remain. A Manhattan federal judge ordered ICE to not remove Belgal from the country while the court reviews an emergency petition requesting he be released from custody.

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Why Blakeman wanted Trump’s midterm rally in Syracuse

Kate Lisa — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

With just weeks before an Election Day widely expected to favor Democrats, Republicans looking to hang on to the House majority have sought to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular President Donald Trump.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, on the other hand, is running full speed ahead toward the president.

Trump is slated to hold a midterm rally at Syracuse’s Oncenter Convention Center for Blakeman and other GOP candidates in the Empire State on Friday night. Earlier this week, Punchbowl News reported that Trump is doing the Central New York rally at Blakeman’s request.

Trump has appeared with Blakeman before, both in the Nassau County executive’s stomping grounds and in Rep. Mike Lawler’s district back in May. Lawler, who is trying to beat Democrat Cait Conley, is following the national trend and isn’t going to Syracuse.

So why did Blakeman ask Trump to host another rally for him, let alone in Syracuse, a solidly blue Central New York city?

“He needs good turnout upstate,” said Republican strategist Chapin Fay, who is the spokesperson for Strong and Safe New York, a pro-Blakeman independent expenditure committee. “In Central New York, everywhere upstate, Bruce needs to overperform.”

So there’s some logic to turning to his close ally, the president of the United States, to help rally support.

“The Trump visit makes all the sense in the world for Blakeman. He can win this race – but only if Republicans turn out like they did in 2022,” said Bill O’Reilly, a GOP consultant and a spokesperson for both the state Conservative Party and Republican state Attorney General candidate Saritha Komatireddy. “We need to match the Democrats in enthusiasm – especially in Central and Western New York. There is no downside at this point. Voters are well aware that Blakeman and the president go back decades as friends. That’s already built into the equation.”

The Blakeman campaign did not respond to City & State’s request for comment on the rally.

The event, organized by Trump’s fundraising PAC, the Trump 47 Committee, marks the president’s first in Syracuse in a decade, when he was running in his first Republican primary in 2016. Meanwhile, Gov. Kathy Hochul has hammered Blakeman throughout the campaign for his alignment with the president. The Salt City isn’t just solidly blue: Its residents are expected to elect Mo Brown, its first-ever democratic socialist state legislator, next month. And just two weeks ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visited Syracuse on her upstate tour as the progressive darling explores a run for higher office.

But the city, located in Onondaga County, is in Blakeman’s running mate Todd Hood’s backyard. For more than eight years, Hood has been the sheriff in Madison County, which sits directly east of Syracuse, and is sandwiched between there and Utica. And the centrally located city just makes sense, both geographically and by the numbers. State party spokesperson David Laska said Trump’s visit has fired up Republicans all around the state, and Syracuse’s central location will draw a big crowd from every corner.

“Voters of all stripes are hungry for new leadership after Kathy Hochul and one-party Democrat rule have made New York the most taxed, least affordable state,” Laska said in a statement. “(Friday’s) rally will ensure that we have the energy to carry us through Election Day and bring real change to New York.”

For a Republican like Blakeman to win a statewide race in blue New York, they must increase their margins upstate and on Long Island to offset New York City’s massive Democratic voting base. And while Blakeman has naturally strong polling numbers and name recognition on his native Long Island, driving peak enthusiasm in regions like Central New York is essential for any real shot at a win.

“Campaigns are just a large math problem – that’s all they are,” Fay said.

While Blakeman’s chances of victory are slim, the GOP doesn’t plan to give up. Recent independent polls show Hochul has a comfortable lead over Blakeman – though perhaps slimmer than she might want in a blue wave year. That’s likely because, as polls have also shown, she struggles to excite voters. Blakeman, meanwhile, has consistently polled better among upstate independents.

And party leaders see an opportunity in the region this year. Though then-Rep. Lee Zeldin, now Trump’s administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, lost to Hochul by 6 points in 2022, he won the counties of Central New York by 5.6 percentage points. If the party can energize voters in the area, therefore, they think it could go a long way.

Also expected to attend Friday night’s rally are Republican House candidates Anthony Constantino, who’s running to replace Rep. Elise Stefanik in the North Country’s 21st Congressional District, and Kailee Buller, who is challenging Rep. John Mannion in Syracuse.

Other pro-Blakeman forces will also be scattered across the state Friday. Strong and Safe New York, the super PAC backing Blakeman’s campaign for governor, plans to send a convoy of moving trucks to circle the state Capitol in Albany, then down in Westchester County, on Friday in the hours before Trump’s rally in Central New York to symbolize the state’s high numbers of outmigration in the last five years since Hochul took office. The PAC did a similar stunt in New York City last month.

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Mamdani says ‘this city wants ICE out,’ following shooting

Annie McDonough and Sahalie Donaldson — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:07:00 -0400

Flanked by fellow elected officials, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani demanded that President Donald Trump immediately cease all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the city after a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in northern Manhattan on Thursday afternoon.

“This city wants ICE out. We want ICE out of our city, ICE out of our schools, ICE out of our hospitals, ICE out of our streets, ICE away from our kids,” Mamdani said at a press conference late Thursday in Marble Hill, close to where the shooting took place. “We want that because we want to keep the city safe. We do not need them to do so – all they do is terrorize the city.”

The mayor said he had been on the phone with Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate for the 28-year-old man’s release. As of 11:30 p.m., the man remained in ICE custody, according to Mamdani.

The man, identified by city officials as Oscar Belgal, was shot by an ICE agent a little after 4 p.m. in the largely residential neighborhood. Federal immigration authorities surrounded the man’s vehicle, which also carried a 5-year-old boy believed to be Belgal’s son in the backseat, before firing seven rounds, according to the mayor and New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

“They wore construction vests and masks that concealed their faces,” Mamdani said. “There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents.”

Belgal was taken to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital where he arrived in stable condition. The child was reportedly unharmed.

“There is no explanation for these tactics. There is no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a 5-year-old,” Mamdani said. “There is no explanation. We are standing here, so close to the site of where this actually took place, and look at how many people live right here.”

Tisch said the agency had no involvement in the federal operation prior to the shooting, nor were any police officers on scene at the time. She added that Belgal had two previous arrests in New York City, one for robbery in 2023 – a case in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and received five years’ probation – and one for the criminal sale of a controlled substance in 2025, which is pending.

