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      Women Are on the March

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      Perhaps you missed the big news: In 2023, there will be a record-breaking 12 women serving as governors around the nation. Way over the previous record of … nine.And your reaction is:Hey, that’s 24 percent — not bad.That’s less than a quarter!Are any of them going to run for president? And does that mean we have to discuss Kamala Harris? Because I’m really not sure. …OK, one thing at a time, please. Just think of 2023 as the Year of Women Governors.Even so, we’ve still got a way to go. Eighteen states have yet to select a woman governor, ever. California! Pennsylvania! And Florida — really Florida, there’s a limit to how much time we’ve got to complain about you.New York elected a woman for the first time last month, a development that began when then-Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul was propelled into the job because of Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal. Sorry, Andrew, but history may well recall this as your final gift to New Yorkers.Arizona hasn’t gotten enough attention — electing Katie Hobbs as its fifth female governor kept it the national record-holder. Good work, guys! It was also one of the states with a woman-vs.-woman race, although being Arizona, it featured a crazy subplot. Kari Lake, the defeated Republican Trumpophile, is taking the whole thing to court.It’s important to admit that while the quantity of female governors expands, the quality is … varied. Current incumbents include the newly re-elected Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose attitude toward Covid vaccination has been, at best, deeply unenthusiastic. (Noem spent $5 million of pandemic relief funds on ads to promote tourism.)On the other side, there’s Michigan’s current governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who led the Democrats to a monster statewide sweep last month. She went through a lot to do it — remember when a group called Wolverine Watchmen plotted to kidnap her and put her on trial for treason?Our female governors, both incumbent and newly elected, have a wide ideological range, but it’s very possible they’ll still be more conscious of women’s issues — like child care and sexual assault — than would a group of men from similar political backgrounds.And abortion rights — although some, like Noem, are definitely not on that boat. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision mobilized female voters so much in the fall that you’d think we’d be seeing more women out there carrying the flag in the governors’ races.“It may well have come down too late to see candidacies emerge as a result,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, who’s hoping the surge will still be coming.If so, it’ll be the next chapter in a saga that goes back a century — the first two women ever elected governor won their jobs in 1925, in Wyoming and Texas.The Wyoming winner, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was the widow of the prior governor. When he died, his party nominated her to succeed him before she’d decided to run. She won anyhow and apparently liked the job. Ross ran for re-election and lost but went on to forge a successful career as director of the U.S. Mint. Wyoming, however, has never since chosen a woman as governor. Get a move on, Wyoming.The other woman who became governor a century ago was a little less, um, encouraging. Texas’ Miriam “Ma” Ferguson also succeeded her husband — who was, in this case, impeached. “Ma” basically vowed to carry on her husband’s not-totally-reputable practices. Elect her, she promised voters, and get “two for the price of one.” That, you may remember, is what Bill Clinton said when he ran for president in 1992 — pick him and get Hillary as well.It worked a lot better for the couple from Arkansas than it did for the couple in Texas. Ma Ferguson won, and voters got a governor who pardoned an average of 100 convicts a month. Most did not appear to be worthy of release on any basis other than cold cash. But hey, she was definitely carrying on a family tradition.The first woman elected governor in her own right was Ella Grasso in Connecticut. That was in 1974 and I was in Hartford at the time, starting out my career covering the state legislature. My clients were little papers who forked over a tiny bit of money to hear what their lawmakers were up to. The regular pressroom decreed there was no room for any newcomers, and I was dispatched — along with my partner, Trish Hall — to work out of the Capitol attic.The other facilities in said attic included a men-only bar for legislators. The 35 women in the legislature at the time didn’t seem upset about discrimination when it came to access to drinking quarters. Possibly because the facility in question, known as the Hawaiian Room, was a dark, moldy space with dusty plastic leis hanging from the ceiling.But I did complain about having to work in the attic, and one night when I was there alone — it was really pretty late — Ella Grasso herself showed up to check the accommodations. As she was walking down the narrow room, a bat flew down from the ceiling and into her hair.She took it very well.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Times Square Hotel Was Set To Become Affordable Housing. Then the Union Stepped In.

