June 2, 2025 • 42 mins
In Episode 31 of "A Numbers Game," Ryan examines the political landscape of New York City and New Jersey, focusing on the upcoming elections and the Democratic primary for NYC's mayoral race. Veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf joins to discuss key figures like former Governor Andrew Cuomo and challenger Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. They explore the implications of ranked-choice voting, shifting voter demographics, and the evolving political affiliations in NYC.
Ryan also speaks with Councilwoman Joann Ariola about the Republican Party's focus on issues like the migrant crisis, crime, and community outreach to diverse populations. Ariola emphasizes the importance of engaging with Hispanic, Asian, and African American communities, highlighting their shared values with Republican ideals. The discussion also touches on the impact of Democratic policies on working-class voters and the potential for increased Republican representation in the future. It's a Numbers Game is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Gurdusky, Episode
thirty one. Thank you all for being here yet again.
It is June, summer is officially here. Half the year
is over, which is insane to me. Didn't feel like
it's been six months, but we are getting there, and
it's been a busy week. There were a lot of
conferences going on. There was a Bitcoin conference over in
(00:24):
Vegas that the vice president spoke at. I had a
few friends there. My buddy Mike Cernovich was kind of
freaking out on Twitter about the future of AI poses
to jobs and humanity, and I want to actually get
them on the podcast to talk about what he heard
and what I want to do a whole AI episode.
I think that that would be interesting. If you're interested
in the AI episode, let me know in my email,
Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com. I think there's a
(00:47):
lot of data that that people really would be questioning
because you hear a lot of back and forth whether
it's the end of the world or it's really overhyped.
And then there was also c PAC Hungary over in Buddapest.
Have a lot of friends that went there. My buddy
Jack Pisobek had a great speech on patriotism. It was
on his Twitter account. I really really enjoyed that. I
don't go to Seapack anymore. Though I won't go there anymore,
(01:08):
I don't I have a problem with the leadership currently
under match Lap. I don't think that he's the right
person run the organization, and he seems that it's not
always using it for the best purposes. And there are
so many stories now at this point, and so many
accusations of him allegedly forcing himself on men that I
don't feel comfortable supporting that kind of organization so long
(01:31):
as he's there. And there was a story there was
an allegation as recently as February that I think Conservation
know about before they back an institution supported by him.
There's been a lot of things that go on. There's
been a lot of stories of people who work there
that I've heard about him not being allowed in the
same room as certain staffers, and I think that it's
(01:53):
it's it's a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I don't I won't participate in any Seapack things that
will go in the future. I used to go all
the time, though I used to love seap was great fun,
I saw a Congressman Warren Davidson posting a picture he
took with match Lap and Congressman Abe Hamaday, and I
really wanted to tweet and be like, what happened? You
walk into a closet and hang up your code and
you found the two of them in there, allegedly allegedly Anyway,
(02:17):
that was what happened this week. But going to June,
two big things are happening. Two big elections are happening.
They are the primaries for the New Jersey governor's race
and the New York City Mayor's election. Now, I spent
a whole episode in Jersey, and I'm going to have another
episode in Jersey'm gonna circle back to it, but I
want to focus on my hometown of New York City.
(02:39):
I know there's a lot of people who might think,
you know, it's too hyper local, but it is the
largest city in America, and the mayor of New York
City plays a big part in our national conversation. When
Giuliani was mayor and worked to Clinton New York, it
affected the entire country and how a tackle crime. And
Bill Clinton took credit for all that. But then there
was also who we were as Americans. After Night eleven
(03:00):
in New York there was Bloomberg, for all of his faults,
was a representation of really good bipartisan governance, and he
continued a lot of Giuliani's ideas on especially on crime.
And then we got Bill de Blasio and the Progressive
Caucus and it was the end of good governance for
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
That's just how I.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Think New York has been reflective of this nation as
a whole where we are politically. And after four years
of Eric Adams time in leadership, because he's left the
party to run as an independent, after all of the
thing's been going on with him, we have an opening
in the Democratic primary. Now there'll be two high profile
independents on the ticket this number, there'll be current Mayor
Eric Adams running as an independent and former Assistant US
(03:44):
Attorney Jim Walden, who is formerly a registered Democrat as well.
New York City being so heavily Democrat means that it's
likely a Democrat will win the mayoral election after this primary.
There are eleven people running in a ranked choice voting system.
This is where voters get a chance to vote for
who they want first, second, third, fourth, you know, et cetera.
(04:05):
Some numbers go up, some numbers go down. It's such
a stupid system that we've adopted, but that's what we have.
The one of the leading contenders for the nomination, of course,
is former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had to
resign in disgrace in twenty twenty one after a decade
in office.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well he'll be back, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
He's back again, back from the political dead, and he
has a tremendous lead. Early on this election, he had
a giant lead, and it's been getting slimmer and slimmer
and slummer. His primary challenger is a little known assemblyman
known as Zoran Mendani. He's an Indian immigrant from Uganda
who is running as an open socialist. He's campaigning on
(04:44):
freezing rend costs, increasing the minimum wage to thirty dollars
an hour, free daycare for children, and of course raising
taxes on the wealthy. Got as sneak that in everywhere.
And he also wants to take over all the grocery
stores in New York City and have them govern run
because it worked out really great in Venezuela assemblymentmen. That
(05:05):
was a joke by the way, but assemblement. Mandani has
been polling in a distant second, but has been inching up,
and in the last Emerson poll, in the last round
of the rank choice voting, Cuomo has only an eight
point lead in the last round. That's not I mean,
it was significantly double digits. So eight points is nice,
(05:26):
but it's not where it was where it should be.
Cuomo has the backing of a lot of Latino and
black voters in the city, while white voters are split
sixty forty in favor of the Democratic Socialists. This is,
of course according to the Emerson Pole. Remember a lot
of white voters in New York outside of Manhattan and
the areas on the edging on the deep part of
(05:47):
like the Borough out of boroughs Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island,
in the Bronx, they are Republicans. So the ones who
are left over are very progressive, especially in Manhattan. Manhattan
acts almost as a sponge progressives all around the country
who come to move there. Mandani also has a lot
of support among young voters under the age of fifty,
(06:07):
while Cuomo is dominating against older voters and the institutional
organizations for Democrats like unions now that doesn't mean that
Republicans have nothing to gain in this election. They could
shock everyone to have an upset victory. New York State
has something called a Wilson Bakula. It allows smaller third
parties to co endorse candidates from major parties, So the
(06:28):
Republican candidate oftentimes will also be endorsed by the Conservative
Party and the Democratic canty will have the backing of
the Working Families Party, but not always. New York City
also has a law that allows politicians to make up
their own parties if they get enough signatures. So Michael
Bloomberg used to run under the Jobs and Education Party.
It was a completely made up party that he ran
(06:49):
under and got a lot of votes under. It's for
people who are uncomfortable voting for Mitslayer or Republican, but
they want to back the Republican candidate.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
This year, Andrew Cuomo has created his own parties called
the Fight and Deliver Party, and it will be on
the ballot in November. Likewise, Progressive the Progressive Working Family
Party announced that it will not be endorsing Cuomo and
could put up Mendanni as a nominee in the general
election or another progressive candidate. All told, this means there
(07:18):
could be four Democrat leaning candidates Adams, Wald, Mandannie and
Cuomo all running in the general election against a single
Republican Curtis Lee, while the founder of the crime prevention
nonprofit of the Guardian Angels also up is all fifty
one New York City Council seats is up for grab.
(07:38):
Pilkins will be defending six seats Democrats have forty five.
Most people don't realize, but New York City has moved
substantially to the right under Trump. In twenty sixteen, Trump
won twenty two point six percent of the vote in
New York City compared to Hillary Clinton's seventy eight point
four percent, losing the city by a total of about
fifty six percent. He only won four New York City
(08:02):
Council seats, including the ultra orthodox Jewish sheet in Brooklyn,
which votes for Democrats locally. By twenty twenty four, however,
his number grow to thirty percent of the vote in
New York City to Harris Is sixty eight percent, reducing
the Democrat margin from fifty six to thirty eight over
twelve years, and the number of council seats he won
(08:22):
went from four to eight. They doubled it. That's a
lot of gain in a deep blue city with no institutional,
real Republican party with a lot of money. Republicans are
hoping to cut into democrats supermajority in the City Council
and create a real presence, shaving away at the Progressive caucus.
And they are also hoping that a divided Democratic field
(08:43):
with four Democratic leaning candidates and only one Republican can
create a dramatic result where somehow Curtis Lee will wins.
This week, we have two guests on the show, one Democrat,
one Republican to talk about what's at stake, what are
likely outcomes, and what this month's primary holds.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Our first guest in today's episode is Hank Shankoff. He
is a veteran Democratic consultant. He's worked on over seven
hundred campaigns, including President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Hank,
thank you for being on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Thank you for having me on today. I'm very grateful
that you called me and asked me to be here.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So, Hank, you are an expert in a lot of
things with democratic primaries, especially in New York City, former
governor Andrew Cuomo has had a very big lead, and
there's been this one poll, especially by Emerson, showing something
be MENMANI I'm really climbing in the polls. Is there
any realistic chance that there could be an upset where
Cuomo loses?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Six months ago, a well known idiot predicted that Mandammie
would be the one to watch. I was the idiot,
and people said to me, aren't you an idiot? And
I've been saying it ever since. He's the one to
watch for a whole host of reasons. If you look
at the cross tabs of these polls, what you see
is that Mandamie is doing very well with younger, better educated,
(09:59):
more professional, and more rich people young people in those quadrants.
Cuomo is doing better with poorer people, who are more
minority people, people are less educated. The ballot is complicated
because of ranked choice voting, regardless of what the people
came up with ranked choice voting might say. And you know, again,
better educated people will be able to manipulate it more significantly.
(10:20):
What I find fascinating is that this generation of people
who have eaten more regularly had more housing over their
head than anyone else in history, have more opportunity than
anybody else's had in history, and they're better educated than
anybody else in history. Have decided that they should be
aligning themselves with someone who has been very public about
his attitudes about the Middle East, particularly Jews and housing
(10:42):
and bus fare and who's going to pay? Now? If
I were a munisipal worker and someone said to me,
you vote for Bondami, I would say, what are you
out of your minds? Because after you just finishes in
taxing everybody and chasing them out of the city, there'll
be no one here to pay the what do you
call it, the municipal union agreements?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Now, I just I think, and maybe I'm wrong. I
keep looking for what coalitions Cuomo could have, right. I
think that there are a lot of Italians who want
to remember his father, who want an Italian mayor.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I'm Italian.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I can say like there's a lot of ethnic pride
and in the tribe union members big time supporter as
long as furs, Blacks, Latinos, and I think what has
been under reported a lot of this polling is especially
Orthodox Jews, who don't answer polls at a high frequency.
They tend not to Is there anyone on missing that coalition,
(11:36):
maybe senior citizens.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Who else.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Let's look at the city's dynamics per second. It is demographics.
The wonderful thing about America is that it accepts everyone generally,
and it changes and it goes through extraordinary moments, which
is unique to American democracy. You know, we're not tribalistic
so much as we become tribalistic, but we're really unified.
And what's changing now is we're not as unified, becoming
more tribalistic. What does that mean because we don't share
(12:01):
common heritage. More than fifty percent of people living in
this country today can no longer trace their roots to Europe,
which is a pretty significant thing. New York is the
melting pot of the world. Guess what, we're experiencing the
same thing. So we have to begin to think about
who really cares about what and how do we communicate
with them? And the usual gang of consultants haven't figured
that out yet because it's not interesting to them. It
(12:23):
is very interesting to me. Were I running the Cuomo campaign,
the people I'd be talking to are frankly Koreans Chinese
who are much more conservative, who are becoming a quickly
the most significant portion of the Asian community in New
York City, and I guess they're about eighteen to twenty
percent now they're going to increase. If you look at
Brooklyn alone, where you have tremendous numbers, I mean you
(12:45):
go to Bensonhurst, We're twenty years ago Italians and Jews
ruled the roost. Today it is all the signs of
the stores are in Chinese. It's very simple. I would
be talking to Chinese, I'll be talking to Koreans, I'll
be talking to South Asians, the Richmond Hill people, people
who own property, who have vested interest insuring that those
properties do what they were supposed to do, which is
(13:05):
provide the income to put the children of those immigrants
through college, which Mondambi intends to make them possible. Why
smaller units throw away the taxes. Who's going to put
the money into those properties? Simple?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I think wants to control grocery stores, which for Latinos
who own a lot of bodegas, they kind of classify
as grocery stores in some capacity. I don't know how
we would classify that, but that would hurt their businesses
too immensely.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It would injure them significantly. I mean, I've done a
lot of work in Latino communities around them. I don't
like the word, but Spanish speaking derivative countries I call
them around the country, and I've worked overseas in Spanish
speaking countries. It's not a good idea for them. So
you know, I would be looking at this differently. I
would also be targeting Irish and Italian Catholics forty plus,
(13:54):
who are forty plus. I'd be looking at yeah, Koreans, Chinese,
South Asians forty plus, Italian, Italian and Irish Catholics. I'd
be looking at Jews very differently. I'd x out Manhattan
over the top. I wouldn't bother with Manhattan, but I'd
be looking at the outer boroughs. I'd be looking Jews,
(14:14):
particularly in Queens Okay, Keew Gardens Hills, that's central that
general area, whatever's left the Forest Hills. I'd be targeting
Jews there, the people from Central Asia who have really
taken over that the Forest Hills, Real Park area, and
the Russians are now gone. I think in most cases
from that to those communities, and I'd be looking at
(14:36):
Brooklyn differently. I'd be looking at let's see Marine Park,
the area around what they call Madison Park, which is
Madison High School, and the whole general areas Flatbush, Midwood.
People think about Jews in New York City, they think
about votes my hostadium or orthodized people like that. I
(14:58):
don't think the numbers are really there. If you look
at real voter turnout in Borough Park and or Williamsburg,
you just don't have what you used to have. Those
negments have.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Changed what I think you're describing and what is so
commonly happening now in.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
New York City.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
And I am not only a lifelong New York City resident,
I am in like sixth generation New Yorker. It's Manhattan
and the regions that touch Manhattan, Northern Staten Island, Northern Brooklyn, Astoria,
Long Island City, Queens, Southern Bronx that versus the rest
of the city.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I think that's entirely accurate. If you look at Long
Island City and you look at where ground zero is
for DSA candidates, it's Queens. You know, that's where the
action is and who is that? Those are people who
have gentrified or newcomers to those communities and high rises
that have been built. And again who have had the
they are the luckiest generation in the history of the world.
(15:58):
They've eaten more frequently. How's better, They've got better educational opportunities.
And their response to all this is to say, drop dead.
We all we demand more, and we like this night
because he's gonna make us feel better about demanding more
and screw everybody else. So that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It amazing one hundred percent. Sure, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And I grew up in a time where Long Island
City was a shanty Irish neighborhood and no one want
to be there at night, and now you can't afford
to live there for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And I think that what people miss about New York
State and New York City is New York State is
traditionally it's not a progressive state. It's an establishment Democrat state.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Well partially, but hold on, hold on this someven you're
missing and it's not for sure New York State. We
used when I used to look at state wide campaigns,
have been in successful state wide campaigns my whole career.
You're looking to say, okay, what are the percentages of
who the largest turnout number was Catholic, That started to shift.
Why because of the decline of religion as an organizing tool.
(16:57):
That is changing now with the new immigrants for Latin
from Spanish speaking countries who are filling up parishes that
were about to fall apart of clothes, who are also
hard working. Many of them are you know, take the
Laborer's Union people. They're Ecuadorians. They go to church, they
have their they have their own ways of praying which
are consistent with Catholic theology. But their participants and they
(17:20):
have a vested interest in the system. Those are the
people that the Cuomos and the others who are against
Mondomie need to start reaching so that the think about
this differently. Were in otherwords, we're not thinking about politics
the way we should. We're thinking about the politics the
way we think we should think about politics. And so
long as we do that, Madamie has a much better
shot well.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I think.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Also the thing is that someone asked me how was
he gaining traction? What I said is New York City
has become a sponge for the most far left people
living in other places. If you're a far left progressive
in Kentucky, you're not going to stay in Kentucky. You're
going to move to New York City and the working
class person, you're regardless of their race, but from any
(18:02):
of them. White working class have left the city and
they have moved into a lot of black working class
I love to see too. They have moved into those neighborhoods.
You go to certain parts of Brooklyn that were one
hundred percent black when I was growing up. It's maybe
a third white now. But they're not white, you know,
Irish working class. They are far left progressive activists who
(18:24):
have moved into those neighborhoods and have changed them.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Absolutely accurate. Who's leaving New York. The young people you're
talking about are not leaving New York. The people who
are older, who don't want to be here anymore and
who can't afford to live here or leaving New York.
Those are the people leaving. The trucks, the moving vans
are on the streets. They are leaving. Look if you're
a police officer, white, Black or Latino, and let's see
(18:48):
your husband, you're a police officer retiring and you're a
second grade detective. Your husband, who's a police department was
in a police department and was a patrol officer. You know,
police life not to promoted, and you're getting two pensions,
and your healthcare is taken care of into your sixty
six right, and you're going to wait for Social Security
(19:10):
and you're going to go to get another job. If
you sell your house that you bought for fifty thousand,
for three hundred thousand or wherever it is more, take
three hundred, five hundred and six hundred, you're going to
take the cash. You take your pension, you're going to
take your health insurance, You're going to leave. You move
to Florida. If you're black, you're going to move to Florida.
If you're white, you're going to move to Florida. If
you're a Latin, you're going to move to Florida. You're leaving.