A slew of elected officials swiftly condemned the shooting. Like Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul also said she spoke with the president about the shooting. In an online post, she wrote that she’d expressed “outrage on behalf of New Yorkers” and urged the Trump administration to end ICE operations in the state.

Earlier in the evening, several elected officials including Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier, who ousted him in June’s primary, New York City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa and New York Immigration Coalition President and CEO Murad Awawdeh held an initial press conference near the same location.

By Thursday evening, protesters had gathered around the scene of the shooting and outside of the hospital where the man had been taken. Video shared on social media of the latter showed what appeared to be a chaotic clash between protesters and the NYPD.

As Mamdani appeared at the late press conference, a small group of protesters chanted “No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA.” Following the presser, at which Mamdani took just two questions and only Tisch joined him in speaking, a small group of protesters remained.

In a statement, the Trump administration appears to be doubling down on its actions, providing zero justification for why the shooting occurred.

“When dangerous illegal aliens are released back onto the streets by radical sanctuary politicians, our officers are forced to make arrests at large in the community in unpredictable and dangerous environments,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement posted on X. “Our officers should not have to risk their lives, and innocent Americans should not have to face unnecessary danger, because sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement.”

The shooting comes just a few weeks after Mamdani hosted Trump at Gracie Mansion, continuing what’s been an unexpectedly cozy relationship between the two leaders despite their vastly different politics. While Mamdani has insisted that his diplomatic stance toward the president has been advantageous for New Yorkers, Thursday’s shooting of an immigrant New Yorker is likely to strain their dynamic – and will test the extent to which the mayor is able to leverage something from that relationship.

Mamdani called Thursday’s shooting a “microcosm of what ICE does on a daily basis across this country.” At least two dozen people have been shot by ICE agents as part of Trump’s deportation campaign since he took office in January 2025, according to The New York Times. Six of those individuals were killed, the majority of whom were struck by federal immigration agents shooting at their vehicles.

“Today’s shooting is only further devastating confirmation of what we have long known, which is that ICE operates with impunity, that they sow chaos and terror across our country, that they have killed far more of our neighbors than they could ever have claimed to save,” Mamdani said, adding, “This is an agency that must be abolished.”

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Democratic Congress members rally to protect the vote in Queens

Shenal Tissera — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:36:28 -0400

Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation convened in Queens Wednesday to say “No Kings.”

Upstate Rep. Joseph Morelle, ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, which has oversight over federal elections, hosted a “shadow hearing” in Forest Hills with Reps. Gregory Meeks, Grace Meng, Paul Tonko and Adriano Espaillat to champion election security and voting rights in both New York and across the country in opposition to President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the election system ahead of this November’s battle for Congress.

“Everytime President Trump and his administration has tried to interfere with the integrity of the midterm elections, they have lost. In the courts, states are 26 and 0,” Morelle said. “I suspect if you were 0 and 26 and you were coaching the New York Knicks, you would change things up pretty quickly. But, the president seems undeterred so we will continue to fight him in the courts.”

The hearing, which congressional nominee Brad Lander also joined, convened members from voting and civil rights organizations to discuss ways to instill confidence in the current election system, educate voters on their rights and assess threats to voting access.

Trump unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the 2020 election won by Joe Biden and since then, has continued his offensive against the country’s elections. In his second term, his administration has played coy about the possibility of sending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to the polls and tried to limit mail-in voting through executive order.

“I’d be shocked if he didn’t try to cheat,” quipped Meng after the hearing.

New York has some of the strongest election protections on the books, which was touted by one of the people testifying. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022, prohibits practices that harm New Yorkers’ voting rights such as intimidating voters and interfering with access to polling booths, and also expands language assistance for those with limited English proficiency.

“I want to give a shoutout to New York who led the way in expanding and enacting their New York state Voting Rights Act in 2022,” said John Cusick, assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “Congress must also continue to act. It shouldn’t take a heroic effort from civil rights and pro-democracy groups to protect the democracy. We need help.”

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Hochul gets a vitamin AOC shot

Kate Lisa — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 19:17:00 -0400

Within the Democratic Party, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are like apples and oranges. But the pair put aside their ideological differences with a month till Election Day for a rare joint appearance at a Hudson Valley apple orchard.

“I am incredibly proud to be here – I’m very grateful to the governor for her leadership and her responsiveness on such a cutting-edge and innovative issue,” Ocasio-Cortez said of the one-year moratorium Hochul signed in July pausing state environmental permits for new centers that could consume 50 megawatts or more of electricity.

Hochul gathered Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Pat Ryan and other Democratic leaders at Fishkill Farms in southern Dutchess County on Tuesday to speak out against the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers – with the clear goal of energizing voters at the top of the ticket as the governor tries to hold off a challenge from Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman.

They’re a big city democratic socialist, a rural populist and a pro-capitalism moderate – with some overlap among them – and Ocasio-Cortez, Ryan and Hochul all sat down with farmers and agricultural industry stakeholders to discuss the consequences of a huge hyperscale data center proposed adjacent to the property. And the governor wouldn’t let participants forget which side fights regulating the industry in the name of building business.

“The Trump administration is rolling out the red carpet for massive AI data centers and telling communities that they should trust these powerful companies to do the right thing, and that they know what’s best,” Hochul said.

The bucolic meeting was, notably, organized by Hochul’s and Ocasio-Cortez’s government offices, and wasn’t officially a campaign event – but it had high political stakes. The discussion took place in the closely watched 17th Congressional District, where Democrat Cait Conley is hoping to help her party take back the House by unseating Republican Rep. Mike Lawler. And the event seemed tailored to appeal to New Yorkers who may not know who to vote for – or whether to vote at all – on Nov. 3.

The latest independent polls show Hochul maintains a comfortable lead over Blakeman in next month's gubernatorial race, but she continues to struggle with favorability from independent voters, and could use a lift in the suburbs and farther upstate, where her margins are much narrower. It makes sense, then, for the governor to appear with Democrats to her left – ones who can help energize younger voters in November – to make up for it.

Hochul’s appearance with Ocasio-Cortez and Ryan comes despite Blakeman’s eagerness to tie the governor to the far left and criticize her for her good relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist. Hochul hasn’t actually appeared with Ocasio-Cortez in the past year, her office confirmed – their last meeting was at a Mamdani mayoral campaign rally.

Hochul defended her decision to hold a rare joint event with Ocasio-Cortez, saying they “are 100% aligned” on data centers, since the lawmaker introduced the House companion version of the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act.