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      At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Paramount Hotel, sitting empty in Times Square, was on the verge of turning into a residential building, offering a rare opportunity to create affordable housing in Midtown Manhattan.A nonprofit was planning to convert the hotel into apartments for people facing homelessness. But after 18 months of negotiations, the plan collapsed this year when a powerful political player intervened: the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, the union representing about 35,000 hotel and casino workers in New York and New Jersey.The union blocked the conversion, which threatened the jobs of the workers waiting to return to the 597-room hotel. Under the union’s contract, the deal could not proceed without its consent.The Paramount reopened as a hotel this fall, an illustration of how the union has wielded its outsized political power to steer economic development projects at a critical juncture in New York City’s recovery.The pandemic presented a devastating crisis for the city’s hotel workers, more than 90 percent of whom were laid off. But as the union has fought harder to protect them, its political muscle has also drawn the ire of hotel operators and housing advocates, who say the group’s interests can be at odds with broader economic goals.After the conversion failed, the Paramount reopened this fall, saving about 160 hotel jobs.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesThe union’s impact ripples throughout New York. It can block or facilitate the conversion of large hotels into housing and homeless shelters, a consequential role in a year when homelessness in the city reached a record high of about 64,000 people. The union pushed for the accelerated expansion of casinos, which could transform the neighborhoods of the winning bids. And it was a driving force behind a new hotel regulation that some officials warned could cost the city billions in tax revenue.The union’s influence stems from its loyal membership and its deep pockets, both of which it puts to strategic use in local elections. Its political strength has resulted in more leverage over hotel owners, leading to stronger contracts and higher wages for workers.In this year’s New York governor’s race, the union was the first major labor group to endorse Gov. Kathy Hochul, whose winning campaign received about $440,000 from groups tied to the union. The group was also an early backer of Eric Adams, whose mayoral campaign was managed by the union’s former political director.“H.T.C. is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers,” said Chris Coffey, a Democratic political strategist, referring to the union’s more common name, the Hotel Trades Council. “They’re just operating on a higher playing field.”Origins of the union’s powerHistorically, the Hotel Trades Council avoided politics until its former president, Peter Ward, started a political operation around 2008.Mr. Ward and the union’s first political director, Neal Kwatra, built a database with information about where members lived and worshiped and the languages they spoke. This allowed the union to quickly deploy Spanish speakers, for instance, to canvass in Latino neighborhoods during campaigns.Candidates noticed when the Hotel Trades Council, a relatively small union, would send 100 members to a campaign event while larger unions would send only a handful, Mr. Kwatra said.The Aftermath of New York’s Midterms ElectionsWho’s at Fault?: As New York Democrats sought to spread blame for their dismal performance in the elections, a fair share was directed toward Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.Hochul’s New Challenges: Gov. Kathy Hochul managed to repel late momentum by Representative Lee Zeldin. Now she must govern over a fractured New York electorate.How Maloney Lost: Democrats won tough races across the country. But Sean Patrick Maloney, a party leader and a five-term congressman, lost his Hudson Valley seat. What happened?A Weak Link: If Democrats lose the House, they may have New York to blame. Republicans flipped four seats in the state, the most of any state in the country.To recruit members into political activism, the union hosted seminars explaining why success in local elections would lead to better job protections. Afterward, members voted to increase their dues to support the union’s political fights, building a robust fund for campaign contributions. Rich Maroko, the president of the Hotel Trades Council, said the union’s “first, second and third priority is our members.”Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesThe Hotel Trades Council ranked among the top independent spenders in the election cycle of 2017, when all 26 City Council candidates endorsed by the union won. Some of these officials ended up on powerful land use and zoning committees, giving the union influence over important building decisions in New York.In a huge victory before the pandemic, the union fought the expansion of Airbnb in New York, successfully pressuring local officials to curb short-term rentals, which the union saw as a threat to hotel jobs.Mr. Ward stepped down in August 2020, making way for the union’s current president and longtime general counsel, Rich Maroko, who earned about $394,000 last year in total salary, according to federal filings.The union’s sway has continued to grow. Some hotel owners, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say they are fearful of crossing the union, which has a $22 million fund that can compensate workers during strikes. In an interview, Mr. Maroko pointed out that the hotel industry is particularly vulnerable to boycotts.“The customer has to walk through that picket line,” he said, “and then they have to try to get a good night’s rest while there are people chanting in front of the building.”The Hotel Trades Council’s contract is the strongest for hotel workers nationwide, labor experts say. In New York City, where the minimum wage is $15 an hour, housekeepers in the union earn about $37 an hour. Union members pay almost nothing for health care and can get up to 45 paid days off.During the pandemic, the union negotiated health care benefits for laid-off workers, suspended their union dues and offered $1,000 payments to the landlords of workers facing eviction.Along the way, the union has become known for its take-no-prisoners approach to politics, willing to ally with progressives or conservatives, with developers or nonprofits — as long as they support the union’s goals.“There may be no union which has more discrete asks of city government on behalf of its members,” said Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, who was endorsed by the union. “You can’t placate them with nice rhetoric. To be a partner with them, you really need to produce.”Political wins during the pandemicLast year, the union scored a victory it had sought for more than a decade, successfully lobbying city officials to require a special permit for any new hotel in New York City.The new regulation allows community members, including the union, to have a bigger say over which hotels get built. The move is expected to restrict the construction of new hotels, which are often nonunion and long viewed by the Hotel Trades Council as the biggest threat to its bargaining power.Budget officials warned that the regulation could cost the city billions in future tax revenue, and some developers and city planners criticized the rule as a political payback from Mayor Bill de Blasio in the waning months of his administration after the union endorsed his short-lived presidential campaign in 2019. Mr. de Blasio, who did not return a request for comment, has previously denied that the union influenced his position.In the next mayoral race, the union made a big early bet on Mr. Adams, spending more than $1 million from its super PAC to boost his campaign. Jason Ortiz, a consultant for the union, helped to manage a separate super PAC to support Mr. Adams that spent $6.9 million.Mr. Ortiz is now a lobbyist for the super PAC’s biggest contributor, Steven Cohen, the New York Mets owner who is expected to bid for a casino in Queens.The union, which shares many of the same lobbyists and consultants with gambling companies, will play an important role in the upcoming application process for casino licenses in the New York City area. State law requires that casinos enter “labor peace” agreements, effectively ensuring that new casino workers will be part of the union.A new threatDuring the pandemic, as tourism stalled, there was growing pressure to repurpose vacant hotels. With New York rents soaring, advocates pointed to hotel conversions as a relatively fast and inexpensive way to house low-income residents.But the union’s contract, which covers about 70 percent of hotels citywide, presented an obstacle. A hotel that is sold or repurposed must maintain the contract and keep its workers — or offer a severance package that often exceeds tens of millions of dollars, a steep cost that only for-profit developers can typically afford.A plan to convert a Best Western hotel in Chinatown into a homeless drop-in center was scuttled by city officials after the effort failed to win the union’s endorsement.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesEarlier this year, Housing Works, a social services nonprofit, planned to convert a vacant Best Western hotel in Chinatown into a homeless drop-in center. There was opposition from Chinatown residents, but city officials signed off on the deal. It was set to open in May.Right before then, however, the Hotel Trades Council learned of the plan and argued that it violated the union’s contract.Soon, the same city officials withdrew their support, said Charles King, the chief executive of Housing Works. He said they told him that Mr. Adams would not approve it without the union’s endorsement. Mr. King was stunned.“Clearly they have the mayor’s ear,” Mr. King said, “and he gave them the power to veto.”A spokesman for the mayor said the city “decided to re-evaluate this shelter capacity to an area with fewer services,” declining to comment on whether the union influenced the decision.The Chinatown hotel remains empty.An obstacle to affordable housingIn the spring of 2021, state legislators rallied behind a bill that would incentivize nonprofit groups to buy distressed hotels and convert them into affordable housing. They sought the Hotel Trades Council’s input early, recognizing that the group had the clout to push then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to oppose the bill, according to people involved in the discussions.The union supported the conversions, but only if they targeted nonunion hotels outside Manhattan. Housing groups have said that, unlike large Midtown hotels, nonunion hotels are not ideal candidates for housing because they tend to be much smaller and inaccessible to public transit.As a compromise to gain the union’s support, the bill allowed the Hotel Trades Council to veto any conversions of union hotels.“While we certainly support the vision of finding shelters and supportive housing for the people that need it,” Mr. Maroko said, “our first, second and third priority is our members.”One housing advocate involved in the legislation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she warned elected officials that the veto provision would diminish the law’s effectiveness.The law, which passed last year, came with $200 million for conversions. Housing experts criticized the legislation for not sufficiently loosening zoning restrictions, prompting another law this spring that made conversions easier.Still, no hotels have been converted under the new law.Now, with tourism rebounding, housing nonprofits say the window of opportunity has largely passed.