New York Democratic Chair Calls Election Outcome a Surprise, Says Party Can’t Focus on Cultural Issues Going Forward

New York Democrats came into the election working feverishly to flip several key House seats, and they largely succeeded. But that was a rare bright spot during a huge performance for Republicans and once and future president Donald Trump, who made gains in New York and nationwide as part of his decisive win.

From the New York Public News Network, WAMC’s Ian Pickus spoke Thursday with Jay Jacobs, Chair of the New York State Democratic Committee.

What’s your key takeaway from this election result?

Well, I think on the local level in New York state, I think we did very well. You know, there was certainly a lot of disappointment two years ago when we lost four congressional seats that Joe Biden had won in the previous election. And we made it a major priority, of course, to win those seats back. And we won four seats back. We started that with Tom Suozzi’s special election after George Santos had to vacate his seat, and then we added to it on Tuesday with another congressional seat in Nassau County. So now both of Nassau County’s seats went from red to blue, and then we’ve got Josh Riley, who is likely to be elected in the Hudson Valley, and you’ve got John Mannion in CD-22, so we did very well here. Of course, nationally, we’re not too happy, and even in New York State, we see that Trump made some significant gains with voter blocs and for whatever reason, and we’re analyzing it now, the voter turnout wasn’t as strong as we had like would have liked.

Now in the 17th district, you were hoping to win that seat back from Mike Lawler, who was able to win a second term against Mondaire Jones. There’s a lot of speculation that he might be ready to run for governor now. Do you agree with that?

Well, I don’t know. I mean, there’s nothing for me to agree or disagree. I don’t know what he’s going to do. I would say to you from the start, when we looked at that district, we knew that was going to be a tough district for us, the toughest of them all. Again, holding Pat Ryan’s seat was important to us, and that was a concern. We’re glad we did that. But, yeah, you know what Congressman Lawler decides to do, that I can’t predict.

So you mentioned some of the gains that Trump made in places that were a little surprising, frankly, like New York City and some of the suburbs. How concerned are you about that dynamic?

Well, look, you know, it has to go to the fact that he ran on a platform of really anger and fear. That’s, the typical Republican playbook, and it happened to resonate with far too many voters who are angry and have good reason to be angry, whether it’s economic issues that anger them or cultural, social issues that anger them. And you know, they’re fed up, and so they voted for him. And as a party, we have to listen carefully and understand what it is that voters were trying to tell us and we’ve got to make some changes.

I know part of your job is to project optimism for Democrats’ chances and performance and so on. But were you very surprised by what you saw Tuesday?

Yes. Yes, I was. I’m not going to make any bones about it. I’m surprised about it in my own county. I’m surprised about it in New York state, and I was surprised about it in our country, I just…I listened to Donald Trump. I listened to some of those rallies. I saw what he had to say. Never mind what people around him were saying, you know, at Madison Square Garden. And for me, I listened to those things and to the threats he makes to have this mass deportation of non-citizens and sometimes citizens. And he talks about, you know, Haitians taking people’s pets and eating them and all of that business. And I just could not imagine that a majority of American voters, certainly in our state and my county, in particular, and of course, across the country, would feel that’s someone they want to put back in the Oval Office, and yet they just did it. So for me, I have to, you know, recalibrate some of my thinking, not that I have to agree with what he has to say, but I have to understand that there are voters who are willing to discount things that are so important to me because they’ve got issues that are more important to them.

Do you think that there was any universe in which Joe Biden would have overperformed what Vice President Harris did in the election?

Hard for me to predict that, honestly, and I’ve given that some thought and I can’t come up with an answer to that. I can go both ways on that one. First of all, I think Joe Biden did a great job as president. I mean, I think that the economic condition he leaves the country in… after remember where we started off? You know, worrying about going into a deep recession, coming out of COVID, getting people vaccinated, and the CHIPS Act and American Rescue Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, all of those things, the infrastructure bill, $1.2 trillion going into building up our infrastructure across this country. I think these are fabulous things that he did. I think that perhaps where he could have done better, perhaps was in communicating. People didn’t understand, you know, why there was inflation, and that we would get through inflation. You know, why that was happening to all of us. And I think that that lack of understanding gave an opening for Trump. Now, could he have engaged in the campaign to communicate that to voters? I don’t know. It’s really hard to predict, and again, one of the hits on him, unfortunately, is people who may agree with what I just said, would also agree that he just came across as being too old, and that that, I think, was a liability that was hard for him to overcome.

