Politics
‘Just get in and stir sh-t up’ — Lawler as chaos agent
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 13
OPERATIVES GONNA OPERATE: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler isn’t facing a primary challenge for his seat — but he’s got his hands full with the one across the aisle anyway.
The GOP member of Congress spent the last few days meddling in the crowded Democratic primary for his seat — sending covert text messages that some say were designed to look like they’re from Democrats and deploying his campaign manager to challenge the signatures of a lefty Democratic candidate.
In the meantime, Lawler — who also serves as the Rockland County Republican Chair — held a rally Sunday to launch his own campaign.
“This is him. This is his deviousness,” Putnam County Democratic Chair Jennifer Colamonico said of Lawler’s strategy. “Just get in and stir shit up.”
Last week, a blast text message reached dozens of Democratic voters in NY-17 highlighting how one Democrat in the race was allegedly attacking the other by challenging their signatures to get on the ballot.
“Kathleen Kahng, a Conley campaign surrogate and former Putnam County legislative candidate, filed objections to the petitions of two Democrats competing in the June primary,” the message read, referencing Army vet Cait Conley, who is running for Lawler’s seat as a Democrat. “Not a concerned voter. A Conley insider. This isn’t democracy. It’s field-clearing.”
The text — which was sent out on the night of the Democratic debate in the district — included a picture of Conley and Kahng and the words “DC INSIDER KICKING LOCAL CANDIDATES OFF BALLOT.”
It didn’t say who it was from, but when recipients texted back “help,” a second text popped up: “Mike Lawler: For help, reach out to mike@lawlerforcongress.com. To opt-out, reply STOP.”
Lawler’s campaign declined to comment on the blast text. But it’s his latest barrage into the competitive Democratic primary as he’s likely looking at tougher odds at reelection than in 2024, after the Cook Political Report moved its rating of the district from “Leans Republican” to “toss-up.”
Lawler, a former campaign manager, lobbyist and political strategy firm founder, has long been recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike for his shrewd political abilities and tireless campaigning. Two years ago, he was one of the only House Republicans to win reelection in a district that voted for Kamala Harris for president by less than a one-point margin.
In that election, he was also accused by the Working Families Party of being the mastermind who encouraged a “ghost candidate” to run on the lefty third-party’s ballot line. The candidate — who was almost never seen in public — was running in an apparent attempt to siphon votes from former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones. Last year, on Lawler’s home turf, a similar strategy appears to have played out in races for town council.
This year, no mysterious candidates will be on the ballot for Congress in NY-17 from the Working Families Party, filings show. However, board of elections filings show Lawler’s campaign manager, Ciro Riccardi, filed preliminary paperwork to contest Democratic Rep. Effie Phillips-Staley’s ballot access signatures.
“Lawler is wasting everyone’s time with frivolous political games that will go nowhere,” Phillips-Staley spokesperson John Tomlin said in a statement. “Clearly Effie’s momentum is making him nervous and he’s terrified to face her in November.”
Riccardi responded in a statement saying that Phillips-Staley’s signatures were “rife with fraud and errors” but did not identify what those errors were. Team Lawler plans to file a “specific objection” by tomorrow, which will reveal more details.
He also said that Lawler “will be happy to face whoever survives this clown show in November.”
“Democrats whining about our campaign defining our opponents are the same ones trying to rig their own primary,” Riccardi said. “We’re not hiding anything.”
In the meantime, Lawler’s mass text about Democrats filing preliminary challenges to other candidates’ petitions appears to have successfully struck a nerve.
When Playbook reached out to Putnam County Democratic Vice Chair Kathleen Kahng — the person who objected to Democratic candidate Mike Sacks and John Cappello’s petitions — she referred Colamonico, the Putnam County chair, back to us for comment.
Colamonico told us her party won’t follow through with its initial objections to the two Democratic candidates’ petitions and dismissed the move as “regular order committee business, that’s all.”
Conley’s campaign refused to answer questions about whether Kahng was acting on their behalf to challenge her opponents’ petitions. And Suzanne Berger, the Westchester Democratic chair, told Playbook she and the other Democratic county chairs talked to each other about “doing our due diligence” in advance of Colamonico making the challenge.
“The more candidates there are in a race, the less ability there is to focus on the candidates that are more likely to win the primary,” Berger said.
Sacks, whose petitions were challenged, didn’t like that.
“I find that deeply anti-Democratic,” Sacks said. “It goes further to the deep dissatisfaction that everyday Democratic voters have here with our party leadership. — Jason Beeferman
From the Capitol
SHED A TIER: The labor-led drive to overhaul the Tier 6 pension category is steamrolling through the state Capitol — with few officials disagreeing with powerful unions seeking to lower the retirement age and reduce employee contributions.
It’s a disheartening development for Republican Assemblymember Michael Fitzpatrick, a Long Island lawmaker who is perhaps the most vocal and rare opponent to changing the pension.
“You now, in a sense, have a professional Legislature,” Fitzpatrick said in an interview. “That’s right where the unions want us. You’re asking the legislators to vote against their own financial best interest. So who is going to say no to the alphabet soup of unions when, if I lose, I’m out of the pension system.”
Read more from Blue Light News Pro’s Nick Reisman.
TRAVELING SEPARATELY: New York lawmakers passed a third temporary stopgap spending bill Monday afternoon as deadlock sets in over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to overhaul the state’s car insurance laws.
The state budget is now more than two weeks late as the governor and Democratic-led Legislature remain at odds over a host of issues, including her push to weaken a 2019 climate law and opposition to raising taxes.
But the Hochul-backed car insurance proposals have emerged as a major sticking point — with lawmakers beginning to publicly grumble that the governor is not willing to negotiate on the subject.
“It’s a one-way street on the auto insurance issue,” Senate Deputy Leader Mike Gianaris said.
Read more from Blue Light News Pro’s Bill Mahoney and Nick Reisman.
FROM CITY HALL
MAMDANI AND ZUCMAN’S TAX DAY: The deadline to file income taxes is Wednesday, and to commemorate the occasion, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, top French economist Gabriel Zucman and Nobel prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz will host a joint conference on “confronting global inequality” at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.
Mamdani and Zucman are both advocating for a 2 percent tax on the ultra-rich, but with some major differences. While Mamdani is calling for a 2 percent tax increase on New Yorkers earning more $1 million per year, Zucman wants rich households to pay at least 2 percent of the value of all their assets in taxes every year.
In 2024, during the Brazilian G20 presidency, Zucman pitched a global version of his tax, targeting the world’s billionaires. A national version of the “Zucman tax” dominated the French political debate last year, but it has not been implemented. Zucman, though, remains confident that sooner or later his dream will come true. Mamdani, Zucman and Stiglitz are expected to also spell out their ideas in a joint op-ed. — Giorgio Leali and Anthony Lattier
PRIDE FLAG FLIES: The Trump administration is agreeing to fly a pride flag at Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village after civil rights groups sued the federal government following the flag’s sudden removal in February.
“We fought the Trump administration — and we won,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. “The Trump administration has blinked and backed down from its contemptuous attempt to erase American history.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration quietly removed the flag after it issued a memo mandating that “only the U.S. Flag, flags of the [Department of the Interior], and the POW/MIA flag will be flown” by the National Park Service. Groups like The Gilbert Baker Foundation, Village Preservation and EQNY Fund Inc. sued to say the flag’s removal was an “arbitrary and capricious action.”
Today’s agreement settles that suit. — Jason Beeferman
IN OTHER NEWS
— MISS DIRECTION: Council Member Farrah Louis directed $450,000 to BHRAGS Home Care, a Brooklyn nonprofit currently under a federal corruption investigation. (Gothamist)
— PARK, MEET PLAZA: Mamdani is proposing to shut down a hazardous roadway at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza in the hopes of restoring the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch as a direct gateway to Prospect Park. (The New York Times)
— TOUGH CROWD: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler faced a hostile audience at his latest town hall in Putnam County, where residents pressed him on his support of the Trump administration and the ongoing war in Iran. (Lohud)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here
President Donald Trump is asking voters to “pretend” he is on the ballot. That might backfire.
New results from The POLITICO Poll show that Democratic midterm voters are more motivated to oppose the president than Republican voters are to support him. Many Republican voters also aren’t looking for blind loyalty to Trump in the midterms: Half say they’d rather their local candidate aim to win, even if it means speaking out against the president.
It’s not uncommon for voters in the party out of power to be more motivated in a midterm year. But the lopsided findings are an ominous sign for Trump, who has fundamentally reshaped the GOP over the past decade and has once again staked his brand — and political capital — on delivering wins for Republicans in November.
With less than two weeks before the election, the poll suggests Republicans are pragmatic, and care more about preventing a blue wave than standing by Trump. And in a year when voter frustration over high pricesappears poised to play a major role, that distinction could prove consequential.
The poll, conducted by London-based firm PF Global, reveals the extent to which frustration with Trump is driving Democrats: Nearly half of Democratic midterm voters say they will be voting “mainly to oppose President Trump,” compared to just 38% of Republican voters who say they will be voting mainly to show support for Trump.
Instead, a plurality of Republican midterm voters — 48% — say their main motivation when casting a vote is to show support for a local candidate. Only 37% of Democratic voters agree.
“[Trump is] 100% motivating Democrats more than Republicans,” said Doug Heye, a longtime GOP strategist. “That may have been the case regardless, but it’s even more true with words like ‘diesel’ and ‘Iran’ now a part of everyday political discussion.”
Half of Republicans think candidates have a better chance of winning if they align themselves with Trump rather than breaking from him, compared to just 30% who believe candidates would have a better chance of winning if they break away.
But half of Republicans also accept their candidates speaking out against the president if that’s what they need to do to win their own election. That’s compared with 37% who say candidates should remain loyal to the president and support his agenda, even if it means risking a loss.
On top of that, majorities of Republican voters say Trump himself should give candidates some room to break with him on specific policy issues to win elections.