(19:30):
Let's be real, who wants to stay here unless you
love the place, you believe that it's saveable and that
it is worth being here. Now, that's it.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
One thing we saw in the last election last president
struction was a tremendous growth for the support of Donald
Trump in New York City.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
He went from twenty one percent twenty sixteen to thirty
percent in twenty twenty four. That's a lot for a
Republican candidate primarily of both white working class voters the
ones who were left, and among ethnic minority specifically Asians
and Hispanic specifically in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn. What
in those communities, in the largest city in America, in
(20:09):
a city that has really no functioning Republican party as
it is known in other parts of the country, they
are organically moving towards Trump. Why is it that Democrats
are losing them without Republicans spending a lot of time, money,
and intention trying to get.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Important questions you're raising. If you look at South Brooklyn
for a second, you look at where the numbers are,
Trump did extraordinarily, Well, what is this about? We have
no functioning Republican Party in New York City, which is tragic.
I've always believed in two party systems, and I think
that it is for more. I have tremendous, always had
tremendous regard for the late Mike Long and certainly for
Jeriekasar's success in the Conservative Party. Whether I agree with
(20:50):
them or not, it doesn't matter the fact that they
have principle, they stand for something and prepared to work
for it is a pretty significant thing. So we don't
have Republican party because people decided we shouldn't have a
Republican party. And Trump, the Trump trumpiness has made that
more difficult in New York, where Trump's numbers are astronomically
bad now. But people are tired of a system that
(21:11):
they believe not to be representative of them, that is
not represented a blue collar people anymore, no matter what
their race is. And if you look at the numbers
that Trump had going back to twenty sixteen in the
South Bronx, you have to be fairly shocked by it. Right.
It is a resentment built upon reality, and the reality
is that they're not being serviced by that party. They
don't feel part of it, and they believe the elites
(21:32):
have taken it over. And whether Republicans are controlled by
elites or not they are doesn't matter. The rhetoric works,
and that's one of the reasons why republic By Democrats
are in so much trouble in this country. You know,
as a Clinton guy, right, I can tell you that
we're back in time. The party has lost its place
because they never it's not a party anymore. What it is.
It's a collection of clans very different way. You can't
(21:55):
have a political party when when there's no joining mechanism,
where people are clannish because their interests are very particularistic,
and where you have no enforcement tool. The president of
the Republican Party is the enforcement tool. The enforcement tool
among Democrats used to be labor unions, but they're not
as strong as they once were, and the strongest of them,
the teamsters, walked away from the Democrats, and you know,
(22:18):
made sure that May does their best to help Donald
Trump get elected, knowing that the basic part of their
population and membership were Frankly Trump.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Iyes Hank, going last question, if you were advising Governor
Cuomo from my Governor Cuotomo, what is his message in
the last three weeks to Democratic voters in New York City.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
I'll make you feel safe again, and I'll make you
feel wanted.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
That's great, that's right, Hank. Where can people go to
read more of your stuff and find out more about you.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I've never been really good at self promotion. I just
go out and do this. I have no idea. If
you said, you know I'm a blue collar product of
New York City, they got to do this work all
over the world. I have no idea how it happened.
There's a lot of stuff online. I just it amazes
me every day, and I think I'm the luckiest, most
fortunate me. And I would leave you with one thought,
though I'm not a fool. And what I believe is
(23:07):
that whatever I have been able to achieve in my
life from a high school drop out, you know that
free education, University City, University of New York. I would
never go one to school without New York. I would
never become Hangshikoff. And I urge everyone to remember not
my example, but the example of millions who came before
me and afterwards want the same opportunities. And they got
to figure out which of the people running from mayor
(23:29):
We'll make sure those dreams can come true.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I'm a product in New York City too, although I
went to Catholic school, but I New York nade me
into a person. So I love that city endlessly and
I completely relate to you.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I ended up going to politics.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And I also I'm a college dropout, not high school,
but college, so I went back.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I got lucky again. Cuning made it possible for me
when there was no tuition.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, I went to wait.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
You know, I worked. I was a condoman at the Carnegie,
in the stage and all those places, a union economyn
I mean, you know, I was a police officer. That's
fairly well known. I mean I had an extraordinarily interesting
life and through a satin of accidents, this occurred and
I haven't looked back. But again, this generation of people
have had it really good. Why they're in revolt is
the question that Democrats need to answer, because if the
(24:14):
two parties split, one going all the way to the
right and one going all the way to the left,
it tells you that there's something wrong in the country
because there's no place where all of us can meet anymore.
And that is really troubling to me.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
That's a great closer And Hank, New York makes the
most interesting people in the world, and you're one of them.
Thank you for being on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Thank you for having me on. I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Hey, we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
My other guest for this episode is Councilman Joeanne Ariola.
She is the minority leader of the Republican Party in
the New York City Council. She represents the area around
Howard Beach and Rockaway and Ozon Parks. She's a good
friend of mine. Councilman, Areola, thank you for being here.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Such a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
This is your podcast debut. So it's very exciting, it
really is.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Most people don't know this, but New York City has
been taking to the right. In the last couple elections.
In twenty nineteen, there were only six elected Republicans in
all of New York City and there are currently sixteen.
That's something that seems that getting ten seats in over
the course of the five years. Given what we have
with the elections this year, what are Republicans really focusing on.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
We're focusing on the migrant crisis, working collaboratively with ICE
to alleviate that crisis, Law and order crime, We're working
with the state representatives that are Republicans to address criminal justice, reform,
raise the age, and of course cash list fail because
(25:46):
these are all the things that put us where we
are today.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Well, we have the elections for the City Council and
the mayor. Is there any chance for Republicans to gain
in the City Council.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Yes, we definitely have areas where we can gain. I
think in Queens we can take Bob Holden seat which
will be vacated because he's term limited with Alicia Maconez.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
For those who don't know, that is in western Queens.
That's one of the red spots you always see in
a map of New York cities. It's traditionally ready he's
a conservative Democrat now retiring. So yes, that's one of
the areas.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
The other is in Brooklyn forty seven.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
We have Richard Barsimi and he's currently the chair of
the Republican Party and I think that he's now in
a hotly contested primary which I believe he will win,
and I think he will take it across the finish
line in November.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Well, I think that what people don't, I think realize
that everyone kind of has a characature of New York
and New Yorkers, But Republicans have had tremendous interests gains
rather with the Hispanic community, in the Asian community. And
this has been with Governor Lee Zelden's campaign, This has
been with Curtis Lee was first campaign. This is now
with Trump's campaign. You've seen this continue increase. How does
(27:01):
a party work to sit there and try to keep
those voters. How do we sit there and work to
have those conversations. You have a lot of South these
Asians in your own district and the Hispanics in your
district too. What are some things that Republicans in urban
areas should be doing to build those kinds of connections.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
What we've been doing in Queen's County is doing a
lot of outreach and we're doing a lot of offshoot
clubs South Asian Republican Clubs, Asian Republican Clubs, the Hispanic
Republican clubs, really inviting them into the main organization called
the Queen's County GOP. And the reason why we've seen
such a shift in these demographics is because they've just
had enough of democratic rule where they were losing their
(27:46):
specialized schools, their kids couldn't get to school safely, the
crime on the subways and the buses that children couldn't
take to go to school, or people couldn't go to work.
When you talk about the Asian community and the Hispanic community,
the Bangladeshi community, any community where you have one and
two income families that have a home and just want
(28:07):
to have their peace of Americana they're going to vote
Republican right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And this is I think what we're seeing a lot
in the Democratic primary for mayor, where you have a
Samil Mendani who is running on a very far left platform,
specifically something that he's really curated towards Manhattanites, people who
live in places like a story of people who live
in Williamsburg, high income, college educated people who would both
(28:36):
be negatively affected by his by his platform, but the
working class would be much more negatively affected by his platform.
I had I had on my last guest was a
Democratic consultant and Harry Schenkoff, and he sat there and
said that working class people feel like they are abandoned
by the elitism of the Democratic Party, and that's why
(28:56):
you're seeing these voters move towards Republicans. Is that a
conversation you've had with voters in your time as a
councilman and now as minority leader.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
I think that the people I've spoken to, the middle
class voters that I've spoken to, feel that the Democratic
Party has abandoned them, that that's not the party of
their father and grandfather and the reason why they registered
in the Democratic Party to begin with, a person like Mondambie.
What he wants to do is socialize an entire city
and that will just grow. He gets money from all
(29:27):
over the country's sorrows, money to help him complete the
mission of taking away our American freedoms and our.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Way of life. Just one of his initiatives, which is to.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Own or have government own all of the mom and
pop shops, is just install grocery stores. I mean, are
we now turning into a communist country? A communist These
people save their money, They came from other countries legally,
they saved their money, they went into business. That is
what they have. That's their piece of Americana. And you
(30:00):
want to just take that from them. No, we're not
ready for that. We're not ready for him. And I
don't believe that that there are enough DSA members to
take him over the finish line.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I don't care.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
How he pretends to be everything to all people. Donald
Trump woke up the voters and they are very aware
of who's running and what they stand for.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, well, DSAY is Democrats socials of America. And I
brought this up to Harry for a lot of and
a lot of ethnic neighborhoods and a lot of Chinese neighbors.
For example, you have Chinese curative food stores that are
just specifically heavily for the foods that they like. There's
a lot of bodegas that are owned by Latinos. I
believe bodegas would.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Fall under grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They sell enough produce I guess to be a grocery
store that would have devastating effects for Latinos and Asians
in our city. Not alone everybody else, but specifically small
business owners who own those types of stores.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Where about less government, not more government. We want people
to come here year, open up businesses and succeed, just
like my grandparents did when they came in from Italy.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
So this is what we want. We don't want to
take away their rights.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
What's next We'll have ticket books to say, oh, we
can buy bread today or we can buy eggs.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
The next day.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
This is just ridiculous. This is communism. It's it's not socialism.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
This is it. It's terrible, it's Marxism. I can go
on and on.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Right, Well, there's so, and I brought this to my listeners.
There is now in the democratic and the general election
for mayor, there is a situation where we're going to
have former attorney Attorney General assistant turn in General Walden,
You'll have Eric Adams running as both independents, and you
will have a Democrat. And if Andrew Cuomo, who is
(31:46):
still likely to win the primary if he is the
Democratic nominee, the Working Family Party has said they will
put up their own candidate. So there's a potential of
having four Democratic candidates for different Democratic leaning candidates versus
Curtis Leewaw in such an environment where the Democratic vote
could be split four different ways. Is there any chance
for Curtis to win the mayoral election, which everyone sees
(32:09):
is a very big long shot.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It isn't a long shot.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
It is very feasible why he got thirty three percent
or so in in his race head to head against
Eric Adams last time out. Now you named the institutional candidates,
We've just had an onslaught of independent candidates that filed
with the Board of Elections that we won't know how
(32:34):
many of them have been certified or not, so we
don't know how many are going into the general election.
That lessens the percentage needed. And I think that when
people look and see what the field of candidates are
and what they've done. When you have a proven record
that hasn't hasn't succeeded, like Andrew Pomo and like Eric Adams,
(32:56):
or the threat of becoming a communist city with Zoram
being our mayor, people are starting to look at at Curtis.
Curtis has been out there for over thirty years. His
message has not changed. He has not changed.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
He wants to set this city right.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
And the only way to really do it, whether you
believe in him or not, is the only way to
make change is to have change. And the only difference
of everyone who's on that list that's different is Curtis Leewa.
And if we want change, we're going to have to
make that change at the voting booth right.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And I mean I have I have seen Curtis Lee
well I don't know how many times, and just not
a Republican. It's just out and about he does. He does.
He is doing the old fashioned campaigning. When you look
at what so he ran for those listeners don't know
he ran in twenty twenty one, he got I think
twenty seven point five twenty eight percent. He did slightly
better than Nicole Mally talkers whos now is a congressman,
(33:52):
but she ran for mayor four years.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Prior to that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
They had very similar results. But it's very interesting Curtis
did substantially bet are in the Bronx Queens in Brooklyn
and worse in Manhattan and Queens especially which you represent from.
There is a real chance in Queens like there has
never been before my home home county, Donald Trump's home
county where you have a where you're seeing political realignment
(34:19):
happen in real time with the Asian community, with some
Southeast Asians looking into the future, which no one has
a crystal ball, but if these trends continue, is there
a chance that we could see a Queen's county one
day that has a Republican Congressman that has you know,
Republican the state senators and say some ofment again, you know,
is that a real possibility as we are progressing down
(34:42):
this path?
Speaker 5 (34:44):
It is an absolute possibility because even if you take
into consideration not just the Latinos and the Asians, if
you look at the African American community who have taken
flight from this city and moved to the Carolinas, Georgia
and any of state that they feel safer and you know,
I ran for Borough president in twenty twenty, as you know, Ryan,
(35:05):
and you know that. And I came into the race
late where we were out numbered eight to one in
registration Democrats to Republican and I was unsuccessful. However, I
was unsuccessful in a two to one. The ratio was
reduced to two to one. And where do those votes
come from? In the areas of the African American population,
where they're saying, we don't want less police, we want
(35:27):
more police. We don't want more guns on the street,
we want less guns on the street. We don't want
criminals on the street, we want them behind bars. They
have the very same ideology that we do, but they
never knew they had a chance. So now it's up
to the Republicans to make sure that we do enough
outreach to those demographics Asian, the African American, and the
(35:49):
South Asian and the Latino community so that they know
that we're here, they know.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
That we have candidates.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
People are leary to donate money to Republicans because they
don't think that that money is well spent. It is
well spent, and it would mean the difference between your
life changing for the better or worse.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Right and also be the difference of New York State.
There is no longer a blue Queen's county. There is
no longer a guarantee that the governorship or the Senate
seats remain blue either. I mean, the change is going
to come from New York City. It's not going to
come from upstate. Long Island has changed radically. That an
Island has changed radically, But New York City is really
where it's happening. It's happening, it's the change. The voter
(36:30):
shift is the reason that New York State moved eleven points.
The biggest right wing shift of any state in the
entire country is because of New York City. And I
don't think that's appreciated enough.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Becuns.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
One last question for you before you have to go,
what is the goal of the New York City Council
Republican Party? And you have a larger thing called the
Common Sense caugnis, which includes conservative Democrats. Two, when it
comes to working into legislation with a mayor, if you're
a minority, I think people don't appreciate how an effect
(37:00):
a minority can change the path that a city takes.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Path and depardon.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Right now, we're at eight in the Common Sense Caucus. Well,
actually we're seven because we had Kalman Jaeger went to
the Assembly. But we are considered a voting block now,
and we do have leverage when we speak with the
mayor's office, when we speak with the with the Speaker's office,
and we put our legislation forward, and if it's common
(37:27):
sense legislation, you'd be surprised how many members who are
historically progressive but found out that from the DSA, the
Democratic Socialists of America, that they were just not progressive enough.
So they've gone further towards moderation. And so they're now
signing onto our bills, they're signing onto our letters. They're
(37:51):
seeing out perspective and in kind, we're doing the same
with them. If it is a common sense letter or
a common sense legislation, we ie on and support it.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That's great, Well, counselmen, where can people go to find
more of your information about what you do about the
Republicans running for your I mean the Republicans the City
Council and supporting Republicans running in New York City.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
So of course it's all online. Campaign Finance has a
website for all of the candidates. In my particular case,
I'm on all forms of social media and I.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Have the address Counselman, So there are.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
So many, So it's counsel women, Joane Ariola, Joe and
Ariola for New York Council, New York City Council. And
then we have Twitter which is at Joe and Ariola
thirty two and Instagram which is at Joe and Ariola
thirty two. So you can get me that way, or
you can just call the office at seven eight three
eight one zero A three will help anybody.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
You know the National podcast, So I don't know if
they're calling, but thank you so much, Thank you so much, pleasure.
It was so great and let's see what happens later
on this month.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
It's always great to see you.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You're listening to It's a numbers game with Ryan Grodsky.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay, that was great and it was super interesting seeing
both sides of the parties that they're in talk. We'll
see what happens in New York in the month, but
I'm super excited with this. Now for the Ask Me
Anything segment, you could be part of the Ask Me
Anything segment if you email Ryan at numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's ryanat numbers Plural gamepodcast dot com. I'll take questions
(39:34):
on anything. I want to get back to Russell's questions
from last week, because he asked me a really important question.
I didn't have I think the best answer for it.
So he asked, Democrats have a smug elitist problem and
do Republicans' independence know how democrats think can see the world. Okay, First,
on the smug problem, I was able to find the
date on this. In twenty twenty four, you Go found
that thirty one percent of Americans so that Democrats were
(39:58):
out of touch in terms of their association with elitism.
The perception was highest among Republicans. Fifty three percent of
Republicans sat there and said that Democrats were smug and
elite among An NBC poll from twenty twenty five the
following year obviously said that thirty eight percent of adults
find that neither major political party fights for them, and
(40:19):
that Democrats especially were disconnected and more tied to elitism.
This was especially felt among young voters and even among progressives. So, yeah,
there is an elitism a problem on the Democratic Party,
and the polls are showing it. Now for the question
of do Republicans and independents know how Democrats feel, that's
a great question because there is something called a perception gap,
(40:41):
and you see this in a number of polls. In
twenty twenty one, Democrats have shifted to the left right,
there was a significant shift. There were fifty one percent
identify as liberal now and versus twenty five percent back
in nineteen ninety four. So there has been a shift
to the left. But is a misperception given how people
feel about certain topics, certain issues, right, okay, So on
(41:04):
the issues that Republicans usually the Democrats have a uniform
belief like a ninety nine ninety five percent in open
borders or universal healthcare or welfare, in reality it is
much much smaller among those who identify as very liberal
to support those.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's closer to twenty percent. So there is a misconception.
There is a misperception over individual issues. Now, they don't
consist synthactly the pull on all these issues. It's more
of an alignment of where they are as an ideology
based on very far left, very far progressive, and where
the party is. That's why you get these polls that
(41:41):
say do you support Trump's mass deportation, and something like
twenty percent or fifteen percent of Democrats will say yes.
When you take the word Trump out of the equation,
it bumps up to like thirty five percent. Because the
party is not as uniform as people think it is,
and that is that's also true of how Democrats think
of Republican simoquests think Republicans are much more to the
(42:02):
right than they actually are. That's a great question. Thank
you so much for asking it. I really appreciate these
kinds of questions, Russell and I hope to get your
questions soon on Thursday's episode. If you like this podcast,
please hit like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
wherever you get your podcasts. If you're feeling generous, please
give me a good review. I got a few more
on Apple. I notice them. I check these things out.
(42:25):
I really really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much.
We'll be back on Thursday.
Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Gurdusky, Episode
thirty one. Thank you all for being here yet again.
It is June, summer is officially here. Half the year
is over, which is insane to me. Didn't feel like
it's been six months, but we are getting there, and
it's been a busy week. There were a lot of
conferences going on. There was a Bitcoin conference over in
(00:24):
Vegas that the vice president spoke at. I had a
few friends there. My buddy Mike Cernovich was kind of
freaking out on Twitter about the future of AI poses
to jobs and humanity, and I want to actually get
them on the podcast to talk about what he heard
and what I want to do a whole AI episode.
I think that that would be interesting. If you're interested
in the AI episode, let me know in my email,
Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com. I think there's a
(00:47):
lot of data that that people really would be questioning
because you hear a lot of back and forth whether
it's the end of the world or it's really overhyped.
And then there was also c PAC Hungary over in Buddapest.
Have a lot of friends that went there. My buddy
Jack Pisobek had a great speech on patriotism. It was
on his Twitter account. I really really enjoyed that. I
don't go to Seapack anymore. Though I won't go there anymore,
(01:08):
I don't I have a problem with the leadership currently
under match Lap. I don't think that he's the right
person run the organization, and he seems that it's not
always using it for the best purposes. And there are
so many stories now at this point, and so many
accusations of him allegedly forcing himself on men that I
don't feel comfortable supporting that kind of organization so long
(01:31):
as he's there. And there was a story there was
an allegation as recently as February that I think Conservation
know about before they back an institution supported by him.
There's been a lot of things that go on. There's
been a lot of stories of people who work there
that I've heard about him not being allowed in the
same room as certain staffers, and I think that it's
(01:53):
it's it's a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I don't I won't participate in any Seapack things that
will go in the future. I used to go all
the time, though I used to love seap was great fun,
I saw a Congressman Warren Davidson posting a picture he
took with match Lap and Congressman Abe Hamaday, and I
really wanted to tweet and be like, what happened? You
walk into a closet and hang up your code and
you found the two of them in there, allegedly allegedly Anyway,
(02:17):
that was what happened this week. But going to June,
two big things are happening. Two big elections are happening.
They are the primaries for the New Jersey governor's race
and the New York City Mayor's election. Now, I spent
a whole episode in Jersey, and I'm going to have another
episode in Jersey'm gonna circle back to it, but I
want to focus on my hometown of New York City.
(02:39):
I know there's a lot of people who might think,
you know, it's too hyper local, but it is the
largest city in America, and the mayor of New York
City plays a big part in our national conversation. When
Giuliani was mayor and worked to Clinton New York, it
affected the entire country and how a tackle crime. And
Bill Clinton took credit for all that. But then there
was also who we were as Americans. After Night eleven
(03:00):
in New York there was Bloomberg, for all of his faults,
was a representation of really good bipartisan governance, and he
continued a lot of Giuliani's ideas on especially on crime.
And then we got Bill de Blasio and the Progressive
Caucus and it was the end of good governance for
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
That's just how I.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Think New York has been reflective of this nation as
a whole where we are politically. And after four years
of Eric Adams time in leadership, because he's left the
party to run as an independent, after all of the
thing's been going on with him, we have an opening
in the Democratic primary. Now there'll be two high profile
independents on the ticket this number, there'll be current Mayor
Eric Adams running as an independent and former Assistant US
(03:44):
Attorney Jim Walden, who is formerly a registered Democrat as well.
New York City being so heavily Democrat means that it's
likely a Democrat will win the mayoral election after this primary.
There are eleven people running in a ranked choice voting system.
This is where voters get a chance to vote for
who they want first, second, third, fourth, you know, et cetera.
(04:05):
Some numbers go up, some numbers go down. It's such
a stupid system that we've adopted, but that's what we have.
The one of the leading contenders for the nomination, of course,
is former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had to
resign in disgrace in twenty twenty one after a decade
in office.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Well he'll be back, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
He's back again, back from the political dead, and he
has a tremendous lead. Early on this election, he had
a giant lead, and it's been getting slimmer and slimmer
and slummer. His primary challenger is a little known assemblyman
known as Zoran Mendani. He's an Indian immigrant from Uganda
who is running as an open socialist. He's campaigning on
(04:44):
freezing rend costs, increasing the minimum wage to thirty dollars
an hour, free daycare for children, and of course raising
taxes on the wealthy. Got as sneak that in everywhere.
And he also wants to take over all the grocery
stores in New York City and have them govern run
because it worked out really great in Venezuela assemblymentmen. That
(05:05):
was a joke by the way, but assemblement. Mandani has
been polling in a distant second, but has been inching up,
and in the last Emerson poll, in the last round
of the rank choice voting, Cuomo has only an eight
point lead in the last round. That's not I mean,
it was significantly double digits. So eight points is nice,
(05:26):
but it's not where it was where it should be.
Cuomo has the backing of a lot of Latino and
black voters in the city, while white voters are split
sixty forty in favor of the Democratic Socialists. This is,
of course according to the Emerson Pole. Remember a lot
of white voters in New York outside of Manhattan and
the areas on the edging on the deep part of
(05:47):
like the Borough out of boroughs Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island,
in the Bronx, they are Republicans. So the ones who
are left over are very progressive, especially in Manhattan. Manhattan
acts almost as a sponge progressives all around the country
who come to move there. Mandani also has a lot
of support among young voters under the age of fifty,
(06:07):
while Cuomo is dominating against older voters and the institutional
organizations for Democrats like unions now that doesn't mean that
Republicans have nothing to gain in this election. They could
shock everyone to have an upset victory. New York State
has something called a Wilson Bakula. It allows smaller third
parties to co endorse candidates from major parties, So the
(06:28):
Republican candidate oftentimes will also be endorsed by the Conservative
Party and the Democratic canty will have the backing of
the Working Families Party, but not always. New York City
also has a law that allows politicians to make up
their own parties if they get enough signatures. So Michael
Bloomberg used to run under the Jobs and Education Party.
It was a completely made up party that he ran
(06:49):
under and got a lot of votes under. It's for
people who are uncomfortable voting for Mitslayer or Republican, but
they want to back the Republican candidate.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
This year, Andrew Cuomo has created his own parties called
the Fight and Deliver Party, and it will be on
the ballot in November. Likewise, Progressive the Progressive Working Family
Party announced that it will not be endorsing Cuomo and
could put up Mendanni as a nominee in the general
election or another progressive candidate. All told, this means there
(07:18):
could be four Democrat leaning candidates Adams, Wald, Mandannie and
Cuomo all running in the general election against a single
Republican Curtis Lee, while the founder of the crime prevention
nonprofit of the Guardian Angels also up is all fifty
one New York City Council seats is up for grab.
(07:38):
Pilkins will be defending six seats Democrats have forty five.
Most people don't realize, but New York City has moved
substantially to the right under Trump. In twenty sixteen, Trump
won twenty two point six percent of the vote in
New York City compared to Hillary Clinton's seventy eight point
four percent, losing the city by a total of about
fifty six percent. He only won four New York City
(08:02):
Council seats, including the ultra orthodox Jewish sheet in Brooklyn,
which votes for Democrats locally. By twenty twenty four, however,
his number grow to thirty percent of the vote in
New York City to Harris Is sixty eight percent, reducing
the Democrat margin from fifty six to thirty eight over
twelve years, and the number of council seats he won
(08:22):
went from four to eight. They doubled it. That's a
lot of gain in a deep blue city with no institutional,
real Republican party with a lot of money. Republicans are
hoping to cut into democrats supermajority in the City Council
and create a real presence, shaving away at the Progressive caucus.
And they are also hoping that a divided Democratic field
(08:43):
with four Democratic leaning candidates and only one Republican can
create a dramatic result where somehow Curtis Lee will wins.
This week, we have two guests on the show, one Democrat,
one Republican to talk about what's at stake, what are
likely outcomes, and what this month's primary holds.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Our first guest in today's episode is Hank Shankoff. He
is a veteran Democratic consultant. He's worked on over seven
hundred campaigns, including President Bill Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Hank,
thank you for being on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Thank you for having me on today. I'm very grateful
that you called me and asked me to be here.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So, Hank, you are an expert in a lot of
things with democratic primaries, especially in New York City, former
governor Andrew Cuomo has had a very big lead, and
there's been this one poll, especially by Emerson, showing something
be MENMANI I'm really climbing in the polls. Is there
any realistic chance that there could be an upset where
Cuomo loses?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Six months ago, a well known idiot predicted that Mandammie
would be the one to watch. I was the idiot,
and people said to me, aren't you an idiot? And
I've been saying it ever since. He's the one to
watch for a whole host of reasons. If you look
at the cross tabs of these polls, what you see
is that Mandamie is doing very well with younger, better educated,
(09:59):
more professional, and more rich people young people in those quadrants.
