I’ve been on DKos for years, actively reading (and contributing), and occasionally commenting but I think that this is the first time I’ve ever felt that I needed to write my own diary. I’m very frustrated by the coverage of the mini-“Red Wave” in New York and I think that a lot of the coverage is missing what I think were some critical issues that drove the results around here. I’m not addressing the situation on Long Island – just the results in NY-17, 18, and 19 (in particular, the 19th).
I’m not a political professional, so don’t have any insights from that angle. Just a politically engaged regular person, who lives here, and have some observations about what things looked like around here. I’m in the part of Ulster County that’s in NY-19, but just on the border of NY-18. (I have to cross into NY-18 to go to the grocery store.) NY-19 is a rural/small town district. I’m sorry, CNN, but this is not the suburbs; the southeastern corner of the district is nearly 100 miles from Manhattan and the western part of the district is more than a 4 hour drive from the City. Yes, the three districts have similarities, but you can’t paint them with the same brush. In particular, at least parts of the 17th truly are suburban/exurban.
Redistricting created an enormous amount of confusion around here. The district boundaries were redrawn by the courts at the last minute. We live in the small portion of the 19th that is in both the old and new formulation of the district. The old district was a Hudson Valley-focused district; the new map throws the district lines 100 miles to the west, covering the eastern Finger Lakes and Western Catskills. Until recently, the 19th was represented by the exceptional (now Lieutenant Governor) Antonio Delgado. Pat Ryan won the August special election to fill the remainder of the term after Delgado moved to Albany. Ryan is well-known, and popular, around here, but doesn’t live in the new iteration of the 19th, so he ran for reelection in the 18th, making the 19th an open district. In canvassing, I found that there were a lot of people confused about this, understanding that they were still in the 19th district but not understanding that they couldn’t vote for their incumbent congressman. This is, perhaps, a hyper-local concern since the portion of the new 19th that was in the old 19th is pretty small, but I do think the confusion may have affected turnout around here, and this is one of the bluest portions of the district.
So, as a result of redistricting, NY-19 was an open seat. It’s a truly purple district – it’s rated as an R+1 district that Biden would have won by 2 points. Team Blue had an exceptional nominee – Josh Riley, a lawyer from Ithaca with an impressive resume and an even more impressive ability to connect with voters and address the issues that really matter to them. But he was an unknown. While he did everything he could to introduce himself to voters, the district was absolutely overwhelmed with misleading, negative ads, virtually all focused on crime. Crime is a real concern in New York City, but it really doesn’t seem to be a big issue up here. However, the Congressional Leadership Fund and the NRCC spent millions on ads up here hammering him on the cashless bail issue, including an infamous ad featuring a clip of Riley saying that people needed “help, not handcuffs.” The clip was from an interview about people having mental health crises, but was edited to make it look like he was saying that about violent criminals. It might have been easy to dismiss the ads (is cashless bail really an issue for Congress?), but they truly were incessant – I’d watch television for an hour and would probably see these ads at least half a dozen times, and this went on for weeks on end. The ads seemed to be largely unanswered. I haven’t done a formal study, but it felt like we were seeing 20 anti-Riley ads for every 1 pro-Riley ad. With a candidate who was largely unknown, I think this was critical in turning persuadable voters.
It looks to me like the situation in NY-17 was somewhat similar – the anti-Maloney ads were also running incessantly, and also 99% crime focused. I know that there are other issues at play in the 17th – Maloney is well known there, and isn’t universally loved, and the district certainly is partially suburban. But the crime-focused ads against him also were incessant, and tended to drown out the pro-Maloney ads; although Maloney seems to have run a fair number of ads, it seems like they were outnumbered by the NRCC/CLF ads maybe 4-1. Interestingly, I don’t recall seeing very many, if any, ads against Pat Ryan, the NY-18 nominee, and the only candidate of the three who managed to squeak through.
I don’t pretend to have any great insights here, but hope that these observations from the ground from a regular person are helpful to someone, especially as we try to take back the 17th and 19th in 2024.
Finally, if anyone from the Ryan and Riley camps is reading this – Congressman Ryan, it has been a privilege being your constituent for the last three months and I look forward to watching your career in Washington continue. Josh, I hope we see you again in ’24. You’d be a great representative for this district and I think folks will understand this if they have a chance to get to know you better.