Do you think that Vice President Harris could run for the White House again?

Well, you know, in this this country anything’s possible. I think is possible. I didn’t think Donald Trump could run for the White House again, so I’m sure I’m going to say that she can’t. You know, I like her an awful lot. I think she did a great job in this campaign. It was near flawless. And, you know, certainly that’s an option for her. But I think as a party moving forward, as we must, we’ve got to take a look at really what it is that, you know, we feel defines us. And we need to articulate that in a way that is attractive to more voters and who the vehicle is to best deliver that message? You know, we’ve got a good period of time, at least two and a half to three years, to begin figuring that out.

It’s going to be, in all likelihood, a pretty grim time for your party in Washington. So here’s a question for you: who’s the leader of the national Democratic Party right now?

Well, I mean, once Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leave Washington, then I would say to you that you’ve got Leader Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are going to be the leaders of our party and have quite a lot to say about it. That doesn’t mean they’re the only voices. You’re going to be hearing a lot of voices. You’re going to be hearing a lot of opinions and a lot of ideas for how we can, you know, make our party once again the predominant party for a majority of voters in this country. And we got work to do, and we’re working on it, and we’ll get there. You know, look, politics is a cyclical business, and you never should assume, if you’re on top, that you’re going to stay there, because you never do, and you never should assume if you’re on the short end of it that you’re going to stay there either, because if you play your cards right and you’re smart about it, you’re back on top before you know it, and I think that’s what we’ll see with the Democratic Party. But to get there, we better smarten up and better articulate a message that is about bringing back the American Dream for everyone and opportunity, making sure that people in in our working class think that they’re getting a fair deal and that we’re paying attention. And unfortunately, I don’t think they think that too many times with our party and that we’re upholding common sense. You know, we get ourselves into these discussions and arguments about things that really are so minute in the real world, but yet, people just aren’t attracted to those kinds of things and it turns them off…

Like culture issues?

Yeah, like culture issues, yeah. And it’s not that they’re not important. It’s not that, you know, we shouldn’t be clear that everybody deserves respect in this country. But you know, where’s our focus? What are we talking about? And we have to be able to shoot straight with people and come, come at it in a common sense way. We’ve got to become to them more moderate, which is what I’ve been arguing for years. We are a party of moderates. You know, you’ve got a small group that are on the more extreme side of our party, and their voices are loud, and the Republicans amplify those voices and try to make voters believe that we’re a party that’s fairly radical, which is just not true. You know, I ask them to take a look at their party, and you know, you could see that on their fringe, boy, they’ve got some, some real ugly things to look at. But it seems to me, the voters get distracted, and they don’t seem to care about that, but they have to.

Let’s wrap up by talking about where we started this conversation, which was back in New York. You know, Governor Hochul and the state party put a lot of attention into winning back those House seats, as you look at the data and knowing how close, relatively, Congressman Zeldin got to defeating Hochul last time, what’s your outlook for her reelection chances a couple years from now?

Well, I think that much depends upon what the governor does between now and then, what’s going on in the world, the political environment. A lot has to do with whether, you know, voters like what they see in the Trump administration or they don’t, because national stuff does impact the local and the statewide, and so there are a lot of things that go into it. I believe this governor is doing a great job. I think she’s going to be spending the next year, year and a half, making sure that voters understand what her governorship is all about. She was instrumental in building up the Democratic Party, putting together the coordinated campaign, raising the moneys for the coordinated campaign so that we could achieve what we did in this past election. And she deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that, but she hasn’t been getting the credit for some of the things governmentally that she’s been doing, because I don’t know that voters really see her for what she is. She’s been the recipient of a huge onslaught of millions, actually tens of millions of dollars in advertising against her from one group or another over the time that she’s been in office, since being elected. And she pays a price for that politically, and she’s got to now present herself to the voters so that they can see who Kathy Hochul is, what Kathy Hochul stands for, and what her vision for New York state is all about. And I think when she does that, which she will, voters are going to respond in kind, and she’ll be reelected.

Image: Jay Jacobs is the Chair of the New York State Democratic Committee (Credit: New York State Democratic Party)