Cuomo is doing better with poorer people, who are more
minority people, people are less educated. The ballot is complicated
because of ranked choice voting, regardless of what the people
came up with ranked choice voting might say. And you know, again,
better educated people will be able to manipulate it more significantly.
(10:20):
What I find fascinating is that this generation of people
who have eaten more regularly had more housing over their
head than anyone else in history, have more opportunity than
anybody else's had in history, and they're better educated than
anybody else in history. Have decided that they should be
aligning themselves with someone who has been very public about
his attitudes about the Middle East, particularly Jews and housing
(10:42):
and bus fare and who's going to pay? Now? If
I were a munisipal worker and someone said to me,
you vote for Bondami, I would say, what are you
out of your minds? Because after you just finishes in
taxing everybody and chasing them out of the city, there'll
be no one here to pay the what do you
call it, the municipal union agreements?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Now, I just I think, and maybe I'm wrong. I
keep looking for what coalitions Cuomo could have, right. I
think that there are a lot of Italians who want
to remember his father, who want an Italian mayor.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I'm Italian.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I can say like there's a lot of ethnic pride
and in the tribe union members big time supporter as
long as furs, Blacks, Latinos, and I think what has
been under reported a lot of this polling is especially
Orthodox Jews, who don't answer polls at a high frequency.
They tend not to Is there anyone on missing that coalition,
(11:36):
maybe senior citizens.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Who else.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Let's look at the city's dynamics per second. It is demographics.
The wonderful thing about America is that it accepts everyone generally,
and it changes and it goes through extraordinary moments, which
is unique to American democracy. You know, we're not tribalistic
so much as we become tribalistic, but we're really unified.
And what's changing now is we're not as unified, becoming
more tribalistic. What does that mean because we don't share
(12:01):
common heritage. More than fifty percent of people living in
this country today can no longer trace their roots to Europe,
which is a pretty significant thing. New York is the
melting pot of the world. Guess what, we're experiencing the
same thing. So we have to begin to think about
who really cares about what and how do we communicate
with them? And the usual gang of consultants haven't figured
that out yet because it's not interesting to them. It
(12:23):
is very interesting to me. Were I running the Cuomo campaign,
the people I'd be talking to are frankly Koreans Chinese
who are much more conservative, who are becoming a quickly
the most significant portion of the Asian community in New
York City, and I guess they're about eighteen to twenty
percent now they're going to increase. If you look at
Brooklyn alone, where you have tremendous numbers, I mean you
(12:45):
go to Bensonhurst, We're twenty years ago Italians and Jews
ruled the roost. Today it is all the signs of
the stores are in Chinese. It's very simple. I would
be talking to Chinese, I'll be talking to Koreans, I'll
be talking to South Asians, the Richmond Hill people, people
who own property, who have vested interest insuring that those
properties do what they were supposed to do, which is
(13:05):
provide the income to put the children of those immigrants
through college, which Mondambi intends to make them possible. Why
smaller units throw away the taxes. Who's going to put
the money into those properties? Simple?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I think wants to control grocery stores, which for Latinos
who own a lot of bodegas, they kind of classify
as grocery stores in some capacity. I don't know how
we would classify that, but that would hurt their businesses
too immensely.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It would injure them significantly. I mean, I've done a
lot of work in Latino communities around them. I don't
like the word, but Spanish speaking derivative countries I call
them around the country, and I've worked overseas in Spanish
speaking countries. It's not a good idea for them. So
you know, I would be looking at this differently. I
would also be targeting Irish and Italian Catholics forty plus,
(13:54):
who are forty plus. I'd be looking at yeah, Koreans, Chinese,
South Asians forty plus, Italian, Italian and Irish Catholics. I'd
be looking at Jews very differently. I'd x out Manhattan
over the top. I wouldn't bother with Manhattan, but I'd
be looking at the outer boroughs. I'd be looking Jews,
(14:14):
particularly in Queens Okay, Keew Gardens Hills, that's central that
general area, whatever's left the Forest Hills. I'd be targeting
Jews there, the people from Central Asia who have really
taken over that the Forest Hills, Real Park area, and
the Russians are now gone. I think in most cases
from that to those communities, and I'd be looking at
(14:36):
Brooklyn differently. I'd be looking at let's see Marine Park,
the area around what they call Madison Park, which is
Madison High School, and the whole general areas Flatbush, Midwood.
People think about Jews in New York City, they think
about votes my hostadium or orthodized people like that. I
(14:58):
don't think the numbers are really there. If you look
at real voter turnout in Borough Park and or Williamsburg,
you just don't have what you used to have. Those
negments have.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Changed what I think you're describing and what is so
commonly happening now in.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
New York City.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
And I am not only a lifelong New York City resident,
I am in like sixth generation New Yorker. It's Manhattan
and the regions that touch Manhattan, Northern Staten Island, Northern Brooklyn, Astoria,
Long Island City, Queens, Southern Bronx that versus the rest
of the city.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I think that's entirely accurate. If you look at Long
Island City and you look at where ground zero is
for DSA candidates, it's Queens. You know, that's where the
action is and who is that? Those are people who
have gentrified or newcomers to those communities and high rises
that have been built. And again who have had the
they are the luckiest generation in the history of the world.
(15:58):
They've eaten more frequently. How's better, They've got better educational opportunities.
And their response to all this is to say, drop dead.
We all we demand more, and we like this night
because he's gonna make us feel better about demanding more
and screw everybody else. So that's what that's about.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It amazing one hundred percent. Sure, it's scary.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And I grew up in a time where Long Island
City was a shanty Irish neighborhood and no one want
to be there at night, and now you can't afford
to live there for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And I think that what people miss about New York
State and New York City is New York State is
traditionally it's not a progressive state. It's an establishment Democrat state.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Well partially, but hold on, hold on this someven you're
missing and it's not for sure New York State. We
used when I used to look at state wide campaigns,
have been in successful state wide campaigns my whole career.
You're looking to say, okay, what are the percentages of
who the largest turnout number was Catholic, That started to shift.
Why because of the decline of religion as an organizing tool.
(16:57):
That is changing now with the new immigrants for Latin
from Spanish speaking countries who are filling up parishes that
were about to fall apart of clothes, who are also
hard working. Many of them are you know, take the
Laborer's Union people. They're Ecuadorians. They go to church, they
have their they have their own ways of praying which
are consistent with Catholic theology. But their participants and they
(17:20):
have a vested interest in the system. Those are the
people that the Cuomos and the others who are against
Mondomie need to start reaching so that the think about
this differently. Were in otherwords, we're not thinking about politics
the way we should. We're thinking about the politics the
way we think we should think about politics. And so
long as we do that, Madamie has a much better
shot well.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
I think.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Also the thing is that someone asked me how was
he gaining traction? What I said is New York City
has become a sponge for the most far left people
living in other places. If you're a far left progressive
in Kentucky, you're not going to stay in Kentucky. You're
going to move to New York City and the working
class person, you're regardless of their race, but from any
(18:02):
of them. White working class have left the city and
they have moved into a lot of black working class
I love to see too. They have moved into those neighborhoods.
You go to certain parts of Brooklyn that were one
hundred percent black when I was growing up. It's maybe
a third white now. But they're not white, you know,
Irish working class. They are far left progressive activists who
(18:24):
have moved into those neighborhoods and have changed them.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Absolutely accurate. Who's leaving New York. The young people you're
talking about are not leaving New York. The people who
are older, who don't want to be here anymore and
who can't afford to live here or leaving New York.
Those are the people leaving. The trucks, the moving vans
are on the streets. They are leaving. Look if you're
a police officer, white, Black or Latino, and let's see
(18:48):
your husband, you're a police officer retiring and you're a
second grade detective. Your husband, who's a police department was
in a police department and was a patrol officer. You know,
police life not to promoted, and you're getting two pensions,
and your healthcare is taken care of into your sixty
six right, and you're going to wait for Social Security
(19:10):
and you're going to go to get another job. If
you sell your house that you bought for fifty thousand,
for three hundred thousand or wherever it is more, take
three hundred, five hundred and six hundred, you're going to
take the cash. You take your pension, you're going to
take your health insurance, You're going to leave. You move
to Florida. If you're black, you're going to move to Florida.
If you're white, you're going to move to Florida. If
you're a Latin, you're going to move to Florida. You're leaving.
(19:30):
Let's be real, who wants to stay here unless you
love the place, you believe that it's saveable and that
it is worth being here. Now, that's it.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
One thing we saw in the last election last president
struction was a tremendous growth for the support of Donald
Trump in New York City.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
He went from twenty one percent twenty sixteen to thirty
percent in twenty twenty four. That's a lot for a
Republican candidate primarily of both white working class voters the
ones who were left, and among ethnic minority specifically Asians
and Hispanic specifically in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn. What
in those communities, in the largest city in America, in
(20:09):
a city that has really no functioning Republican party as
it is known in other parts of the country, they
are organically moving towards Trump. Why is it that Democrats
are losing them without Republicans spending a lot of time, money,
and intention trying to get.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Important questions you're raising. If you look at South Brooklyn
for a second, you look at where the numbers are,
Trump did extraordinarily, Well, what is this about? We have
no functioning Republican Party in New York City, which is tragic.
