Prime thoughts

Daily Point

What we’re watching tonight

With multiple contested primaries in both parties across Long Island and around New York, here’s what we’ll be watching as results are tallied.

• In CD1, can Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia rally the troops for Nick LaLota, a regular in Suffolk politics and the party’s endorsed candidate, who currently lives in another district? That would mean fending off challenges from former Brookhaven deputy supervisor Anthony Figliola, who is garnering support from anti-vax groups and others, and newcomer Michelle Bond, the head of a crypto trade group who is supported by the Long Island Loud Majority and crypto-adjacent super PAC money. Bond, who could benefit from a bigger turnout, has accused LaLota of lacking MAGA fealty.
• In CD2, will first-term Rep. Andrew Garbarino survive an offensive from his right after defying President Donald Trump on a few key occasions, including voting for a bipartisan infrastructure bill and for routine certification of the 2020 election? If Garbarino loses, a big victory lap will be taken by the Long Island Loud Majority which is all in for Robert Cornicelli, who worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency with retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a National Security adviser in the Trump Administration. Trump did not endorse in the race.
• In CD3, where five Democrats are on the ballot, turnout was projected at about 8%, party officials said. That could help the front-runners: Robert Zimmerman had his team ringing doorbells while Josh Lafazan’s camp was working the phone to arm twist that possible winning vote into casting a ballot.

Both Democratic Party leaders in Nassau and Republican Party leaders in Suffolk face plenty of agita as the results come in. If Garbarino loses, it will mean the early ouster of an incumbent GOP House member on Garcia’s watch, a high-profile embarrassment for the organization. In Nassau, county chair Jay Jacobs supported Zimmerman in CD3 and Malverne Mayor Keith Corbett in CD4 over former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen. If his favorites lose, Jacobs could face more dissent locally.

Insider assessments will focus on why certain voters were inspired to come out when others were not. Jacobs could be asked on Wednesday why his party would stay away in droves after last year’s weak Democratic turnout allowed Republicans to sweep countrywide offices.

And could a lack of adrenaline in November cost Nassau Democrats congressional and State Senate seats they now hold? The winner of the CD3 primary, seeking to succeed Rep. Tom Suozzi, faces George Santos on the GOP line, and the Democratic winner in CD4 may face a tougher time against Republican Anthony D’Esposito in the bid to succeed Rep. Kathleen Rice. Nassau State Senate seats held currently by Democrat Anna Kaplan and — until recently — by Democrat Todd Kaminsky are also potential sore spots for the party.

Back in Suffolk, former State Sen. Monica Martinez is battling Assemb. Phil Ramos for the Democratic nod in SD4. Making that race more interesting: Ramos and Martinez both have other potential paths to Albany. If Ramos loses the senate primary, he can run for his current Assembly seat. Martinez, meanwhile, has the Working Families Party nomination for the Senate seat in November — yet the WFP last week endorsed Ramos in the Democratic primary. In a letter to supporters Monday, Martinez emphasized the possibility that she could have both lines heading into November.

“Primaries can be particularly rough because you sometimes find yourself fighting against people you have worked with in the past and will work with in the future,” Martinez wrote. “I will be proud to run on the Democrat line for the State Senate this November, in addition to the Working Families line which I already have, and bring people together.”

Her note doesn’t make it clear whether Martinez would continue the fight for the senate on the WFP line, if she loses the Democratic primary.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano, Dan Janison @Danjanison, Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall and Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli

Talking Point

Fresh territory

One underappreciated factor in the fierce Democratic primary for CD3: the borough of Queens.

While all the contenders are based on Long Island, a sizable chunk of the district’s registered voters live across the city border: 63,527 out of 228,153 total, more than 25%. That’s up on both a raw and percentage basis from last cycle, before redistricting. When Tom Suozzi defended the seat in a 2020 primary, there were just 44,000 registered Democrats in the Queens section, around 20% of the total.

The new, post-census lines took away all of the district’s Suffolk section, mostly the Town of Huntington, and added parts of northeast Queens and Queens Village, and did not subtract any Queens neighborhoods.

Some of the candidates are acting accordingly. Democratic National Committee member and PR executive Robert Zimmerman, playing the insider’s game, rolled out endorsements from lots of locals, including Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, the county party, and both Greg Meeks and Grace Meng, the Queens-based members of Congress who used to represent those new slivers of CD3. A super PAC supporting Nassau Legis. Josh Lafazan bought a lot of advertising in the Queens part of the district. In general, these campaigns and that of former North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman and businesswoman Reema Rasool say they have focused on field operations across the border, the relative strength of which remains to be seen.

The bulk of the new voters added to the district are hardly radical leftists. In the relatively diverse Queens Village section carved out of Meeks’ district, voters leaned toward Eric Adams in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary. They voted solidly for Joe Biden in the 2020 general, though less so than voters in other nearby parts of Queens like Jamaica or Hollis, according to an analysis of the voting histories of the new parts of CD3 prepared for The Point by Steven Romalewski from the Center for Urban Research at the CUNY Graduate Center.

In the northeast portion cut from Meng’s district, running from Bayside toward Flushing, a mix of largely white and Asian American voters voted moderately for Joe Biden in 2020 or leaned toward Donald Trump. In the mayoral primary that year, that portion logged a preference for Andrew Yang and also mayoral runner-up, Kathryn Garcia.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Missing Fauci

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Final Point

An LI connection

Despite the action in Long Island’s contested congressional primaries, local political junkies can be forgiven for some envy about the wild clown-car competitions in NYC.

There’s CD10, an open seat, which drew everyone and their mother: former Mayor Bill de Blasio (now out), Hudson Valley Rep. Mondaire Jones, Nixon-era Rep. Liz Holtzman, impeachment attorney Dan Goldman, and rising Manhattan Democratic stars Carlina Rivera and Yuh-Line Niou, to name just a few.

And then there’s CD12, which smooshed two venerable Manhattan incumbents — Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler — into the same district, pitting East Side against West Side, with three-time congressional challenger and attorney Suraj Patel looking to pull off an upset.

In Patel, Long Island has at least one obscure connection to the NYC primary hullabaloo. Public records indicate that the 38-year-old registered to vote with an East Hampton address in June of 2017. That was around when his brother, Viral Patel, changed his own voter registration to Suffolk County and met with county Democratic chairman Rich Schaffer to talk about running in CD1.

Viral, who Newsday reported at the time was a Stony Brook University emergency medicine physician, instead ended up winning a Democratic county committee seat in East Hampton.

By mid-September, Suraj Patel had changed his voter registration to Manhattan, election records show. He ran his first primary against Maloney in 2018, when he lost but famously used profiles on dating apps to try to reach voters. He tried again in 2020 and came within a hair of taking Maloney down.

Perhaps third time’s the charm, though polling data suggests Nadler could be pulling ahead in CD12. There’s always East Hampton.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano