Zeldin gets a little help from his friends

Daily Point

Pro-Trump PAC backs Zeldin

New York’s 1st Congressional District was flooded with $350,000 from the Great America PAC this week, as first reported by WNYC.

The pro-Trump super PAC went big to help GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, spending $300,000 on TV and online advertising and $50,000 on radio advertising.

The flood of cash is not an outlier in the district. Investigative website Sludge reported this week that committees affiliated with labor union SEIU have spent close to $621,000 in support of Zeldin’s opponent, Democrat Perry Gershon.

But the last-minute GOP spending may indicate some new urgency in what national observers have seen as a relatively solid Republican district. (When asked about the buy, a Zeldin spokesman said the incumbent is going to win.)

The spending also represents another overlap between Zeldin and Trump.

The PAC has rolled out millions of dollars in independent expenditures for Trump and was one of his major sources of support in 2016. Since 2017, Great America has continued supporting Trump, as well as doling out lesser sums to House and Senate candidates, some of whom lost their primaries: Roy Moore of Alabama, Kelli Ward of Arizona and Mike Kennedy of Utah.

The PAC also spent against California Rep. Maxine Waters, whom Zeldin loves to criticize.

The PAC’s two most recent filings on the Federal Election Commission website this week show only two candidates getting its support: Trump and Zeldin.

Mark Chiusano

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Final Point

'God bless Peter King'

Rep. Peter King likes to burnish a bipartisan reputation by saying on the campaign trail that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo likes him.

King often says that Cuomo has intoned, “God bless Peter King.”

Cuomo did in fact say something like that in a 2017 Fox Business interview when he was talking about the debate over the soon-to-be-passed tax bill, which King opposed. “Peter King, God bless him, stood up and told the truth, you’re raising taxes on New Yorkers,” Cuomo said.

But these days, when Democratic enthusiasm seems to be running high in New York, Cuomo sounds a little different. He has endorsed King’s Democratic challenger, Liuba Grechen Shirley.

How much is Cuomo supporting Grechen Shirley, or other Democratic candidates for Congress and State Senate, given his past work with King and past periods of comity with Senate Republicans, especially those on Long Island?

That’s part of what we cover on Episode 5 of “The Bellwether” on Cuomo and Rich Schaffer, the Suffolk County Democratic leader, a behind-the-scenes power broker who might have an effect on two key Long Island congressional races.

Tune in to hear Schaffer talk about his philosophy of what it means to be a Democrat and how he’s a “homebody.” Pictures of him and Suffolk County Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory ended up in King’s promotional materials, but Schaffer says he’s working for Democratic challengers, donating to them and getting the party to help.

Cuomo’s team also points to support like paying for field staff in battleground districts including Long Island, as well as $2,700 from a federal PAC and a recent fundraiser for Grechen Shirley that raised “tens of thousands of dollars,” according to a Cuomo campaign spokeswoman.

Inevitably, some skeptical political observers are still parsing Cuomo’s words to gauge support, such as after the August Grechen Shirley endorsement in which he lightly criticized King for not being able to stick up for New Yorkers. That fundraiser, at a private residence, was out of King’s district.

Marc Chiusano

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Pencil Point

Erased

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Talking Point

Sports-betting revenues are not enough

During the Newsday editorial board’s endorsement interviews, many candidates from both parties had ambitions for the money that could be raised by taxes and fees on legalized sports betting. Some favor lowering property taxes with the windfall; others want to increase education spending.

But at a meeting Monday with the editorial board and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, state budget director Robert Mujica said the money won’t be enough to move the needle on something as big as education spending or property tax reduction. And an analysis of revenue in states where sports betting has been legalized released by the Pew Charitable Trusts Tuesday seems to support him.

“The money that’s going to come in is negligible,” Mujica said. “Have you seen these numbers from New Jersey, $400 million, $500 million? They’ve raised $4 million in tax . . . And we spend $25 billion on education.”

Pew looked at several states that quickly legalized sports gambling after the Supreme Court ruled they could in May, and the numbers suggest Mujica is likely right, although there is a huge variance in taxes and fees states are charging.

Fees for bookmaking licenses have ranged from $100,000 every five years in West Virginia to a (proposed) $10 million license fee in Pennsylvania. Wagering in Delaware is taxed at 6.75 percent of profit. Rhode Island takes 51 percent of net gambling revenue. New Jersey takes 8.5 percent to 14.25 percent of profit, depending on where a bet is placed. But the real problem is that the profit is less than people might think.

Sports betting is traditionally one of the lowest-profit gambles per dollar and per hour for the operator. Each standard $100 football bet, for instance, would net the bookie $5 on average and entertain the customer for three hours. So a state that took 10 percent of gambling profits would get 50 cents on that bet, and $5 million for every $1 billion wagered.

Estimates are all over the map, but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that with full implementation, New York might see $15 billion wagered legally each year and reap $75 million. That’s not going to help taxpayers significantly. But neither is it so little that Cuomo would consider forgoing legalization and letting New Jersey and other neighboring states keep the change.

Lane Filler