New York is in the middle of primaries right now, and several congressional and state legislative races have become flashpoints for ideological tensions in the Democratic party.
From the Bronx and Uptown Manhattan to Western Queens, races are defined by fights over immigration enforcement, generational change and stances on Israel and Gaza.
Epicenter has been interviewing the candidates, moderating debates and livestreaming forums, and asking voters what they think. (Be sure to plan your vote here.)
This week, we turn to our civics columnist Felipe De La Hoz to help us zoom out and better understand what we are seeing and what this portends for the midterm elections here and elsewhere in the country. Here are the edited excerpts of our conversation:
Epicenter: Thanks, Felipe, as always. Let’s start with your area of expertise: How is immigration shaping turnout and candidate messaging in key races, especially in districts where voters are hearing a lot about border security, asylum, and deportations?
Felipe De La Hoz: It’s funny that you mention this because I was watching something on YouTube the other day (on a TV that is linked to my home IP address and therefore my location) and of seven ads I was served, six were about the NY-13 primary, in my Congressional district up in Harlem and Upper Manhattan. That race has come down to incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat — who was one of the first formerly undocumented immigrants to serve in Congress — versus pro-Palestinian activist and doctoral candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier.
That contest has drawn some interest lately mainly as a result of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s eyebrow-raising endorsement of Chevalier, who was up until that point seen as a relative long shot against the powerful Espaillat, a longtime Democratic machine member who has cultivated loyal allies and protégés at all levels of government. Espaillat had endorsed Mamdani for mayor in the general after endorsing opponent Andrew Cuomo in the primary, but that general-election nod was not reciprocated for reasons that I personally find a little puzzling; while Avila is undoubtedly to his political left, Espaillat is far from a centrist lib type and is probably not an enemy that Mamdani wants to make.
In any case, the reason that came to mind is because, barring one commercial about old posts of hers that derided the police and the armed forces, all of the commercials were about ICE and immigration; the pro-Chevalier ads accused Espaillat of having not done enough in Congress to stop funding for ICE and being willing to allow the deportation of people who had already served time for criminal offenses. The pro-Espaillat ads accused Chevalier of having received dark money from groups that had some sort of ICE ties. Honestly, it was a bit hard to parse and seemed like quite a stretch, but it was very notable that so much of the big money undergirding the race has honed in on the immigration enforcement question, particularly in a city that, while it has seen an increased ICE presence, has not had the same sort of mass deployment of federal agents that has taken place in cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
Rep. Dan Goldman and Espaillat were among the members of Congress who had sued after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to allow them to exercise their legal right to visit federal immigration detention centers without notice, and pretty much every Democratic primary candidate, incumbent or challenger, has gone to 26 Federal Plaza or Delaney Hall and joined protests. Brad Lander, the former city comptroller running in NY-10 against Goldman, was arrested and charged in connection to his role – and acquitted last week. I think a big part of that is that the immigration enforcement push is a very visceral tip of the spear for the administration’s broader authoritarian turn; the images of masked agents are very present and very easy to understand.
Epicenter: What do people need to better understand about voting and any lessons you see ahead of the midterms? Think registering in a party, mail-in voting, polling-place access or other issues?
FDLH: It is worth saying: We need to get over this obsession with wanting election results right away. States like ours have moved in the direction of greater voting access, which means that we have more early voting, longer voting periods, more access to mail-in voting and all this means that votes are literally coming in after Election Day (given that NYC accepts votes postmarked by Election Day). This is a complex system with lots of safeguards, and it naturally takes a minute to do it right.
I know that there’s great fun in being at watch parties and seeing results come in. Thatis a lifeblood for TV news channels and so on, but this does have some externalities. In extreme cases, this is what is seized on by MAGA to fuel the fire of their election conspiracism, as has been happening now with the clownish MAGA candidate for Los Angeles mayor, Spencer Pratt, who seemed like he was going to make it to the runoff against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass before a surge of late-counted votes knocked him to third place. This is normal and a natural result of votes coming at different times and being carefully counted, not some kind of failure of the voting apparatus or a nefarious sign that there is manipulation or whatever. Sometimes I wish we just didn’t report results at all until the counting was finished.
