NYS Dem. Chair Jay Jacobs Issues Comprehensive Report: More Republicans turned out, Crime the Key Issue
“the election in New York was not about extremism on the left or the right, about abortion or about Kathy Hochul,” said Issac Goldberg, a democratic political strategist on the losing side of several marquee races. “The election in New York was about crime.”
By Dan Murphy
NYS Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs recently released a detailed analysis of the 2022 elections in a comprehensive report given out to democrats across the state. “This report will be as fact based as possible and attempt to answer the question why did New York comparatively underperform democratic results in other states?” writes Jacobs.
Independent and swing voters:
Hochul got 3.14 million votes
Zeldin got 2.76M
Assuming 90% of the combined Democratic and WFP 2018 voters voted for Hochul, that would account for 2.6m of her 3.14m votes cast. Assuming 5% of Republicans voted for Hochul, adds about 90,000 more votes. That means our ticket received only about 472,000 or 40% of Unaffiliated votes cast.
Party turnout: Dem-47.6%–Rep–62.8%
Money spent: Dem-$40M-Rep-$35.7M. In 2018, Cuomo outraised and outspent his opponent, Marc Molinaro 10-1.
In raw vote, Kathy Hochul outperformed Andrew Cuomo in 2010 and 2014. Hochul did better than Cuomo in upstate NY–44.9% to 43.1%. But increased republican turnout and the lack of a third party candidate, allowed Zeldin to outperform Molinaro (2018 GOP Gov. candidate) by 9%. Upstate turnout was up by 2.5%.
Four Key Congressional Loses for NY Dems:
District 3-R-George Santos-52.4%- D-Zimmerman-44.5%
District 4-D-Gillen-47%, R-Esposito-50.5%
District 17-R-Lawler-49.27%-D-Maloney-48.66%
District 19-R-Molinaro-50.22%-Riley-D-48.08%
What happened? In a nutshell, this year’s election was due largely to robust turnout by the republicans. Overall turnout was 48.2%. Party turnout: Dem-47.6%–Rep–62.8%-15.6% more than Dems.
Unaffiliated voter turnout was anemic 37%.
In the most highly competitive congressional races, all four defeated candidates brought out democratic vote that exceeded the overall state voter turnout. But republicans had a substantially higher voter turnout and a larger share of unaffiliated voters.
Note: in reviewing 10 state senate races, with 3 democratic loses, and 7 wins, interestingly, districts represented by more progressive incumbents underperformed districts represented by more moderate incumbents and candidates.
Included in these state senate races from Westchester, State Senator and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins received 56,190 votes, out of 50,043 registered democratic votes, and 51% democratic turnout.
Five Key Factors Influencing the Republican Congressional Wins:
1-Redistricting-especially in NY-17 where Maloney suffered from “suppressed enthusiasm.”
II-All four democratic congressional candidates had “vigorous” democratic primaries, that drained their resources.
III-Republicans were laser focused on crime. “Crime was THE issue in this election in New York.”
IV-The New York City media market had an outsized impact on the vote. This “might have cost democrats the house,” wrote NY Magazine, with the perception about crime, fueled primarily by the NY Post, a contributing factor.
V-Zeldin’s False Narrative About Bail Reform: “Cashless Bail” was the feature attack in virtually every republican campaign. Like it or not, the UNTRUE narrative that bail reform was a major cause (if not the cause) of the increase in crime, was accepted as fact by many suburban voters.
The New York Times, Nov. 27, “Elections move dramatically when they become about a singular topic, and the election in New York was not about extremism on the left or the right, about abortion or about Kathy Hochul,” said Issac Goldberg, a democratic political strategist on the losing side of several marquee races. “The election in New York was about crime.”
New York was one of the only states where republicans, though unfairly, could point to a specific action taken, by democrats (cashless bail) as the reason for the spike in crime. Unfair and untrue as it may be, in New York, republicans were able to sucessfully weaponize Bail Reform to a degree unmatched elsewhere.
Within hours of the election, there was vocal criticism claiming that the loss of 4 congressional seats was due to the state party having dropped the ball by not doing enough-or even anything- to bring out the vote.
Note: Some comments claimed that the Working Families Party filled the void, and stepped in when the democratic party was ‘nowhere to be found.'”
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, told the Intercept on 11/10/22 “I mean if you look at where the votes are coming from, it is this seat or organizing that really helped contribute very strongly to a Kathy Hochul victory. Queens turnout was up very high relative to a lot of other communities and areas.”
FACT CHECK: Queens democratic vote turnout of 37.9% was the second lowest in the state. In AOC’s district, only 34% of democrats voted in this election.
Suffice it to say that the facts and data do not support those comments.
The NYSDC spent a total of $6 Million in field investment, including 37 field organizers, 6,000 volunteers, spent $3.2M to knock on 350,000 doors, a $1.5M investment on absentee ballot recruitment, which resulted in 202,000 democrats voting by absentee, 5.4M text messages, 565,000 robocalls from President Obama.
The way too early claims that the state party “had no ground game” or “did nothing” to help bring out the vote was patently false.