“It’s not like hotel owners are clamoring to sell the way they were two years ago,” said Paul Woody, vice president of real estate at Project Renewal, a homeless services nonprofit.How the Paramount deal endedIn the fall of 2020, the owners of the Paramount Hotel began discussing a plan to sell the property at a discount to Breaking Ground, a nonprofit developer that wanted to turn it into rent-stabilized apartments for people facing homelessness.But as the deal neared the finish line, Breaking Ground failed to anticipate pushback from the Hotel Trades Council. In a series of meetings last year, the union said its obligation was to fight for every hotel job and it proposed a range of solutions, including keeping union employees as housekeepers for residents. Breaking Ground, however, said the cost was too high.The nonprofit even asked Mr. Ward, the union’s former president, to help facilitate the conversion. Mr. Ward said he agreed to call Mr. Maroko to gauge his interest in Breaking Ground’s severance offer.This spring, lobbying records show, union representatives met with Jessica Katz, Mr. Adams’s chief housing officer, and other officials about the Paramount. Soon after, Ms. Katz called Breaking Ground and said city officials would not be able to make the conversion happen, according to a person familiar with the conversation. A spokesman for the mayor said the city “cannot choose between creating the housing the city needs and bringing back our tourism economy,” declining to comment on whether the union swayed the decision on the Paramount.The failed conversion saved about 160 hotel jobs, and the Paramount reopened to guests in September.It was a relief for workers like Sheena Jobe-Davis, who lost her job there in March 2020 as a front-desk attendant. She temporarily worked at a nonunion Manhattan hotel, making $20 less per hour than at the Paramount. She was ecstatic to get her old job back.“It is something I prayed and prayed for daily,” she said. More

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul Seeks Donations From Cuomo Appointees

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign says contributions from board and commission members and their families are fair game because she did not appoint them.ALBANY, N.Y. — On the road to building one of the largest campaign war chests the state of New York has ever seen, Gov. Kathy Hochul has been taking money from appointees of the governor — despite an executive order designed to prevent it.In her first year in office, Ms. Hochul has accepted more than $400,000 from appointees on boards from Buffalo to Battery Park City as well as the appointees’ spouses, a New York Times analysis of campaign finance data has found.The fund-raising has occurred despite the longstanding executive order — reissued by Ms. Hochul on her first day in office — that prohibits such transactions in order to avoid even the appearance of rewarding donors with jobs in exchange for contributions.Ms. Hochul’s campaign said it was appropriate to accept the contributions because they came from people appointed by her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo. The argument underscored a loophole in the ethics order that would seem to allow one governor to accept money from another governor’s board and commission appointees. In some cases, Ms. Hochul received donations from people Mr. Cuomo had appointed and then gave them new appointments.A spokesman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign, Jerrel Harvey, said that Ms. Hochul had not accepted money from people she appointed and emphasized that all of her fund-raising had been aboveboard.“We’ve been clear from the beginning of Governor Hochul’s term that people who are appointed by her are prevented from donating once they are appointed,” Mr. Harvey said. “We have followed that straightforward standard consistently and strictly.”But legal experts and good government advocates have called Ms. Hochul’s reasoning into question.“It’s a silly argument to say if I appointed you then you can’t contribute to me, but if my predecessor appointed you, then I can hit you up for donations,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham University Law School and a former member of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. “Going forward, presumably, they’re both going to want to be reappointed.”Ms. Hochul has already raised some $35 million and set a goal of raising as much as twice that amount ahead of the general election in November. Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesThe donations that Ms. Hochul accepted from appointees represent just a small portion of her campaign’s huge haul ahead of the election in November. She has already raised some $35 million and set a goal of raising as much as twice that amount, people familiar with her plans said. Doing so would put the 2022 governor’s race at or near the most expensive in state history.Ms. Hochul, a Democrat who was sworn in as governor after Mr. Cuomo resigned amid a scandal last year, easily defeated two primary rivals this summer and is heavily favored to win against Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican, in the fall.Although she has promised a clean break from the ways of her predecessor, Ms. Hochul’s willingness to raise money from appointees runs counter to that pledge. Mr. Cuomo was known for taking a hawkish approach to soliciting donations from the people he appointed, raising ethics concerns.Ms. Hochul’s campaign has not shrunk from accepting donations from Mr. Cuomo’s appointees, receiving more than $250,000 from them, records show.She got more than $56,000 from the real estate developer Don Capoccia, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to the Battery Park City Authority in 2011 and who did not respond to requests for comment.She accepted more than $90,000 between October and May from a trial lawyer, Joe Belluck, who was chosen by Mr. Cuomo for two statewide panels, and his wife. Ms. Hochul appointed Mr. Belluck to the state’s new Cannabis Advisory Board in June.Mr. Belluck scoffed at the notion of any impropriety in his donation.