More practically, a reminder that the NY-13 race is not a ranked-choice primary. I know, it’s confusing, we’ve been telling you all about the ranked-choice primaries for years, but that is for municipal primaries, i.e., for mayor, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and City Council. Congressional races retain the old first-past-the-post system.
Epicenter: Which communities or voter blocs should listeners watch most closely this cycle, and how could immigration policy debates affect whether they show up or stay home?
FDLH: It’s hard to talk about this as a whole because these are, by definition, district-level races, where there are district-level community concerns and consternations. In NY-10, which runs roughly from 13th Street in Manhattan to parts of Brooklyn like Cobble Hill and Red Hook, the biggest issue is global, with the candidates mainly squaring off over Israel. Both have criticized aspects of Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, but Lander is running as a fiercer critic than Goldman, frequently bringing attention to the latter’s acceptance of contributions from AIPAC despite still describing himself as a liberal Zionist. The truism in New York politics for the last half century at least was that you couldn’t win without being a full-fledged supporter of Israel; Mamdani proved that wrong citywide, and Lander may yet prove it wrong in a narrower race representing a heavily Jewish district.
The NY-12 race, starting from the top of the NY-10 and continuing on to the Upper East and West Sides, is a bit more chaotic, with a scion of the Kennedy clan, Jack Schlossberg; George Conway, the anti-Trump crusader best known as the former husband of former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway; Assemblyman Alex Bores, known as a critic of Big Tech; and Assemblyman Micah Lasher, who has the backing of many establishment figures, including his former City Hall boss Mike Bloomberg. I don’t know that there’s any specific throughline to the race except maybe the proper limits on power, whether that be of President Donald Trump or billionaire tech bros. And NY-13 is mainly another progressive vs. establishment showdown (Espaillat versus Avila), colored also by the whole idea of fresh blood and the aforementioned immigration focus.
Epicenter: So much of the conversation is about the desire for change in leadership. Would new blood put the leadership positions now held by the New York House delegation at risk? That is, the posts some now hold on important committees like Appropriations or in various House caucuses?
FDLH: I wouldn’t say that’s a huge issue here except, of course, in NY-13, where Espaillat already has some seniority and is a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and ranking member of its Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. It’s unlikely that Avila would get the same deference. In NY-12, incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler is retiring anyway, so whoever wins is winning a wide-open seat. Goldman has been pretty active on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, but I wouldn’t say this would be a defeat-of-Eric-Cantor-level primary loss of a high-ranking party official.
There’s a bit more concern on this with races for the state legislature races, including Jessica Ramos in the state Senate, who’s the chair of the Labor Committee. She’s facing primary challenges from Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas and former State Sen. Hiram Monserrate.
Epicenter: Last question but perhaps the most important: What should voters research to make an informed decision, and how?
FDLH: A number of these races feature incumbents, and I would really recommend looking at their actual voting and sponsorship records. There are a lot of insinuations and accusations that fly back and forth during a primary campaign, but nothing tells you about priorities and approach as much as what they’ve actually achieved and striven for in office. I also can’t recommend my colleagues at The City Reporter (formerly The City) enough for their diligent election coverage.
Epicenter: OK, real last question, it seems as if this year’s primaries feature more races in which members of the same ethnic group are competing against each other, as with NY-6, where incumbent congressional Rep. Grace Meng faces a challenge from Chuck Park, along with the contests between Espaillat and Avila, and Ramos and Gonzalez-Rojas and Monserrate.
FDLH: In some ways, it’s almost a mark of political maturity to have interest communities feel secure enough in their power that they can start infighting. I’m half-joking. It’s never a bad time to remember that no community is a monolith. Whereas once the key demographic differences in New York City political races might have fallen along race, ethnicity and class lines, now we see that age, “outsider” status and ideological commitment have become more important over the years and can often better explain what might seem on the surface like nonsensical opposition.