I've always believed in two party systems, and I think
that it is for more. I have tremendous, always had
tremendous regard for the late Mike Long and certainly for
Jeriekasar's success in the Conservative Party. Whether I agree with
(20:50):
them or not, it doesn't matter the fact that they
have principle, they stand for something and prepared to work
for it is a pretty significant thing. So we don't
have Republican party because people decided we shouldn't have a
Republican party. And Trump, the Trump trumpiness has made that
more difficult in New York, where Trump's numbers are astronomically
bad now. But people are tired of a system that
(21:11):
they believe not to be representative of them, that is
not represented a blue collar people anymore, no matter what
their race is. And if you look at the numbers
that Trump had going back to twenty sixteen in the
South Bronx, you have to be fairly shocked by it. Right.
It is a resentment built upon reality, and the reality
is that they're not being serviced by that party. They
don't feel part of it, and they believe the elites
(21:32):
have taken it over. And whether Republicans are controlled by
elites or not they are doesn't matter. The rhetoric works,
and that's one of the reasons why republic By Democrats
are in so much trouble in this country. You know,
as a Clinton guy, right, I can tell you that
we're back in time. The party has lost its place
because they never it's not a party anymore. What it is.
It's a collection of clans very different way. You can't
(21:55):
have a political party when when there's no joining mechanism,
where people are clannish because their interests are very particularistic,
and where you have no enforcement tool. The president of
the Republican Party is the enforcement tool. The enforcement tool
among Democrats used to be labor unions, but they're not
as strong as they once were, and the strongest of them,
the teamsters, walked away from the Democrats, and you know,
(22:18):
made sure that May does their best to help Donald
Trump get elected, knowing that the basic part of their
population and membership were Frankly Trump.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Iyes Hank, going last question, if you were advising Governor
Cuomo from my Governor Cuotomo, what is his message in
the last three weeks to Democratic voters in New York City.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
I'll make you feel safe again, and I'll make you
feel wanted.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
That's great, that's right, Hank. Where can people go to
read more of your stuff and find out more about you.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I've never been really good at self promotion. I just
go out and do this. I have no idea. If
you said, you know I'm a blue collar product of
New York City, they got to do this work all
over the world. I have no idea how it happened.
There's a lot of stuff online. I just it amazes
me every day, and I think I'm the luckiest, most
fortunate me. And I would leave you with one thought,
though I'm not a fool. And what I believe is
(23:07):
that whatever I have been able to achieve in my
life from a high school drop out, you know that
free education, University City, University of New York. I would
never go one to school without New York. I would
never become Hangshikoff. And I urge everyone to remember not
my example, but the example of millions who came before
me and afterwards want the same opportunities. And they got
to figure out which of the people running from mayor
(23:29):
We'll make sure those dreams can come true.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I'm a product in New York City too, although I
went to Catholic school, but I New York nade me
into a person. So I love that city endlessly and
I completely relate to you.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
And I ended up going to politics.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And I also I'm a college dropout, not high school,
but college, so I went back.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
I got lucky again. Cuning made it possible for me
when there was no tuition.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, I went to wait.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
You know, I worked. I was a condoman at the Carnegie,
in the stage and all those places, a union economyn
I mean, you know, I was a police officer. That's
fairly well known. I mean I had an extraordinarily interesting
life and through a satin of accidents, this occurred and
I haven't looked back. But again, this generation of people
have had it really good. Why they're in revolt is
the question that Democrats need to answer, because if the
(24:14):
two parties split, one going all the way to the
right and one going all the way to the left,
it tells you that there's something wrong in the country
because there's no place where all of us can meet anymore.
And that is really troubling to me.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
That's a great closer And Hank, New York makes the
most interesting people in the world, and you're one of them.
Thank you for being on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Thank you for having me on. I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Hey, we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
My other guest for this episode is Councilman Joeanne Ariola.
She is the minority leader of the Republican Party in
the New York City Council. She represents the area around
Howard Beach and Rockaway and Ozon Parks. She's a good
friend of mine. Councilman, Areola, thank you for being here.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Such a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Ryan.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
This is your podcast debut. So it's very exciting, it
really is.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Most people don't know this, but New York City has
been taking to the right. In the last couple elections.
In twenty nineteen, there were only six elected Republicans in
all of New York City and there are currently sixteen.
That's something that seems that getting ten seats in over
the course of the five years. Given what we have
with the elections this year, what are Republicans really focusing on.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
We're focusing on the migrant crisis, working collaboratively with ICE
to alleviate that crisis, Law and order crime, We're working
with the state representatives that are Republicans to address criminal justice, reform,
raise the age, and of course cash list fail because
(25:46):
these are all the things that put us where we
are today.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Well, we have the elections for the City Council and
the mayor. Is there any chance for Republicans to gain
in the City Council.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Yes, we definitely have areas where we can gain. I
think in Queens we can take Bob Holden seat which
will be vacated because he's term limited with Alicia Maconez.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
For those who don't know, that is in western Queens.
That's one of the red spots you always see in
a map of New York cities. It's traditionally ready he's
a conservative Democrat now retiring. So yes, that's one of
the areas.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
The other is in Brooklyn forty seven.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
We have Richard Barsimi and he's currently the chair of
the Republican Party and I think that he's now in
a hotly contested primary which I believe he will win,
and I think he will take it across the finish
line in November.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Well, I think that what people don't, I think realize
that everyone kind of has a characature of New York
and New Yorkers, But Republicans have had tremendous interests gains
rather with the Hispanic community, in the Asian community. And
this has been with Governor Lee Zelden's campaign, This has
been with Curtis Lee was first campaign. This is now
with Trump's campaign. You've seen this continue increase. How does
(27:01):
a party work to sit there and try to keep
those voters. How do we sit there and work to
have those conversations. You have a lot of South these
Asians in your own district and the Hispanics in your
district too. What are some things that Republicans in urban
areas should be doing to build those kinds of connections.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
What we've been doing in Queen's County is doing a
lot of outreach and we're doing a lot of offshoot
clubs South Asian Republican Clubs, Asian Republican Clubs, the Hispanic
Republican clubs, really inviting them into the main organization called
the Queen's County GOP. And the reason why we've seen
such a shift in these demographics is because they've just
had enough of democratic rule where they were losing their
(27:46):
specialized schools, their kids couldn't get to school safely, the
crime on the subways and the buses that children couldn't
take to go to school, or people couldn't go to work.
When you talk about the Asian community and the Hispanic community,
the Bangladeshi community, any community where you have one and
two income families that have a home and just want
(28:07):
to have their peace of Americana they're going to vote
Republican right.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And this is I think what we're seeing a lot
in the Democratic primary for mayor, where you have a
Samil Mendani who is running on a very far left platform,
specifically something that he's really curated towards Manhattanites, people who
live in places like a story of people who live
in Williamsburg, high income, college educated people who would both
(28:36):
be negatively affected by his by his platform, but the
working class would be much more negatively affected by his platform.
I had I had on my last guest was a
Democratic consultant and Harry Schenkoff, and he sat there and
said that working class people feel like they are abandoned
by the elitism of the Democratic Party, and that's why
(28:56):
you're seeing these voters move towards Republicans. Is that a
conversation you've had with voters in your time as a
councilman and now as minority leader.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
I think that the people I've spoken to, the middle
class voters that I've spoken to, feel that the Democratic
Party has abandoned them, that that's not the party of
their father and grandfather and the reason why they registered
in the Democratic Party to begin with, a person like Mondambie.
What he wants to do is socialize an entire city
and that will just grow. He gets money from all
(29:27):
over the country's sorrows, money to help him complete the
mission of taking away our American freedoms and our.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Way of life. Just one of his initiatives, which is to.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
Own or have government own all of the mom and
pop shops, is just install grocery stores. I mean, are
we now turning into a communist country? A communist These
people save their money, They came from other countries legally,
they saved their money, they went into business. That is
what they have. That's their piece of Americana. And you
(30:00):
want to just take that from them. No, we're not
ready for that. We're not ready for him. And I
don't believe that that there are enough DSA members to
take him over the finish line.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
I don't care.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
How he pretends to be everything to all people. Donald
Trump woke up the voters and they are very aware
of who's running and what they stand for.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, well, DSAY is Democrats socials of America. And I
brought this up to Harry for a lot of and
a lot of ethnic neighborhoods and a lot of Chinese neighbors.
For example, you have Chinese curative food stores that are
just specifically heavily for the foods that they like. There's
a lot of bodegas that are owned by Latinos. I
believe bodegas would.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Fall under grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
They sell enough produce I guess to be a grocery
store that would have devastating effects for Latinos and Asians
in our city. Not alone everybody else, but specifically small
business owners who own those types of stores.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Where about less government, not more government. We want people
to come here year, open up businesses and succeed, just
like my grandparents did when they came in from Italy.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
So this is what we want. We don't want to
take away their rights.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
What's next We'll have ticket books to say, oh, we
can buy bread today or we can buy eggs.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
The next day.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
This is just ridiculous. This is communism. It's it's not socialism.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
This is it. It's terrible, it's Marxism. I can go
on and on.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Right, Well, there's so, and I brought this to my listeners.
