The women before Nikki

Daily Point

Company for Trump

Nikki Haley’s Tuesday presidential launch video concluded with the line that when you kick back at bullies, “it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”

It was one of the few nods to her gender and the way it makes her a noteworthy candidate for 2024, historically speaking.

She becomes only the fifth prominent Republican woman candidate for president, according to a tally by Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, whose criteria includes markers such as being named in national polls, becoming eligible for federal matching funds, achieving major historical firsts, or appearing on the general election ballot in most states.

The four other GOP women who meet CAWP’s definitions are Margaret Chase Smith, who received Republican primary votes in multiple states in the 1964 campaign; Elizabeth Dole, who served in three GOP administrations and explored a 2000 run but dropped out before the first primary; Michele Bachmann, who in 2011 was the first woman to win the Iowa Straw Poll; and Carly Fiorina, a businesswoman and constant on the 2016 debate stage who competed in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

Haley, the former ambassador to the U.N., brings that number up to five, which is still less than the six Democratic women who sought the nomination in 2020 alone. CAWP counts 12 Democratic women total who made “significant efforts” toward the Democratic nomination for president throughout American history — including Hillary Clinton, who became the 2016 nominee.

Haley, whose announcement video declared the need for a “new generation of leadership,” does represent one full first, according to the CAWP tallies: The former South Carolina governor would be the first woman governor, current or former, to enter a presidential primary.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Talking Point

LI smokers: Less Kool?

Under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pending budget proposal, the tax on a pack of cigarettes would rise to $5.35 from the nation’s highest of $4.35. Another, bigger change is requested for the budget: an outright ban on the sale of menthol flavored brands, which are deemed to be more dangerous and more likely to be promoted in minority communities.

The New York Association of Convenience Stores is fighting the menthol ban by arguing it would only drive sales of the product underground. Amid that dispute, the association is citing figures based on sales tax revenues that suggest a notable regional variation in the impact of a “flavored cigarette” ban.

On Long Island, the percentage of menthol sales compared to all cigarette sales is lower than in New York City, the numbers for fiscal year 2022 show.

Of 14,325,131 packs sold in Nassau County by 485 retail stores, the menthol share was 36%.

In Suffolk County, of 19,872,490 cigarette packs sold in 636 stores, the menthol share was 37%.

Compare that to the Bronx — where of 514,569 packs reported sold, in 41 retail stores, a glaring 57% were menthol. In Brooklyn, it was 40%, Manhattan 36%, Queens 41%, and Staten Island 42%. Collectively, across New York City, 41% were menthol.

According to New York State survey numbers collected five years ago, 52% of all adult smokers smoke menthols. But among minority groups, the survey found the proportion dramatically higher — a stark 86% among Blacks and 72% among Hispanics.

So demographics would seem to have something to do with the county-by-county variance in the percentage of menthol purchasers. Menthol brands have clearly targeted their competitive advertising in minority neighborhoods for years.

Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, has been front-and-center supporting the ban. But merchants and others such as the Tax Foundation are saying menthol smokers will simply purchase them in the existing underground economy, sacrificing state tax revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. There already is a sizable underground economy for smokes.

Hochul acknowledges a menthol ban could cost the state $255 million in tax revenue in 2025, but the governor says the goal is to reduce youth smoking and prevent death and disease.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Pencil Point

Top gun targets

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Final Point

GOPer with Santos ties now in the humor business

The Babylon Bee is an Onion-like satirical website — one that’s promoted as conservative and Christian. It launched in 2016. The name refers to biblical Babylon, which was said to be destroyed by its own sins, and not to the town or village in Suffolk County. The Bee carries the motto: “Fake news you can trust.”

The site, much like other entertainment venues, has been dunking on Rep. George Santos, whose chronic deceptions inspire eclectic lampooning. Currently, the site features “Seven more incredible true stories about George Santos,” including his simultaneous marriage to Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, his .395 batting average for the Cubs, and how he was the Dalai Lama for a brief period after college.

The news nugget here is that Gavin Wax, an Upper East Sider who has lived in Merrick, Bellmore and Lynbrook, in December became the Babylon Bee’s full-time vice president for marketing. Wax also remains president of the New York Young Republican Club, which in recent years has served as a forum for voices on the far right.

Santos has belonged to the club for several years.

Reached by The Point, Wax confirmed his marketing role at the Bee, but stressed that he’s not involved in developing or editing its content. On the real-life Santos front, Wax said the CD3 GOP incumbent is still a member of the Manhattan-based NYYRC. Wax, who last year contributed $500 to the Santos campaign, said the club has not called on the rookie rep to resign, but that “we are watching any new developments as they unfold.”

As reported before, Viswanag Burra, the GOP organization’s executive secretary, has become the operations director in Santos’ Washington office. Last June, Wax chafed with state Republicans when he became instrumental in getting the Assembly’s district maps ordered redrawn for the 2024 cycle, a redo that is now underway in the Independent Redistricting Commission. Before Gavin and non-Republican co-plaintiffs sued, mainstream GOP strategists had chosen not to challenge that map along with the congressional and State Senate plans.

Last week, the Bee’s tweaking of Santos’ fake credentials and biography included an angle that might have escaped writers at the Onion or SNL. It treated Sen. Mitt Romney’s dressing-down of the Long Island congressman before the State of the Union speech this way: “Romney attacks George Santos: ‘There’s only room for one fake Republican in Congress.’”

— Dan Janison @Danjanison