If it helps GOP candidates’ chances of winning, they said, the president should allow for disagreement on the speed of AI development, the cost of living, and whether the war in Iran was a good decision. That holds true for pluralities or even majorities of Trump 2024 voters who self-identify as part of the “MAGA” movement across each policy area, suggesting that even his most loyal voters want the president to let candidates distance themselves if it can help them win.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle.
RNC spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said “Blue Light News didn’t need to conduct a poll to know that Democrats are motivated by their hatred for President Trump and Republicans.” She added that the GOP is “running on actual accomplishments like cutting taxes and securing the border,” while saying Democrats have made “investigations, obstruction, and impeachment” their campaign platform.
Still, the tension is playing out in real time as Republican candidates locked in competitive races walk a tightrope between maintaining Trump’s support — and that of his MAGA base — without alienating critical moderate and independent voters. They’re especially under pressure as Trump hits the campaign trail in battlegrounds and red states, with several candidates having to quietly make calculations whether it will hurt them politically to appear next to him.
“I think Republicans … are stuck choosing which finger to cut off,” said a national GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the midterm landscape. “There is no good answer.”
In Iowa, where voter frustration over some of Trump’s marquee policies, including tariffs and rising costs stemming from the Iran war, has mounted, Republican candidates have sought to create some distance from the president. Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, the party’s Senate nominee, has said the war needs to be “brought to a successful and immediate end.” She also skipped a rally Vice President JD Vance held in the state last month.
Several other GOP candidates have also skipped Trump rallies in their home states, and many have grown increasingly wary of mentioning Trump in ads, including in red states that over the last few months have suddenly started to look competitive. In battleground Georgia, GOP gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson has carefully navigated his relationship with Trump, avoiding public breaks with the president on policy but still limiting direct references to him in campaign ads and on the debate stage.
“I don’t know that Trump coming [to Georgia] helps Republicans more so than it excites Democrats, especially in a wave election year,” said Jason Shepherd, a former Cobb County GOP chair who is supporting Jackson.
That leaves Republican candidates in a tricky position: Their voters are willing to accept breaking from Trump if victory is on the line, but voters — and candidates — won’t know what will cost them their race until it’s too late.
“There’s no reason to gratuitously attack the White House and make an enemy,” the national GOP operative said. “But the end game here is to get reelected, and if they have to get reelected, but the president’s annoyed at them for a period of time, they’ll get over it.”
While Republican candidates balance loyalty to Trump with the possibility of breaking away on certain issues, Democratic midterm voters remain highly motivated to vote against Trump’s agenda.
Even Trump’s endorsement of a Republican candidate seems to influence Democrats more than Republicans: Roughly 70% of Democratic midterm voters say his endorsement would make them less likely to support a candidate, compared to 55% of Republican midterm voters who say the endorsement would make them more likely to support a candidate.
“The midterm elections are about anger management and failed expectations,” said North Carolina based GOP strategist Paul Shumaker. “A lot of Republicans and swing voters feel like their expectations have not been met in helping address their economic concerns.”
Alec Hernández and Alisa Vasquez contributed to this story.
Can Angie Nixon prove Democrats can win in Florida?
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Democrats’ top Senate-focused super PAC will report raising $354 million through Oct. 14 — including roughly $88 million in the first two weeks of the month— as Democrats race to seize control of the upper chamber in the election’s closing weeks.
Senate Majority PAC shared their fundraising totals, which are higher than any previous cycle, with Blue Light News ahead of a Federal Election Commission deadline later Thursday. The super PAC had $32.7 million in the bank as of Oct. 14.
“This is already the strongest cycle in Senate Majority PAC’s history, and it’s arriving exactly when it counts,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We’re on the air across the battleground through Election Day, and every dollar is going toward beating price-gouging Republicans and winning back the Senate.”
That’s more than the $306 million SMP raised in the 2024 campaign cycle, according to FEC filings, its previous high.
SMP is still being outraised by the Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP’s top Senate super PAC, in large part thanks to billionaire Elon Musk and other Republican megadonors. Musk gave $158 million to SLF in the third quarter, according to its most recent FEC report, and the super PAC in turn sent that money to Texas’ Senate race in order to boost the scandal-plagued GOP nominee Ken Paxton.
As of Sept. 30, SLF had raised more than $423 million for the cycle.
Democrats have been able to offset much of Republicans’ super PAC cash advantage on the airwaves because of stronger candidate fundraising.
But Republicans still have the advantage of a favorable map — and more outside money — as they hope to maintain control of at least one chamber of Congress next month.
- John Barrasso to campaign with Ken Paxton
- Capitol agenda: Bennie Thompson warns about Dems’ late bet
- Poll: Trump wants the midterms to be about him. That could backfire.
- Can Angie Nixon prove Democrats can win in Florida?
- Elon Musk pours another $76 million into boosting Republicans
- Senate Democrats’ campaign arm takes out $15M loan
- Democrats’ top Senate super PAC has raised $354M this year
- Biotech investment is the new front in the U.S.-China trade fight
- A final farewell to NYC’s horse carriage industry
- Kevin McCarthy predicts GOP will lose House majority
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