Open season on open seats

Daily Point

Open Congressional Seat: Day 58

State Assemb. Andrew Garbarino put the first numbers on the scoreboard in the Republican primary to replace Rep. Pete King in the 2nd Congressional District — an NY race closely watched even from the White House. 

Garbarino’s year-end fundraising numbers were first to go public among the GOP hopefuls, and they showed a hefty $217,975 — all from December alone.

Other candidates have until Jan. 31 to file their numbers, and there are other tea leaves to read in the filings beyond the topline.

Garbarino’s haul, for example, had little in the way of small-dollar donors who can indicate grassroots enthusiasm. The sum was boosted by large contributions from family members — like his father, Islip Town Republican Committee chairman William Garbarino — Islip officials and businesspeople, and individuals whose businesses have been represented by the Garbarino family's law practice, like LI beer distributor Clare Rose, Inc.

And Garbarino, the ranking minority member of the Assembly Committee on Insurance, also received big contributions from members of the insurance industry.

Garbarino told The Point those insurance contributions were mostly from local family friends, and that he was focused on “friends, family and business associates” in this first round, while he would seek out wider donations later on.

Last cycle, Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley spent nearly $2 million to try to win the seat, and King spent more than $3 million successfully defending it. 

This year’s Republican field includes Garbarino, Assemb. Mike LiPetri, Republican Suffolk County Board of Elections commissioner and Navy vet Nick LaLota, and Islip Town Board member and former News12 anchor Trish Bergin, all of whom have filed paperwork to run. Former Rep. Rick Lazio hasn’t but has reportedly mulled an entry, too. So it’s shaping up to be a hot race again, one watched even at the highest levels. 

Former Suffolk County Republican leader John Jay LaValle tells The Point that President Donald Trump asked him about the race while he was at an event over New Year’s weekend at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was briefly floated as a candidate, too, but she has demurred. 

“He said, ‘John, we have to win that seat,’ ” recalled LaValle, now a Trump media surrogate and member of the Trump campaign’s national finance team. 

“I told him we’ll do everything we can,” LaValle said.

—Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Talking Point

Residency: Round 2!

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo hasn’t called a special election for the 12th District Assembly seat Republican Andrew Raia recently vacated, but Democrats are rumbling again in Huntington. It’s gotten so bad that Suffolk County Democratic Chair Richard Schaffer is consulting with attorneys Tuesday, and that call could go a long way toward determining who will represent Democrats. 

Otherwise, it may be up to a judge, again.

In 2018, Democrat Michael Marcantonio was getting primed to run a spirited campaign against longtime incumbent Raia for the Assembly seat, which runs from Northport south to Deer Park. But Marcantonio, who lives in Northport and practices law in Manhattan, was knocked off the ballot because he failed to meet the requirement that he had resided in New York for at least five years. Marcantonio attended Duke University Law School and voted in North Carolina in 2012 and 2014, graduating in December 2015, and said in a televised interview that he moved back in February of 2016.

Republicans also contended that he lived in Manhattan, which he said was not the case. Candidates must have lived in the district for 12 months to be eligible. 

When Marcantonio was knocked off the ballot, Huntington attorney Avrum Rosen stepped into the race late and into a battle that might have been unwinnable for any Democrat anyway, and lost to Raia. But now Raia is gone, having won the job his mother held for nearly four decades, Huntington Town clerk. 

Marcantonio, a vocal thorn in LIPA’s side over the issue of property taxes at the Northport Power Plant, has said he’d seek the seat again. Rosen also says he wants a shot at the race again. 

But the residency battle is rearing its head anew. Rosen says Marcantonio still isn’t eligible. Marcantonio swears he is. And Schaffer, who had originally tried to stay out of it, is now stepping in. In a special election, Democratic committee members, rather than primary voters, pick the party designee.

Both Marcantonio and Rosen say they intend to seek the seat both in the special election and in the general in November, regardless of what happens now. 

If Marcantonio prevails now, though, that won’t be the end of the residency question. Republicans say they will sue to knock Marcantonio off the ballot if the party designates him, hoping to repeat both the judicial and electoral results of 2018. 

—Lane Filler @lanefiller

Pencil Point

By the book 

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Final Point

Deval Patrick’s time?

The main question that might be asked about Deval Patrick’s 2020 candidacy concerns timing. 

Why did the former Massachusetts governor wait so long to throw his hat in the ring? And why did he do it, anyway? 

Some answers to both of those can be found in his 2011 book, “A Reason to Believe,” where the parallels to Barack Obama and his “Dreams from My Father” are hard to miss. Both men write movingly about their black heritage, their lives in Chicago (Patrick actually grew up there, in the shadow of the Robert Taylor Homes), their trips to Africa, their absent fathers, and their upbeat outlook despite racial prejudice. Even the golden color schemes of their covers are similar. 

The politicians cross paths and exchange advice at various times, with Obama famously borrowing some Patrick rhetoric for a 2008 speech. Patrick achieved his own historic milestone as Massachusetts’ first African American governor. Naturally Patrick might look out on the voter landscape and be optimistic. 

But the original Obama magic came before shifts that may have changed the Democratic primary dynamic. Patrick’s book displays moments of anger about racism, but mostly there’s an almost saintly level of forbearance. He is relatively unperturbed when a high school teacher clumsily calls him a racial slur. Patrick’s ascent from poverty to a fancy New England prep school meant that he could quickly “out-WASP the WASPs.”

This leads to interesting descriptions of the differences between his working class childhood and the wealth he amassed working for places like Texaco and Bain Capital. Now he buys gallons of orange juice even if he doesn’t drink them, because orange juice was such a scarcity as a kid. 

That all makes for a fascinating American story but not one that has gotten much traction in the Democratic primary.

—Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano