J.C. Polanco, Political analyst and University of Mount Saint Vincent associate professor Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to J.C. Polanco about the NYC Mayoral primary and who he thinks will be the Dem nominee.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, let's bring in JC Polonco political analysts and University
of Mount Saint Vincent assistant professor and attorney. You've seen
him a lot on TV and we're so happy that
he's talking to us today. So JC, talk me off
the ledge. Is there any way at this point that
zorin Mam donnie's not going to win. I'm afraid of

(00:21):
the fact that he has been rising so quickly in
the polls, and now a couple of polls have come
out showing he's going to win. Tell me he's not
going to win.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, listen first, thanks for having me, love being on.
I think that it depends on what poll you're you're
looking at. Look you, Guv Yale had a poll yesterday
that had former Governor Cuomo up fifty seven forty three.
Emerson had the poll that everyone is talking about that
had mcdonnie up fifty one point eight to forty eight

(00:51):
point two. I've seen I've seen so many polls in
the last week that have the governor up by double
digits and others that have the assemblement up by a
point or so within the margin of error. You know,
it really is gonna all depend on turnout. You know,
we had I know that there was a lot of
excitement behind the large number of early votes that we had,

(01:13):
but that still means that ninety five percent of Democrats
stayed home, and we're hoping that to come out and
vote today. You know, we're looking at possible and I
believe I would put my money on former Governor Cuomo
winning this election. You have a former Governor Cuomo, someone
with some serious experience, name I d He's doing incredibly

(01:36):
well with black and Hispanics in New York City. What
so interesting is that I've seen polls where as something
on Mamdani has an advantage of plus fifty eight with
white voters in New York. I'm assuming a lot of
those are white voters that are ultra progressives out of Brooklyn,
New voters coming out from different states. Look, this race
is gonna come. It's going to come in tonight. We

(01:57):
may not know the results right away because of the
incredible a number of votes that we're expecting and the
fact that rank choice voting requires there to be multiple tallies.
And let's not forget in New York City, you're not
allowed to count the mail in and absentee ballots and
so after the primary, so we have a lot of
those coming in as well. And this is for the

(02:19):
heart and soul of the Democratic Party. This has national implications, Diary,
this is huge. Is the Democratic Party going to be
the party of socialism or is it going to be
the party of pragmatic progressivism? And I think that's where
this is going to really have an impact among Danni
Victory all but guarantees the Republicans the House in the

(02:41):
midterm elections, because immediately he'll become a national figure and
will become the national boogeyman for every Republican commercial across
the country. When you call for free buses, universal daycare,
when you call for universal rentrees, regardless of the impact
that that would have on small landlords as their prices

(03:03):
go up for insurance and taxes and their maintenance costs.
When you call for city run supermarkets. Now, look, this
is not new. Everyone is telling me these new ideas
outside of the box. These are Carl Marxter's ideas from
a century ago. These have been tried before in Venezuela
and in Q but they don't work. And I'm concerned
about how young progressives and young socialists may have taken

(03:26):
over the Democratic Party here in New York. Yeah, very interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I agree. I agree that he's dangerous, but you just
may turned around my thinking completely on this. Maybe I
want mom, Donnie, because if he is going to be
the boogeyman, and he's going to help the Republicans win
the House, keep the House, and keep the Senate, and
he's going to affect elections across the country. As you're saying,
I didn't think of that. I didn't play this out.

(03:52):
So although he may be bad for New York, he
may be good for the country. Maybe we have to
sacrifice a little bit it, uh, just so we can
have Republicans win all across the country. I know you're
in partials, but I'm not.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
I live in the Bronx. I don't want any pain.
Are you kidding it? No way, no way, am I
paying another dollar in taxes. You know what's crazy about this?
The solution, Larry is always let's just raise the taxes
on the wealthy. Well, listen, when you take a look
at who's paying the bill for all of the programs
that we have in New York City, those are the

(04:28):
folks that are paying the bill, and those are the
ones that can actually leave. See, if you raise taxes
on folks here and we're gonna lose a whole bunch
of them.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Again, you're already you're already losing.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know, I know we can't lose anymore. We've already
lost a million folks in twenty ten. We're gonna are
you telling me that we're gonna lose another member of
Congress and leave us with the bag. It's really tough
to see New Yorkers every day thinking that the ultra
wealthy somewhere off out there are gonna pay for all
of these programs. It's an impossibility. Eventually, it's going to

(05:02):
be you and me and everyone else who lives in
New York City that's going to have to pay for
these taxes. And by the way, these are just false promises.
New York State is never going to increase taxes. They
won't vote on these things. And I'm just very concerned
that at what it means. And let's face it, at
the end of the day, there's a big learning curve
that New Yorkers have to remember. When you go from
an Assembly role where you represent about one hundred and

(05:22):
twenty five thousand people, a couple of thousand people vote
for you. You have a staff of three or four to
thinking that you have the experience to run a city
of three hundred and fifty thousand employees, a GDP of
a trillion dollars, a billion, one hundred and thirteen billion
dollar budget, and a million kids in our public schools.
That's a huge learning curve. And you know, I was
just in a program yesterday where they made the comparison

(05:44):
with President Barack Obama. Listen, you could compare President Barack
Obama all you want. At the end of the day,
he was still a US senator, he was a constitutional
law professor, he was an attorney. We can have some experience,
but there's nothing here. So I'm just very concerned as
to what happens now when people are energize. They seemed
that billion dollar smile. I thought I had a great smiles,
a billion dollar smile.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I've seen you on TV. You do have a good smile. J. C. Pilato,
please come back. We want to talk to you more,
especially now that we know you're gonna slam Zor and Mamdani.
The way you did. Wow, you just analysis.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I'm just providing some analysis.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
You just took him out the political analyst and University
of Mount Saint Vincent assistant professor and attorney. Thank you
so much. Jays appreciate it.