There is now in the democratic and the general election
for mayor, there is a situation where we're going to
have former attorney Attorney General assistant turn in General Walden,
You'll have Eric Adams running as both independents, and you
will have a Democrat. And if Andrew Cuomo, who is
(31:46):
still likely to win the primary if he is the
Democratic nominee, the Working Family Party has said they will
put up their own candidate. So there's a potential of
having four Democratic candidates for different Democratic leaning candidates versus
Curtis Leewaw in such an environment where the Democratic vote
could be split four different ways. Is there any chance
for Curtis to win the mayoral election, which everyone sees
(32:09):
is a very big long shot.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
It isn't a long shot.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
It is very feasible why he got thirty three percent
or so in in his race head to head against
Eric Adams last time out. Now you named the institutional candidates,
We've just had an onslaught of independent candidates that filed
with the Board of Elections that we won't know how
(32:34):
many of them have been certified or not, so we
don't know how many are going into the general election.
That lessens the percentage needed. And I think that when
people look and see what the field of candidates are
and what they've done. When you have a proven record
that hasn't hasn't succeeded, like Andrew Pomo and like Eric Adams,
(32:56):
or the threat of becoming a communist city with Zoram
being our mayor, people are starting to look at at Curtis.
Curtis has been out there for over thirty years. His
message has not changed. He has not changed.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
He wants to set this city right.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
And the only way to really do it, whether you
believe in him or not, is the only way to
make change is to have change. And the only difference
of everyone who's on that list that's different is Curtis Leewa.
And if we want change, we're going to have to
make that change at the voting booth right.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And I mean I have I have seen Curtis Lee
well I don't know how many times, and just not
a Republican. It's just out and about he does. He does.
He is doing the old fashioned campaigning. When you look
at what so he ran for those listeners don't know
he ran in twenty twenty one, he got I think
twenty seven point five twenty eight percent. He did slightly
better than Nicole Mally talkers whos now is a congressman,
(33:52):
but she ran for mayor four years.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Prior to that.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
They had very similar results. But it's very interesting Curtis
did substantially bet are in the Bronx Queens in Brooklyn
and worse in Manhattan and Queens especially which you represent from.
There is a real chance in Queens like there has
never been before my home home county, Donald Trump's home
county where you have a where you're seeing political realignment
(34:19):
happen in real time with the Asian community, with some
Southeast Asians looking into the future, which no one has
a crystal ball, but if these trends continue, is there
a chance that we could see a Queen's county one
day that has a Republican Congressman that has you know,
Republican the state senators and say some ofment again, you know,
is that a real possibility as we are progressing down
(34:42):
this path?
Speaker 5 (34:44):
It is an absolute possibility because even if you take
into consideration not just the Latinos and the Asians, if
you look at the African American community who have taken
flight from this city and moved to the Carolinas, Georgia
and any of state that they feel safer and you know,
I ran for Borough president in twenty twenty, as you know, Ryan,
(35:05):
and you know that. And I came into the race
late where we were out numbered eight to one in
registration Democrats to Republican and I was unsuccessful. However, I
was unsuccessful in a two to one. The ratio was
reduced to two to one. And where do those votes
come from? In the areas of the African American population,
where they're saying, we don't want less police, we want
(35:27):
more police. We don't want more guns on the street,
we want less guns on the street. We don't want
criminals on the street, we want them behind bars. They
have the very same ideology that we do, but they
never knew they had a chance. So now it's up
to the Republicans to make sure that we do enough
outreach to those demographics Asian, the African American, and the
(35:49):
South Asian and the Latino community so that they know
that we're here, they know.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
That we have candidates.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
People are leary to donate money to Republicans because they
don't think that that money is well spent. It is
well spent, and it would mean the difference between your
life changing for the better or worse.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Right and also be the difference of New York State.
There is no longer a blue Queen's county. There is
no longer a guarantee that the governorship or the Senate
seats remain blue either. I mean, the change is going
to come from New York City. It's not going to
come from upstate. Long Island has changed radically. That an
Island has changed radically, But New York City is really
where it's happening. It's happening, it's the change. The voter
(36:30):
shift is the reason that New York State moved eleven points.
The biggest right wing shift of any state in the
entire country is because of New York City. And I
don't think that's appreciated enough.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Becuns.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
One last question for you before you have to go,
what is the goal of the New York City Council
Republican Party? And you have a larger thing called the
Common Sense caugnis, which includes conservative Democrats. Two, when it
comes to working into legislation with a mayor, if you're
a minority, I think people don't appreciate how an effect
(37:00):
a minority can change the path that a city takes.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Path and depardon.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Right now, we're at eight in the Common Sense Caucus. Well,
actually we're seven because we had Kalman Jaeger went to
the Assembly. But we are considered a voting block now,
and we do have leverage when we speak with the
mayor's office, when we speak with the with the Speaker's office,
and we put our legislation forward, and if it's common
(37:27):
sense legislation, you'd be surprised how many members who are
historically progressive but found out that from the DSA, the
Democratic Socialists of America, that they were just not progressive enough.
So they've gone further towards moderation. And so they're now
signing onto our bills, they're signing onto our letters. They're
(37:51):
seeing out perspective and in kind, we're doing the same
with them. If it is a common sense letter or
a common sense legislation, we ie on and support it.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That's great, Well, counselmen, where can people go to find
more of your information about what you do about the
Republicans running for your I mean the Republicans the City
Council and supporting Republicans running in New York City.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
So of course it's all online. Campaign Finance has a
website for all of the candidates. In my particular case,
I'm on all forms of social media and I.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Have the address Counselman, So there are.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
So many, So it's counsel women, Joane Ariola, Joe and
Ariola for New York Council, New York City Council. And
then we have Twitter which is at Joe and Ariola
thirty two and Instagram which is at Joe and Ariola
thirty two. So you can get me that way, or
you can just call the office at seven eight three
eight one zero A three will help anybody.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
You know the National podcast, So I don't know if
they're calling, but thank you so much, Thank you so much, pleasure.
It was so great and let's see what happens later
on this month.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
It's always great to see you.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
You're listening to It's a numbers game with Ryan Grodsky.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay, that was great and it was super interesting seeing
both sides of the parties that they're in talk. We'll
see what happens in New York in the month, but
I'm super excited with this. Now for the Ask Me
Anything segment, you could be part of the Ask Me
Anything segment if you email Ryan at numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's ryanat numbers Plural gamepodcast dot com. I'll take questions
(39:34):
on anything. I want to get back to Russell's questions
from last week, because he asked me a really important question.
I didn't have I think the best answer for it.
So he asked, Democrats have a smug elitist problem and
do Republicans' independence know how democrats think can see the world. Okay, First,
on the smug problem, I was able to find the
date on this. In twenty twenty four, you Go found
that thirty one percent of Americans so that Democrats were
(39:58):
out of touch in terms of their association with elitism.
The perception was highest among Republicans. Fifty three percent of
Republicans sat there and said that Democrats were smug and
elite among An NBC poll from twenty twenty five the
following year obviously said that thirty eight percent of adults
find that neither major political party fights for them, and
(40:19):
that Democrats especially were disconnected and more tied to elitism.
This was especially felt among young voters and even among progressives. So, yeah,
there is an elitism a problem on the Democratic Party,
and the polls are showing it. Now for the question
of do Republicans and independents know how Democrats feel, that's
a great question because there is something called a perception gap,
(40:41):
and you see this in a number of polls. In
twenty twenty one, Democrats have shifted to the left right,
there was a significant shift. There were fifty one percent
identify as liberal now and versus twenty five percent back
in nineteen ninety four. So there has been a shift
to the left. But is a misperception given how people
feel about certain topics, certain issues, right, okay, So on
(41:04):
the issues that Republicans usually the Democrats have a uniform
belief like a ninety nine ninety five percent in open
borders or universal healthcare or welfare, in reality it is
much much smaller among those who identify as very liberal
to support those.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's closer to twenty percent. So there is a misconception.
There is a misperception over individual issues. Now, they don't
consist synthactly the pull on all these issues. It's more
of an alignment of where they are as an ideology
based on very far left, very far progressive, and where
the party is. That's why you get these polls that
(41:41):
say do you support Trump's mass deportation, and something like
twenty percent or fifteen percent of Democrats will say yes.
When you take the word Trump out of the equation,
it bumps up to like thirty five percent. Because the
party is not as uniform as people think it is,
and that is that's also true of how Democrats think
of Republican simoquests think Republicans are much more to the
(42:02):
right than they actually are. That's a great question. Thank
you so much for asking it. I really appreciate these
kinds of questions, Russell and I hope to get your
questions soon on Thursday's episode. If you like this podcast,
please hit like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
wherever you get your podcasts. If you're feeling generous, please
give me a good review. I got a few more
on Apple. I notice them. I check these things out.
(42:25):
I really really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much.
We'll be back on Thursday.
Host
Gill Alexander
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