“It’s all about our mutual interest in focusing on affordability and lifting up New Yorkers in smaller localities,” Hochul told reporters. “I wouldn’t read any more into it than that.”

Concerns about data centers transcend party lines, and Democrats are using that in their favor. “This is an issue where folks of all generations and all political views and all the other divides that we have in our country, this is an issue where the people are very very clear, they are united,” Ryan said.

The Democrat is expected to cruise to reelection in his neighboring Hudson Valley district, but has been building up political chits as he eyes a run for higher office in the future.

Standing with an ambitious Democrat like Ryan and a star of the progressive left like AOC – who’s known to be eyeing a future run for U.S. Senate or president – at the very least could soothe concerns that Hochul is becoming like the electeds to her left, or that she won’t compromise with them t. On the heels of Ocasio-Cortez’s recent upstate tour, Hochul would neither commit to, but also wouldn’t rule out, the possibility of other joint campaign events this month.

The Congress members didn’t take questions from the podium, and when reporters caught her on the walk to her car, Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t say whether she thinks democratic socialist voters would show up for Hochul. But she still found a way to give the governor a boost.

“We know something for sure, which is that Blakeman is a uniquely dangerous candidate,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He wants to turn over the entire state to these tech oligarchs. He wants to turn over the state to data centers with no protections for communities. He wants to gut the entire tax base that funds our schools and our healthcare. And I do believe that everyday New Yorkers see this for what it is.”

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Joint Blakeman-Lawler appearance offers look at what might have been

Nila Roper — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 17:59:44 -0400

Rep. Mike Lawler recently told City & State he’s open to launching a bid for governor in a different political climate, after having positioned himself for a run last year before abandoning it to run for reelection instead.

But as he appeared with Republican gubernatorial nominee and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman on a windy Tuesday morning in Chappaqua, it was difficult to see a reason for Lawler to have waited. Watching the member of Congress rail against the state’s recent ban on formal cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement, juxtaposed with a relatively quiet Blakeman, offered a window into what might have been this gubernatorial election.

Seeing Lawler and Blakeman appear as a united front, the former backing the latter in his race for governor, was somewhat jarring: Lawler contemplated and teased running for governor several times, at one point confidently stating he was best positioned to defeat Hochul. But he ended up choosing to run for reelection to the House, a decision pushed for by President Donald Trump and other congressional allies. (Lawler, however, says he came to this decision himself.) And after another strong contender for the GOP nomination, Rep. Elise Stefanik, unexpectedly dropped out too, Blakeman had a clear path to the Republican line. He didn’t even face a primary.

But that doesn’t mean Blakeman’s run for governor has been an easy road. While Lawler, a two-term member of Congress, is in a tough fight to hold on to his House seat against Democrat Cait Conley, Blakeman has a much steeper hill to climb as he faces an incumbent Democratic governor in blue New York in a year not expected to favor Republicans. Blakeman’s campaign also seems to be in a bit of a financial tizzy – a disclosure filed on Friday by his team shows only $178,000 in the bank, and as Politico New York reported Monday, he may actually be in the red once he returns over-the-limit contributions.

It’s true that Lawler has made a name for himself as an unapologetic, commanding voice in New York politics. It’s also true the event was on Lawler’s home turf; throughout his campaign, Blakeman has had to work to expand his name recognition beyond Long Island. But Lawler’s sharp tongue, impossible to overlook, makes him stand out next to the gubernatorial nominee. Tuesday’s appearance was no exception: He was literally uncensored as he condemned the ban on 287(g) agreements, calling the governor “too fucking stupid” to solve the problem of crimes committed by undocumented people.

“Nobody in their right mind can stand here and look these families in the face and say that refusing to turn over murderers and rapists is good public policy,” Lawler said, referring to the families of Sheridan Gorman and Laken Riley, young women killed in Chicago and Georgia, respectively. The men charged and convicted with the respective killings are both undocumented immigrants.

Despite being at the top of the ticket, Blakeman said little throughout the majority of the press conference, nor was he particularly animated. But on immigration, he agreed with Lawler, who was once seen as his potential opponent in the Republican primary.

Blakeman spoke highly of his own record as county executive, referring to Nassau police’s collaboration with ICE as “the most comprehensive agreement with ICE in America” prior to the ban. Like Lawler, he took the opportunity to criticize the governor’s record on immigration.

“Kathy Hochul talks about atrocities committed by ICE. She is a liar. There have been no atrocities committed by ICE in New York state,” he said. Later, he added, “We didn’t raid one church, we didn’t raid one school, we didn’t raid one daycare center.”

At an unrelated event Tuesday, Hochul reiterated that there’s nothing stopping law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials in investigating a crime; most immigration cases are civil ones.

In response to the duo’s comments on the governor, state Democratic Party spokesperson Addison Dick said in a statement, “Mike Lawler and Bruce Blakeman would rather shill for Donald Trump than keep New Yorkers safe: while Governor Hochul invested $4 billion in public safety, got 26,000 illegal guns off New York streets, and brought crime to record lows, Mike Lawler was voting to defund police and Bruce Blakeman was defending ICE killing American citizens.”

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How Hudson Valley politics has changed over the past 20 years

John Celock — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Sean Patrick Maloney sees the Hudson Valley as a microcosm of American politics, in particular the purple nature of his old congressional district and the region. Maloney represented the Lower Hudson Valley in Congress for a decade before his 2022 loss to Republican Mike Lawler. This came at the same time that Maloney chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Maloney now serves as the president and CEO of the Coalition for Prediction Markets and during the Biden administration was the U.S. ambassador to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He talked to City & State about the changing face of Hudson Valley politics over the past 20 years. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has politics in the Hudson Valley changed in the past 20 years?

I would say the evaporation of local media and therefore the coverage gap that officeholders feel in communicating with the public. So when you are in the shadow of the New York City media market, it’s very hard to get those outlets to cover what you’re doing, and before, you would rely on venerable newspapers like the Times Herald-Record, the Poughkeepsie Journal, The Journal News, and they have all suffered massive budget cuts and a corresponding reduction in resources they can devote to local stories, so you end up getting some Gannett product with the local sports scores, a fire report and a bunch of national stories. So I'd say communicating with your constituents has become very difficult because (the) Hudson Valley (is) next to a massive media market.

When I ran for office, you better bring your A game to the editorial board meetings of the Times Herald-Record, the Poughkeepsie Journal and The Journal News. I'm not even sure they do them anymore, and they used to all hold debates, often widely publicized or televised. I’m not sure those are held anymore. I think this tracks a national phenomenon of local media being hollowed out because of online sources and because (of) the way that we consume news. It presents a real challenge.

Some of my colleagues who represent smaller media markets, I mean if you pin a merit badge on a Boy Scout in Syracuse, you’d probably get all three major networks covering your event. You know, I could light myself on fire in the Hudson Valley and the network affiliates wouldn’t cover it, because they have more than enough to do in the city.

So you either rely on paid media, in the context of a campaign, but of course, that’s a very specific kind of communication. We would resort to scalable town halls by telephone because you could reach thousands of people in a cost-effective way, And that could be an official communication, a substantive communication. We did 200 town halls, but these were all efforts to communicate.

But the fact is that without dedicated local coverage at local newspapers and local outlets, it’s really changed how people receive news and whether they know anything about what their local representative is doing.

It’s true though. I mean like THR was great, used to be 4 inches thick on a Sunday. You know, it’s a big-ass newspaper. I’m not even sure what it looks like today, but it’s probably like some thin Gannett product. And you know what they do? They give you a bunch of AP stories, a bunch of wire service stuff and that’s fine. And maybe they’ve thrown in some local sports scores, but there’s no reporters on the beat locally. I mean, there’s a couple, you know Chris McKenna’s still up there, I’m sure doing the hard work of freedom. But like John Penney at The Journal News, I used to know all these guys. They would come to my events. We would do press conferences and they’d write stories about what was going on at the local infrastructure project or the issue with the VA hospital locally, or things that were important to the community that might have you know relevance to whether the officeholder was doing their job or not.

But we’re still doing something today. I mean, I think the difference is that the tension in the media landscape has completely changed the way politicians do their jobs, and it’s not for the better.

As a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, how do you view the midterm elections this year?

I think it will be a disguised wave, meaning you will get a very powerful Democratic turnout that is not as impactful as it should be in the House because of the structural changes, meaning through redistricting and hollowing out the Voting Rights Act. So, what was 42 seats in 2018 during Trump’s first midterm will be probably half of that this year with a similar behavior by the voters. That’s not good for democracy. And we’ll see the wave effect more prominently in local races and in statewide races like the U.S. Senate, for example. But I think the Democrats have a structural ceiling in the House of about 225 to 230, and that is man-made.

How do you think House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has reacted to the redistricting wars with Democratic-led redistricting in blue states?

I think he’s doing the very best job he can in a really difficult moment with a lawless administration and tremendous discontent in his own party. I mean, the guy is a masterful listener, a consensus builder, and those qualities are more important than ever, though they are a thankless business model, because that’s not what the media demands.

But he’s doing the hard work of building consensus in the Democratic caucus, which will allow them to govern with a slim majority. I think his work is deeply underappreciated, but it will prove enormously valuable when he can deliver the votes because he has a unified caucus as speaker.

Some Democrats running for the House and U.S. Senate have suggested replacing Jeffries and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer next year. What are your thoughts?

I think Hakeem is underappreciated, and it would be a huge mistake not to use his skill set in the new Congress. I also think it’s very unlikely that he won’t be the next speaker. I’d be shocked.

He’s a consensus builder, and that’s exactly what you need with a narrow majority to get things done. Over time, I think both the party and the country will really come to appreciate his skills, which are extraordinary. I think Chuck Schumer has a lot to be very proud of. I think he’s going to have a challenge, and he knows that, remaining as the leader in the new Senate because of desire to turn the page, but I wouldn’t count him out either.

How do you see the race in your old district between Republican Rep. Mike Lawler and Democrat Cait Conley shaping up, in particular with split-ticket voting in 2024 with Lawler and former Vice President Kamala Harris both winning the district?

I think that shows you the challenge Mike Lawler has. He is going to lose this year because, despite pulling out all the stops and using every trick in the book, he is wrapped around the axle of the Trump record, particularly on the war in Iran and the cuts to local healthcare. And the voters know it. My guess is he will outperform other Republican candidates, but it won’t be enough. His opponent, Cait Conley, is running a great race, and I think she goes to Congress next year.

Do you see the Hudson Valley and your district remaining as competitive as it has been the past few years, no matter who wins?

Yeah. Barring a redistricting, I think the area will remain very competitive. Yes, and I think you’re seeing some real shifts in the way the voters behave in Rockland County that are very different than in Westchester County. So it’s no accident that Lawler has been able to win and hold that seat because it’s a truly competitive district, in a world without many of them.

What are some of your biggest accomplishments while you served in office?

Apart from the work we did to protect the Hudson River, particularly from oil barge anchorages, I’m proud of our work with veterans in the Hudson Valley. At the end of the day, the things that are most meaningful to me are the individuals who still come up to me and say, “You know, you helped save my dad’s house, or that you were there for us when we couldn’t get those disability benefits from the VA.” Those are the things that matter when you meet people you actually helped, and I’m proud of that. (I’m) also proud of being an honest public servant. You know, I didn’t take a dime that I didn’t deserve. And I worked with everybody regardless of political party, and I’m proud of that.

Where do you see Hudson Valley politics going in the next 20 years?

Well, I think it remains a competitive district that in many ways reflects the country as a whole. If you look at the demographics between Hudson Valley and the rest of the country, both in terms of the urban-rural landscape and the demographics, it’s a bellwether that way. I would look to it to tell you what’s going on in America more generally.

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‘Our enemy of our enemy is still our enemy’: Seneca Nation members protest tribal president’s Blakeman fundraiser

Petala Ironcloud — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

On Monday, outgoing Seneca Nation President JC Seneca hosted a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman at the Seneca Niagara Resort and Casino. About a dozen Seneca Nation members, including former Seneca Nation President Mike Schindler, protested on the sidewalk outside after casino security barred them from the property.

The protest was organized by Mothers of the Seneca Nation, a modern derivative of the historical Clan Mothers, whose role as leaders of the Six Nations, also known as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, was formalized in the 1848 Seneca constitution. The group was established in 2022 after the Seneca Nation’s then-president Matthew Pagels announced a settlement agreement with New York state over gaming payments in a late-night Facebook post that blindsided tribal citizens.

