Good morning, it’s Tuesday – Election Day!
A lot of people – an historic number in New York City – have already cast their ballots, thanks to early voting, which was approved via a change to the election law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018.
Ironically, Cuomo is now on the ballot in the Big Apple, trying to make a comeback that appears likely to be thwarted by Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, whose meteoric rise and seen a surge of new, younger voters registering and getting involved in the electoral process. And those young voters have cast a significant number of early votes in the mayor’s race to date.
If you have not voted early, polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. today. You can find your poll site here or here.
There’s a lot of ink being spilled and airtime being filled about the lessons the two major political parties will be taking out of this election, how the results will impact the 2026 midterms, New York governor’s race, etc. and so on.
The truth is that this election cycle has upended a lot of conventional wisdom and I think we just don’t know what the results are going to indicate until we actually SEE them and take some time to analyze them.
One clear takeaway, though, is that authenticity is critical. If a candidate lacks that, there’s no way they’re going to be able to connect with voters. Another clear through line is that affordability – of housing, of childcare, of healthcare, of groceries, etc. – is a key issue for a lot of key voting groups, especially young people.
Even with the surge in turnout, I’m going to go out on a. limb here and say that it’s still going to be low compared to the number of people who are actually eligible and registered to vote.
Part of the problem is that we don’t make it as easy as we could for people to vote. Election Day is a legal pubic holiday, for example. State law doesn’t mandate the day off for private employers, though they are required to provide up to two hours of paid time off if an employee doesn’t have sufficient time (four consecutive non-working hours while the polls are open) to cast a ballot.
Also, New York does not have same day voter registration, unlike about half of the other states in the nation. Despite the fact that people do pretty much everything else online – from speak to their doctor to conducting their banking – online voting doesn’t exist anywhere in the U.S. except in rare exceptions.
Unlike in other countries, the U.S. also doesn’t incentivize voting. Many countries have compulsory voter registration and some automatically enroll their citizens to vote. Twenty two counties require their citizens to vote in elections and at least one – Australia – fines them if they fail to do so.
Also, you might have read something about the fight over changing local election years from odd to even so they coincide with presidential elections to improve voter participation and representation.
There’s a ballot question about this (Ballot Proposal No. 6) for New York City residents to consider today, though even if it passes it will still require a constitutional amendment at the state level to take effect. Meanwhile, a federal lawsuit has been filed to in an attempt to block the Even Year Election Law, which would move thousands of local elections outside New York City from odd to even years and was signed by Governor Hochul in 2023.
The problem is that Republicans, who are vastly outnumbered by Democrats in New York, do better when turnout is low, and have prospered at the local level – especially upstate – in the current odd-year set up.
The constitutionality of the Even Year Election Law has already been upheld by the state’s highest court, but courts at the federal level tend to be more conservative (especially the higher up the judicial food chain one goes). So it might take some time for this fight to play out.
For those who like to cast their ballots in person on Election Day, you won’t have to worry much about the weather. (Remember the heat wave we experienced during the June primary?) Today will be mostly sunny, with temperatures maxing out in the mid-50s – in the Capital Region, anyway. If you happen to be reading this from elsewhere in the state, check your local forecast.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump’s administration said yesterday that it will partially fund SNAP after two judges issued rulings requiring it to keep the nation’s largest food aid program running.
The administration will provide only half of the normal food stamp benefits for November by tapping into the program’s contingency fund amid the government shutdown. But recipients are not likely to see the payments immediately.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) emailed grocery stores prohibiting them from offering discounts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients amid the government shutdown.
The email, shared Sunday by MSNBC’s Catherine Rampell to social platform X, said that grocery stores “must offer eligible goods at the same prices and on the same terms and conditions” to SNAP recipients.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) shot down a Democrat-led attempt to force the Trump administration to fully fund the country’s largest anti-hunger program during the government shutdown.
New York Attorney General Letitia James visited a Brooklyn soup kitchen yesterday to highlight the effects of delayed SNAP benefits during the federal government shutdown.
Voters today will deliver an early judgment on President Trump’s administration in the first set of coast-to-coast elections since he began his turbulent second term.
President Trump has a lot riding on the results of today’s elections, his tariffs case at the Supreme Court and the future of the government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said yesterday that there isn’t enough support from Republicans to invoke the so-called “nuclear option” and kill the upper chamber’s filibuster rule. “The votes aren’t there,” he told reporters.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the 85-year-old Democratic party stalwart, is expected to retire from politics next year. She will make a speech addressing her future after Californians vote on whether to redraw the state’s electoral map.
New York’s Republican Party has been gaining voters in recent years while Democratic enrollment has dipped, according to new data from the state Board of Elections.
President Trump lambasted Gov. Kathy Hochul for “killing the entire region with energy prices” — and threatened to get his transportation secretary to yank her much-hated congestion pricing plan that’s turned the Big Apple into a “ghost town.”
Hochul’s closing election message to voters in Manhattan’s Upper East Side was to vote in favor of four out of the six ballot proposals that are meant to fast-track affordable housing construction by cutting out much of the City Council’s role.
Hochul came out to support controversial Election Day ballot measures that would boost the New York City mayor’s power over housing — but ducked questions on Zohran Mamdani’s glaring refusal to take a position on the issues.
For the second week running, Hochul was in Astoria’s popular Irish sports bar Murphy’s to watch the Buffalo Bills over the weekend, this time accompanied by Mamdani and other members of the Democratic ticket in New York City.
There is a world where Donald Trump could have owned the Buffalo Bills instead of becoming president, but Hochul doesn’t like that world either.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik has been teasing a run for governor for months, leaving an official decision up in the air until after Election Day.
New York state lawmakers from across the political spectrum said Hochul should be prepared to pick up the full tab for food assistance benefits that are in limbo due to the federal government shutdown.
A 20-year-old man shot yesterday at a SUNY Morrisville dormitory is expected to live, officials said. After the shooting was reported, SUNY officials immediately placed the campus on lockdown and directed students and staff to shelter in place.
Trump said that voters “really have no choice” but to support independent candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was a high-profile foe of Trump’s during the president’s first term. “You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job,” Trump said.
The president said in a Truth Social post that Cuomo “is capable” of doing the job of mayor and that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani “is not!” He has also said he would be reluctant to send federal funding to the city if Mamdani is elected.
“I know how hard you worked for this,” Mamdani mockingly said on social media after his chief rival in the New York City mayor’s race, Cuomo, received tepid support from President Trump.
“Donald Trump has hand-picked his candidate. That candidate’s name is Andrew Cuomo,” Mamdani told MSNBC’s Ari Melber. “And New Yorkers have the chance to hand pick their fighter. And I believe that candidate should be me.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, urged New York City voters to opt for Cuomo over Mamdani “Bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mumdumi or whatever his name is,” Musk wrote on X. “VOTE CUOMO!”
Cuomo rushed to distance himself from Trump’s recent comment that he would pick the former governor, “a bad Democrat,” over Mamdani, “a communist,” every time.
From Coney Island to the Bronx, the candidates in New York City’s mayoral race spent yesterday crisscrossing the five boroughs in a final, frenzied day of campaigning on the eve of Election Day.
On the final day before Election Day, Mamdani arrived at the Brooklyn Bridge before sunrise and walked across it to City Hall in Lower Manhattan, intending to signal to voters that a new day was arriving for New York City.
A new AtlasIntel survey, which dropped yesterday, had the mayoral race narrowing, showing Mamdani with 43.9% of support and Cuomo in second with 39.4%.
Cuomo secured the backing from leaders of a typically bloc-voting Orthodox Jewish group on Sunday – after a rabbi in the Brooklyn sect reportedly issued an “unauthorized” mayoral endorsement of frontrunner Mamdani.
Mamdani’s mayoral campaign is being accused of steering millions in outside Super PAC spending, according to a new complaint filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board.
Mamdani donned crisp new Knicks merch and tried to act like an average hoops fan in the “nosebleed” seats at Madison Square Garden Sunday — a transparent retort to Cuomo’s photo-op last month from high-end courtside seats.
By catching a Knicks game on Sunday, Mamdani honored a political tradition of attending a sporting event on the campaign trail. But he sat in the cheap(ish) seats.
Mamdani’s opponents have portrayed his Democratic Socialists of America affiliation as unusual, but he is not the first New York politician — or would-be mayor — with ties to the group.
Cuomo has defended campaigning for mayor in a white Ford Bronco, saying the distinctive car has nothing to do with the late O.J. Simpson.
As the end nears in the mayoral race, some famous people have let their endorsements be known.
Subway crime dropped 14% last month compared with October 2024, marking the lowest level for any October on record, according to NYPD crime and transit data released yesterday.
Big Apple shootings have plummeted to all-time lows so far this year, the NYPD said yesterday — as subway crime in October also tied the month’s record low in 2020, when the city was a pandemic ghost town.
A Brooklyn daredevil parachuted off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and into a nearby park Sunday evening, right as the span reopened to traffic after it was closed for the New York City Marathon, according to police.
New Yorkers yesterday morning said goodbye to a floating jail that lived off the coast of the South Bronx, marking the end of a facility that for many reformers symbolized problems with the city’s criminal justice system.
New York City public schools will not be penalized for registering fewer students than projected this fall, as enrollment dropped significantly for the first time since the system emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York City’s already notorious jail system is experiencing a substantial uptick in violence, according to city data – highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the next mayor.
The son of Queens Council Member Vickie Paladino dropped a fusillade of F-bombs in a verbal assault on volunteers for challenger Ben Chou – an attack that Chou’s team says was “completely unprovoked.
The snitches who have raked in up to nearly $1 million apiece reporting idling trucks to the city are lawyers, doctors and residents of posh enclaves, enjoying the lucrative perks of a program that targeted even mobile COVID testing trucks during the pandemic.
Trump endorsed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in today’s election – giving a last-minute boost to the Republican’s reelection bid.
Jury selection for the long-awaited civil trial to determine if the Catholic Diocese of Albany shares responsibility for the collapse of the St. Clare’s Hospital pension plan began yesterday in state Supreme Court in Schenectady.
Scotia Police say a Facebook post alleging a sewing needle was found in candy was a hoax, and the woman who reported the bogus discovery — and later filed a formal complaint with police — was arrested.
The University at Albany plans to buy the former College of Saint Rose’s Centennial Hall dormitory from the Pine Hills Land Authority for $12 million.
Emergency crews responded to a fire that began late in the afternoon Sunday on Lark Street that displaced several residents when it burned out the upper floors of a mixed-use building and damaged a business on the ground floor.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
