What we know so far on primary day

Daily Point

On Long Island, it’s who can win

Many of Tuesday’s primaries in New York reflect a clash of party policies and principles, especially the closely scrutinized House contest between Democratic incumbent Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Long Island's key races instead have a much more pragmatic focus.

“On Long Island, it’s not an ideological battle. In Westchester, it is,” state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs told The Point.

While Latimer is expected to cruise to a win Tuesday night and again in November in heavily Democratic CD16, Republicans have the better odds of keeping the CD1 seat in Suffolk County. That’s why the two Democrats seeking to challenge Republican incumbent Nick LaLota this fall are positioning themselves as the party's best bet.

That message is the entire thrust of former CNN commentator John Avlon, who argues that his centrist views can win over moderate Democrats and independents. “The closing argument is that we need to win now, it’s been decades since Democrats controlled this swing district,” Avlon said Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program.

Retired Stony Brook University professor Nancy Goroff, who positions herself left of center and ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2020, argues she can best mobilize women and younger voters with her focus on reproductive rights and defending democracy.

The race is considered a tossup. Avlon needs to overperform in the eastern part of the district to win while Goroff needs to turn out her base in the Port Jefferson area. By late afternoon, there was a strong turnout in the First State Assembly District, the turf of retiring Assemb. Fred Thiele, who endorsed Avlon. “Nancy needs to blow it out of the water in Brookhaven and that doesn’t seem to be happening,” one Democratic strategist told The Point.

Republican incumbent LaLota dismisses both of them as “hyper-liberal.”

Winnability is the same strategy for State Senate candidates vying for the chance to take on GOP incumbent Jack Martins in the 7th district. “It’s very clear the mobilizing issue for Democrats is who can win,” said Robert Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee and the 2022 House candidate in CD3, which overlaps the Senate district.

In the Senate race, Kim Keiserman boasts of having raised over a half-million dollars. She is using her fundraising prowess and her many endorsements from other elected officials as signs of the strength she will have against Martins. Meanwhile, former TV producer Brad Schwartz is citing his endorsement by the Working Families Party as evidence that he has the better chance against the GOP incumbent. “I have the strongest path to do that because I carry a third-party line that will get us thousands of extra votes in the general election,” he said in a robocall this weekend.

In SD6, where Nassau Legis. Siela Bynoe is battling Assemb. Taylor Darling for the Democratic nomination, winnability is not the case in this heavily Democratic district, where even the issues haven’t come to the fore in what is essentially a battle of personalities.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com

Talking Point

Queens judgeship contest is power struggle for party control

Among the top New York races to watch Tuesday is the contest for Queens Surrogate’s Court judge.

Democratic candidates for the powerful job are usually hand-picked by the Queens party because of the position’s bountiful patronage. This year, however, there’s a feisty challenger in the mix.

Surrogate’s Court oversees the administration of estates, will probate and guardian appointments, when necessary. The Surrogate also importantly gets to determine which lawyers get what work — a massive shot of income for whoever’s on the list. Often, the Surrogate — and the lawyers he or she works with — return legal services and donations to the party.

Judge Peter Kelly, the current Surrogate, is completing the final year of his 14-year term this year — and the job is up for grabs. The insider’s favorite, Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Johnson, is facing a tough challenge in Wendy Li, a Civil Court judge.

Johnson has endorsements from Queens Democratic Party chair Rep. Greg Meeks on down. But Li has the money — raising about $350,000 to Johnson’s $283,000 — and key backing from Queens’ Asian American community and progressive leader Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A Li win would be an enormous blow to the Queens Democratic machine, not dissimilar to Rep. Joseph Crowley’s shocking primary loss to AOC in 2018. And it would be a huge loss for Meeks as another generation of leadership tries to take the wheel.

Also key for Meeks: the outcome of a primary for an open Assembly seat in East Elmhurst. That race features a familiar name. Hiram Monserrate, who was convicted of an assault misdemeanor in 2009 and spent time in prison after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges in 2012, is attempting yet another comeback, running in the primary to fill the open seat. In that race, it’s Monserrate’s challenger, Larinda Hooks, who has support from top Democrats. But Hooks is an unknown, leaving a door open for Monserrate, a longtime Meeks foe.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Debate prep

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Final Point

The latest numbers

As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, more than 25,000 Long Islanders had come out to vote in primaries in key congressional, State Senate and Assembly races, according to data from the Board of Elections. That included 15,056 voters from Suffolk County and 10,900 from Nassau.

More than 11,000 Long Islanders cast their votes before early voting closed on Sunday. In Suffolk County’s CD1 race contested by former Stony Brook University professor Nancy Goroff and former CNN anchor John Avlon, 5,440 voters, or 3% of the 183,036 registered Democrats, showed up to vote early. Some 18.9%, or 1,026 of these early votes, came on the last day before polls closed despite the sweltering heat, when temperatures hit the 90s. Nearly half of them were from poll sites at Rose Caracappa Senior Center in Mt. Sinai, Windmill Village in East Hampton, Southold Town Recreation Center, and the Dix Hills Fire Department. Avlon’s campaign has a strong presence on the Twin Forks while the Stony Brook area is considered Goroff turf.

In Nassau County, 6,467 registered Democrats cast votes by the end of the nine-day early voting period in a handful of State Senate and Assembly primaries. The contest between Siela Bynoe, a Nassau County legislator, and Assemb. Taylor Darling for the 6th Senate District saw a 2.4% turnout as of Sunday, with 2,444 voters out of 100,499 registered party members. Farther north, the 7th Senate District contest between Kim Keiserman and Brad Schwartz drew a larger ratio of voters, somewhat owing to Keiserman’s aggressive campaigning. The district saw a 2.6% turnout out of 83,520 registered Democrats, or 2,178 early votes as of Sunday.

There were no Republican primary elections on Long Island.

— Karthika Namboothiri karthika.namboothiri@newsday.com

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