Leslie Logan, a member of Mothers of the Seneca Nation and a tribal citizen who ran for a Cattaraugus Council seat, said she was outraged by JC Seneca’s actions in his last 30 days in office and was direct about Blakeman: “He’s our enemy of our enemy, is still our enemy.”

Protesters held a number of signs, including one that asked: “Whose side are you on, JC? Are you a Trumper?” Another: “The Seneca People DO NOT support JC’s personal love for Blakeman.”

In a media advisory sent to reporters, Logan criticized JC Seneca’s “rogue support” for Blakeman, a candidate “whose positions and potential actions in office run counter to core Seneca values.” Logan and other Seneca Nation members are critical of Blakeman’s pledge to lift the state’s fracking ban, his opposition to a data center moratorium and his support for allowing public schools to make use of Native mascots and imagery.

Their biggest concern is Blakeman’s position on online gambling. “(Blakeman) defends the prediction markets, which Native leaders throughout Indian Country have called an ‘existential threat’ to tribal gaming,” Logan wrote in the advisory. One protestor’s sign put it even more bluntly: “JC, do you know that Blakeman is for Prediction Markets? He’ll be the end of us!”

In her media advisory criticizing Blakeman, Logan invoked the Two Row Wampum – a wampum belt created in 1613 between the Haudenosaunee and Dutch traders in what is now upstate New York. Logan said the symbolism was quite literal for her: the earrings she wore to Monday’s protest depicted the Two Row Wampum itself. “The Two Row Wampum signifies that we each stay in our own boat and don’t meddle in the affairs of the other,” she said. “For JC to insert himself in the politicians and campaign of NYS is in violation of the precepts of the Two Row Wampum.”

Logan has pushed back on JC Seneca’s characterization of the group before. He called the Seneca people “the Mob” at a Council session in recent months, Logan said, after she and others defeated one of his resolutions. “We are not ‘The Mob’ as Outgoing president JC has called us,” she wrote in a Facebook post earlier this week. “We are concerned, involved, civic-minded Seneca citizens who believe the Seneca People play the most critical role in our governance.” Since then, Logan said, the label has become something closer to a rallying cry: “The Mothers wear it like a badge of honor.” The group is considering making T-shirts that read: “I’m the Mob.”

JC Seneca was elected president of the Seneca Nation in 2024 and his two-year term will end on Nov. 3. Since Seneca Nation rules bar consecutive terms, he was unable to run for reelection this year. “What do you have to gain from this? Because in 30 days you won’t be in office,” Logan said. “It’s over for JC.”

JC Seneca endorsed outgoing treasurer Odie Porter to succeed him as president. But the powerful Seneca Party, the only organized political party within the 8,600-member Seneca Nation, saw Tina Abrams defeat Porter in its caucus, effectively the Nation’s real election. With no opposition possible under Seneca Party rules, Abrams is set to become the first woman to serve as president of the Seneca Nation when she is sworn in following the Nov. 3 general election.

Braiden McElhaney, a Seneca Nation member and Erie County Democratic Committee representative, did not attend the protest but said in a public statement that while he continues to support President Seneca “when he is defending our sovereignty,” he “wholeheartedly disagree[s] with President JC Seneca engaging in partisan campaigning.”

The Seneca Nation’s opposition to Blakeman shouldn’t necessarily be taken as support for Gov. Kathy Hochul, though.

Logan’s distrust of Blakeman is matched by a longstanding distrust of Hochul. In 2022, during a standoff over gaming revenue payments tied to the Seneca Nation’s compact with the state, Hochul froze the Seneca Nation’s bank accounts. Logan said the move threatened the Nation’s ability to make payroll for 3,600 employees, forcing the Nation’s corporation to pay under pressure. “It was like a ransom note, right? And we paid,” Logan said.

Last year, JC Seneca attempted to repair relations with Hochul by inviting her to Seneca territory to apologize for the state’s operation of the Thomas Indian School, which separated multiple generations of Seneca children from their families. Logan said tribal citizens packed a council meeting to object before the visit, and many stayed away from the apology itself. “People didn’t go because people didn’t support it,” she said.

The Seneca Nation’s compact with the state expired earlier this year, and the Nation and Hochul have not yet reached a new one. JC Seneca said this week that the two sides have an “agreement in principle,” but Logan disputes that. “So he does not have an agreement in principle,” she said, adding that Seneca will be out of office before any deal could be finalized. “Tomorrow it’s 29 (days until his term ends). We’re doing the countdown.”

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Leading AI companies fail to impress at City Council AI hearing

Annie McDonough — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:00:47 -0400

The race for the frontier of artificial intelligence may end in human extinction. Or it may just need some friendly guardrails.

It depends on which of 14 panels you caught at Monday’s marathon City Council hearing on AI safety.

The bulk of the hearing, still carrying on – and apparently long from over – at the time of publication, was taken up by the testimony of four leading AI companies developing what’s known as frontier AI. That includes Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI. (The City Council is taking legal action to enforce a subpoena that Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI ignored.)

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a former regulatory lawyer who questioned representatives of those companies like opposing counsel on Monday, suggested she learned more from what those representatives didn’t say than from anything they did.

“I think it’s disappointing that they can’t seem to answer some of the most basic, rudimentary questions,” Menin told City & State around hour four of the hearing.

A handful of other council members said they didn’t learn anything new at all.

When Menin asked the four companies’ representatives to quantify the risk posed by AI in the “worst-case, catastrophic scenario,” none of the largely policy-oriented representatives offered an answer.

“I don’t know,” said Morgan Dwyer, head of policy development and operations at OpenAI. “I also don’t think it matters whether it’s 1% or 10% or 20% chance of something catastrophic or wrong. None of these levels is remotely acceptable.”

“To say you don’t know and it doesn't matter is flippant at best,” Menin retorted, drawing chuckles from a crowd of what seemed to be mostly AI critics and safety advocates.

When Menin asked whether the companies would release models that fail internal or third-party tests, the companies spoke about their internal reviews and commitment to safety, but didn’t answer the specific questions. “I think it would be far clearer if we could get clear yeses or no’s,” Menin said. “I am going to take what each of you said as an equivocation.”

If the companies’ answers didn’t prove illuminating, they still gave Menin and the rest of the council a chance to shine as a legislative body doing something about the ubiquity and risks of AI, as federal action remains out of reach.

The companies’ testimony, lasting several hours, also rang in stark contrast to the first panel of the day. On that panel, former researchers-turned-whistleblowers at those leading companies warned that such catastrophic events aren’t unlikely at all, and that the companies are acting recklessly in pushing the frontier of AI forward without guardrails.

Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher whose dire warnings captured international attention last month, said AI could make huge improvements in science and make people’s lives better. “But on the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control of these AIs and it could end in human extinction,” he said.

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Lucas claims leadership of BK Dems – in apparent violation of court order

Sahalie Donaldson — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:55:52 -0400

As if the fight to lead the Brooklyn Democratic Party couldn’t become more complex, Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn and allies held a virtual meeting late Sunday night – in apparent violation of a court order – where they voted to make Assembly Member Nikki Lucas, her handpicked successor, chair of the party.

Now a judge has scheduled a hearing to weigh whether to hold Bichotte Hermelyn in contempt of court – while the reform faction is arguing that Rep. Nydia Velázquez is actually in control of the party.

The late Sunday meeting was just the latest effort by the party’s increasingly desperate outgoing leader, Bichotte Hermelyn, to block the reformers and their choice for leader, Julio Peña III, from taking over the county organization. But the meeting appeared to be held in violation of multiple court orders, spurring a fresh wave of questions about the party’s future. Not only did Bichotte Hermelyn barrel forward with the vote despite the temporary injunction halting it ordered by a state supreme court judge last week, but she and allies proceeded as if the new rules adding new members to the party’s executive committee were still in place, despite a Brooklyn Supreme Court and an appeals court ruling that they were illegal.

During the 10 p.m. meeting, Lucas only got the votes of 13 of the 42 district leaders who’d been elected in the June primary – well shy of the majority she’d need to take the helm of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. But since she also got 21 votes from the expanded executive committee’s 26 new members, Bichotte Hermelyn and allies claimed this constituted victory. So did Lucas.

“I am deeply honored by the vote of confidence from my fellow District Leaders and our Executive Committee,” Lucas said in a statement shared by the party on Monday. “This is bigger than any one person, any one group or any one election. Brooklyn is strongest when we work together, and I am committed to building a party where people feel welcomed, respected and empowered to participate.”

Just four district leaders attended the 10 p.m. meeting, which attendees were informed about Sunday morning. The rest of Lucas’ votes came from proxies.

Lawyers for the coalition of reformer district leaders seeking to elect Peña as party leader filed paperwork Monday morning requesting a judge to hold Bichotte Hermelyn and others who participated in the Sunday night vote in contempt of court. That was just the latest in a flurry of legal filings over the last nearly two months.

“Back to court again. So, so, dumb,” Mark Hanna, a district leader and lawyer for the reformers, told City & State. While Peña and the rest of the district leaders in the reform coalition skipped the meeting not wanting to legitimize it or violate the stay, Hanna attended so he could observe proceedings.

Ahead of the meeting, he’d sent a letter and a cease and desist to prospective attendees claiming that anyone who participated in the vote would be violating the temporary restraining order, that was put in place on Sept. 29 in order to hold off any vote. Hanna argued that holding the meeting opened up participants to civil penalties.

Screenshots shared by Hanna show that his message again warning of this in the meeting’s chat was promptly deleted by organizers.

Bichotte Hermelyn did not respond to a request for comment.

Reformers and Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies have been battling for months – ever since the former’s coalition won enough seats in the June primary to give them a majority on the party’s executive committee. Concerned that the reformers would vote her out of power, Bichotte Hermelyn convened a vote that included outgoing district leaders to approve rules adding dozens of new members to the executive committee. Reformers sued, ultimately winning in both the lower and appeals court.

It’s been a chaotic, complex, seemingly endless saga. In another recent twist, the reformer ally and retiring Congress member Velázquez was elevated to chair of the party’s county committee after outgoing party leadership neglected to put their own candidate on the ballot. In a ruling late last week, a Supreme Court judge ruled that Bichotte Hermelyn’s term had ended and that Velázquez was now the party’s reigning authority in the interim.

Both sides of the Brooklyn Democratic Party are slated to return to court Tuesday morning. Should the judge lift the temporary injunction, reformers contend that Velázquez would then have the authority to call a vote for chair.

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Mike Lawler might be the only Republican who could win NY-17. Can he do it again?

Kate Lisa — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0400

Archie Kyriacou has never voted in his life, and he’s never wanted to – not for president, and certainly not for Congress.

This time last year, the 50-year-old who owns the Stony Point Family Diner spoke out about safety concerns caused by road closures related to construction of the 339-mile Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line designed to deliver hydroelectric power from Canada to New York City created severe traffic bottlenecks and hazards that threatened local businesses in the conservative, blue-collar anchor of Rockland County.

Kyriacou called several area officials. Only Rep. Mike Lawler responded, and he arrived to assess the situation 12 hours later. The Republican member of Congress later secured a $1 million relief fund for businesses impacted by the project, which wrapped earlier this year. Kyriacou has yet to see that relief money – applications only just opened – but he’s sold: The lifelong nonvoter plans to cast his first-ever vote for Lawler, joining the lawmaker’s loyal army of moderates and conservatives in the Lower Hudson Valley – one Lawler had built even before he flipped the 17th Congressional District red in 2022.

“I don’t even know if I’m Democrat, I don’t know if I’m Republican, I’m not that guy, you understand?” Kyriacou said the day after City & State accompanied Lawler on a visit to the diner. “I know this guy Lawler shows up. … He showed up when nobody else cared and nobody else would.”

Lawler is certainly counting on that army to come through for him in November. The two-term member of Congress vying for a third is locked in a dead heat with Democrat Cait Conley in the battleground 17th Congressional District, which includes all of Putnam and Rockland counties and parts of Dutchess and Westchester counties. With a new Emerson College Polling/PIX11 News poll released Oct. 1 showing Conley leading Lawler 48%-46% and 7% undecided, the race is among the most closely watched toss-ups in the country, one of a handful that will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the rest of President Donald Trump’s second term. Super PACs – including one funded by Elon Musk backing Lawler – are pouring in money on both sides. Home to many veterans and first responders and one of the largest Jewish populations of any congressional district in the country, the 17th District is famous for being politically fickle. Despite having about 78,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, the district went for then-Vice President Kamala Harris 49.9%-49.3% over Trump in 2024. Joe Biden won the same district lines by 10 points in 2020.

Incumbency is always an advantage, but this time, a multitude of factors are giving Democratic candidates momentum – especially with independents. Economic concerns remain at the forefront of voters’ minds, Trump’s favorability is dwindling, gas prices continue to surge because of the unpopular war in Iran and the U.S. has stayed divided over how to fix its broken immigration system. That climate naturally gives Conley, a U.S. Army veteran who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and the former director of counterterrorism for the National Security Council under Biden, an additional edge.

Still, this race is moreso Lawler’s to lose than it is Conley’s to win.

Rep. Mike Lawler visited the Stony Point Family Diner in September. Credit: Kate Lisa / City & State New York

As the political momentum in the upcoming midterms appears to be swinging left, Lawler is banking on his self-determining nature and tenacity to keep Conley at bay and hang on to the seat. But Conley is not the only thing standing in his way: There’s also the unpopular president. And Lawler has to balance how to have a healthy relationship with Trump while countering Democrats’ characterization that he’s in the president’s pocket. If he manages to show that his rapport with the president is an asset, Lawler could undercut Conley’s core argument.

Hometown hero

During Lawler’s stop at Kyriacou’s diner in September, a group of college-aged men came in for lunch. They quickly asked Lawler for a photo, eyes wide as if they’d seen a celebrity. Stony Point Supervisor Amy Stamm said that’s not unusual. When the lawmaker visited the town carnival this summer, she said, young children and senior citizens alike crowded around him asking for a picture.

Indeed, New Yorkers in politics have known Lawler, the Suffern-born lawmaker raised in an Italian-Irish Catholic household, for almost 20 years – ever since he was an intern with the state Republican Party who drove around Chair Ed Cox. His family has been in Rockland County for more than a century. And if he doesn’t know your name, chances are, he remembers your father, or his grandfather or uncle worked with yours. His local ties have long been a strength, and this year’s election shouldn’t be an exception.

For Lawler, speaking his mind has always come naturally; as he told City & State in 2023, “From the time I was born and started being able to speak, I have never shut up.” And it’s worked for him.

“Mike was one of those guys at 20 that, when he spoke, everybody listened,” said William F. B. O’Reilly, a conservative strategist who worked on Lawler’s first congressional campaign.

And since, from a stint running former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign to serving in the Assembly and Washington, D.C., Lawler has built a strong wall of support by cementing himself as a nuanced politician who’s unabashedly himself.

One former party leader granted anonymity to speak freely put it this way: “What does it take for a Republican to win in NY-17? You need to be Mike Lawler. There’s no other Republican in NY-17 that could win other than Mike Lawler, and that’s a fact I’ll take to my death bed.”

It’s therefore no accident Lawler has continuously noted Conley is not from the district. It’s what he says he tells undecided voters is the biggest difference between the two of them.

“She owns property in North Carolina and Virginia – she does not own property in New York,” Lawler told City & State during an hour-long interview. “So if you really are committed to this district, why didn’t you sell your home and invest in this community?” (Though Conley was born in the Hudson Valley – albeit outside the district – she only returned to the area from Virginia last year, and she’s quick to point out she spent the bulk of her time away in the Middle East.)

Lawler’s district is a toss-up every election, but with some souring on Trump’s handling of the economy, Democrats see a path to victory, and they’re hoping Conley is the answer.

Trouble in paradise

As much as Lawler has touted last year’s victory in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with the increased state and local tax deduction – which allows 90% of 17th Congressional District residents to deduct the property and income taxes they pay to state and local governments from their federal tax returns – the spending bill’s cuts to Medicaid stands to hit parts of his district hard. The Center for American Progress has estimated the district would lose $2 billion for healthcare, and the Joint Economic Committee Minority estimates the bill would cause more than 32,000 17th District residents to lose their health insurance. And with higher food, utility and gas prices strapping families, independents and undecided voters are beginning to doubt the Republicans can fix it if they keep the House majority.

“Most people in the middle feel like this isn’t what they were promised,” Putnam County Democratic Committee Chair Jennifer Colamonico said. “He’s crafty and he’s a brilliant communicator, but there’s a sense that his days are numbered … that he’s overplaying his hand.”

The Parkside Group Vice President Alex Elmasri agreed. “(Voters are) going to look at the affordability crisis and ultimately say, ‘Am I going to give Lawler another chance to fix this?’” he said. “Or will they say, ‘His time’s up, we need new energy and new blood?’”

Cortlandt Manor resident Ron Zajick is in the latter camp. He and his wife Susan were among the hundreds who attended the Tarrytown rally for Conley featuring fellow veteran and former U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, where the air was dense with anger. A Republican, Zajick said he regrets voting for Trump three times and Lawler twice. He began thinking differently about the GOP after this year’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-involved fatalities in Minneapolis. And the couple – who has two daughters on Medicaid, one of whom has special needs – is angry Lawler voted for the cuts. “He’s a liar – he’s a Trump clone,” Zajick said.

And even as Lawler is well-known locally, he and his staff have been the subject of a few negative headlines over the past term. Lawler held numerous raucous town halls throughout the district last year, and received even more pushback when constituents were removed from them. His Deputy District Director Erin Crowley, a Putnam County legislator, allegedly threatened to use top White House official Dan Scavino to pressure Putnam County Sheriff Brian Hess to reinstate her husband as his deputy. Three sources familiar with the situation told City & State that Lawler staffers berated Orthodox Jewish constituents who made irate social media posts about Lawler, pledging not to vote for him after walking miles to attend the Trump-Lawler rally in May, only to be denied entry (Lawler said he had no knowledge of any alleged staff actions). The lawmaker also took heat for defending Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who was accused of domestic violence, and refused to return a $10,000 campaign donation from Miller's PAC.

Conley is looking to seize the moment.

“He is not an effective legislator, he is an effective con artist,” she told City & State. “Lawler’s legacy is going to be that he got paid while we got screwed.”

Conley has never been a legislator herself, but has three Bronze Stars after six tours overseas. Her cybersecurity and foreign policy chops could carry a lot of weight in a district with a significant number of veterans and first responders.

“We don’t need more political operatives and lobbyists,” Conley said, giving a nod to Lawler’s background lobbying for a group aligned with utility companies. “Mike Lawler and the politicians who got this country in this mess we are in are not going to be the ones who get us out of it and make sure our best days are still ahead of us.”

But just like a successful marriage, a strong representative of a battleground district has to be good at the dance. And Lawler’s got moves. Party leaders and Lawler’s past Albany colleagues describe him as driven, smart and a master of political strategy. One former Albany colleague said Lawler has a natural grasp of polling and data envied by longtime lawmakers. “He’s a political animal,” they said.

The Trump card

As she offers voters a chance to reject the status quo, Conley won’t let them forget Lawler and Trump have a largely solid relationship.

That partnership is a frequent theme in Conley’s campaign ads. Buttigieg gave it a nod during the Sept. 16 rally. “I know that a lot of people believed the president when he said he was going to drain the swamp,” he said. “So how’s that going?”

Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied with Democrat Cait Conley in Tarrytown on Sept. 16. Credit: Kate Lisa / City & State New York

Conley routinely calls out Lawler for “voting with Trump 100% of the time” – citing a VoteHub tool statistic showing how frequently members of Congress voted with the president in 2025. But that analysis doesn’t include every piece of legislation. Lawler voted in support of Trump’s agenda on 94% of recorded votes in 2025, according to an analysis by CQ Vote Watch, while VoteView determined Lawler’s party alignment score rose from 81% for 2023-2024 to 92% since 2025.

Conley argues Lawler’s repeated backing of the Iran war and the president’s controversial tariffs, which have increased costs for consumers, shows he’s fighting for special corporate interests and Trump – not Hudson Valley families.

But Conley and her opponents in the Democratic primary this spring were advised not to solely campaign on anti-Trump rhetoric. Even so, bucking the president and his agenda remain a central focus of Conley’s message as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spends big on the race with TV ads.

That plays right into Lawler’s strategy. As the Conley campaign attempts to paint him as Trump’s guy in New York, Lawler has been able to toe the line, rejecting that idea while instead marketing himself as one of the few Republicans who can go head-to-head with the party leader when necessary.

Lawler started his recent speech at the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention by making it clear that he and Trump do not agree on everything, and referred to his “very public fight” with the president over SALT. But then he pivoted to note his successful negotiating with Trump on the issue, throwing in his own impression of the president. And the impression – which Lawler has done before and, frankly, is a good one – is not only funny and disarming, and until recently, was not something many Republicans had the guts to do. But it works for him.

In other words: Lawler has been able to both distance himself from the president and show he can be a foil to Trump when needed, all while deploying his sense of humor in the process. And as long as Conley continues to hammer him for his alliance with Trump, Lawler will be able to keep making this argument.

Rep. Mike Lawler has had to walk a fine line this election season when it comes to his relationship with President Donald Trump. Credit: Roberto Schmidt / Getty Images

That’s not to say Conley is the only one demonizing a divisive political figure to score points. Lawler also invokes New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, when talking about the threat coming from the left. “I’m the only thing standing in the way of Zohran Mandani to Kathy Hochul and everything in between,” he said. “My ability is not just obviously to deal with federal issues, but also to push back on state issues and give a voice to folks in the center, and conservative Democrats and Republicans – I think that matters.”

But an indifferent Lawler also said he’s “probably” called Conley a socialist before – suggesting he knows the strategy won’t work particularly well with a moderate Democrat like her. And only about a week later, did Conley tell PIX11 she declined Mamdani’s help in her tight race. Still, that didn’t stop him from pushing her to denounce Mamdani during News12’s Sept. 28 debate (which she dodged each time).

Center stage

Cait Conley isn’t exactly who Mike Lawler pictured himself standing on a debate stage with a year ago. Hochul is more who he had in mind, as he had aspirations of running for governor and polled competitively against her.

But on Sept. 28, there Lawler was, debating Conley in News12’s Nyack studio. And its tenor was emblematic of how the race has been so far: ugly.

No matter the topic, Conley and Lawler came back to their chief attacks on each other. On the rare occasions when Conley didn’t revert back to saying Lawler “voted with Trump 100% of the time,” (often followed by a smiling, dismissive Lawler saying, “You keep saying that” and a collapse into heated back-and-forth) the incumbent clung to painting Conley as a carpetbagger, which also led to uncontained bickering.

If the debate showed anything – as the next one on Oct. 14 likely will too – it’s that Conley does agree with Trump on something: Lawler’s a persistent pain in the ass. And maybe voters have had enough of it, but even if Conley wins, and even if Lawler opts after that not to run for the House again – he told City & State he wouldn’t – it likely won’t be the last we see of him: Lawler said he’s open to launching a bid for governor in a different political climate.

But those both remain hypothetical for now, at least, as long as both Lawler and Conley stick to their scripts. And if they do, we’re in for a long four weeks.

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Velázquez, not Bichotte Hermelyn, leads BK Dems, judge rules

Jeff Coltin and Sahalie Donaldson — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 17:59:24 -0400

Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn's tenure as leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party has drawn to a close, according to a Supreme Court judge.

And that could clear the way for Julio Peña III, the leader of the reform faction, to take over the party.

In a new order issued Friday evening, Supreme Court judge Lisa Lewis ruled that Bichotte Hermelyn’s term as chair of the Brooklyn Dems’ executive committee ended last week at the conclusion of a raucous organizational meeting on Sept. 23. And as the party’s leadership vote was delayed under a separate court ruling on Tuesday, Rep. Nydia Velázquez, an ally of the reformers, is the party’s reigning authority in the interim.

Velázquez was elevated to chair of the county committee at last week’s organizational meeting after party leadership neglected to put their own candidate on the ballot. While Bichotte Hermelyn and allies are likely to appeal the ruling, the mistake appears increasingly costly.

Velázquez tested her newfound power Wednesday by firing Bichotte Hermelyn’s lawyers with the firm Abrams Fensterman. And Lewis ruled today that Velázquez did so legally.

“The court determines that Respondent Velázquez, as the sole officer presently vested with party-wide executive authority, is empowered to act on behalf of both the new County Committee and the Executive Committee, including retaining counsel to represent their interests,” Lewis wrote.

Mark Hanna, a district leader and lawyer representing reformers, contends that the ruling means Velázquez could call the meeting to vote for a new party leader as soon as Monday. After an appellate panel confirmed a lower court’s decision to toss out the controversial rules changes pushed by Bichotte Hermelyn, reformers appear to have a majority on the executive committee again. Hanna said Peña has the support of 26 of the 42 district leaders.

“When Rep. Velázquez calls our executive organizational meeting, a new day for the party will begin and we can get to work for the November elections,” Peña said.

Bichotte Hermelyn declined to comment.

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