“I receive no remuneration and do no business with the state, period,” he said. “I have no private interests related to these positions. I donate to Governor Hochul because I support her policies and admire her leadership, and I am honored to serve.”Ms. Hochul also received $45,200 from John Ernst, an heir to the Bloomingdale’s fortune, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to the Adirondack Park Agency board in 2016, and Mr. Ernst’s wife. Less than three weeks after receiving those donations, she reappointed Mr. Ernst to the park agency’s board and made him chairman.Mr. Ernst said he initially turned down Ms. Hochul’s offer of the chairmanship, which comes with a $30,000 annual salary, and emphatically denied any connection between his donating and being appointed to the position.“If I had thought it was a conflict, I wouldn’t have done it — wouldn’t have made a contribution,” he said. “I did it independently as a citizen because I believed in Kathy Hochul.”A spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Julie Wood, said Ms. Hochul has applied the ethics order far more “broadly and strictly” than Mr. Cuomo did, saying his administration “violated their own rules.”“Governor Hochul holds herself to a higher ethical standard,” Ms. Wood said.Ms. Hochul has also accepted contributions and then appointed the donors to state boards and commissions. She received $3,000 from Robert Simpson, the chief executive of a Syracuse nonprofit that promotes economic development, in two donations and named him to the board of Empire State Development, New York’s economic development agency, less than a month after the second one.A spokeswoman for Mr. Simpson said that after he assumed the post he adopted policies to limit conflicts of interest and pledged to no longer contribute to or raise money for Ms. Hochul.Ms. Hochul accepted more than $7,800 from Janice Shorenstein, the mother of Ms. Hochul’s former transition director, Marissa Shorenstein, and Janice Shorenstein threw a fund-raiser for the governor in May. Marissa Shorenstein, who attended the event, was confirmed to the New York State Gaming Commission about two weeks later. Ms. Shorenstein and her mother did not respond to requests for comment left at their offices.And Ms. Hochul accepted another $5,000 in April from Sammy Chu, a Long Island businessman whose company also paid more than $2,100 for a Hochul fund-raiser in Plainview two days later. In late May, she tapped him for a spot on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Mr. Chu said he learned of the rules against governors’ accepting money from appointees only when The Times informed him of them in August.“There was certainly no quid pro quo,” Mr. Chu said. “Now that I’m appointed to the board, you know, I’ll be hypervigilant about it. But at that time, I was not a nominee or a board member.”Taken together, records show, Ms. Hochul accepted at least 40 donations totaling more than $475,000 from her nominees or Mr. Cuomo’s appointees and their family members. Those appointees are sitting on more than 20 boards, commissions and public authorities across New York, including the State University of New York board, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York Power Authority and the United Nations Development Corporation.Ms. Hochul’s campaign stressed that she had been careful not to take contributions from any person she appointed to a state position. In at least one case, The Times found, Ms. Hochul accepted contributions from a person appointed by Mr. Cuomo, appointed that person to a different commission and then declined to accept further contributions from him.While none of the donations accepted by Ms. Hochul’s campaign from her own appointees appeared to violate any rules, they nevertheless might create the appearance of impropriety, legal experts said.Some might feel pressure to give to an elected official with power over their appointed positions. Others who wish to be appointed might donate in hopes of getting the job, said Kathleen Clark, a Washington University law professor.“It may appear that the way to get appointed is to give money or to hold fund-raisers,” Professor Clark said, adding: “The scandal is what we allow rather than what we prohibit.”For her part, Ms. Hochul has dismissed any suggestion that her fund-raising practices might raise ethical concerns. When a reporter asked at a recent news conference if she worried about the optics of taking campaign money from people who are doing business with the state, she bristled.“I will say one sentence on this,” she said. “I follow all the rules, always have, always will.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      N.Y. Governor Candidates Flood the Airwaves With $20 Million in Ads

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      With the June 28 primary fast approaching, candidates for governor are spending big to get their message out to voters.An Army veteran. A bartender’s son. A hard-working executive, burning the midnight oil.These are just a few of the ways in which candidates vying to be New York’s next governor have introduced themselves to voters in a barrage of campaign advertisements before the June 28 primaries.In the Covid era where in-person campaigning still remains fraught, political ads offer candidates an opportunity to speak directly to voters, showcasing their qualifications and vision for the future.Four of the candidates for governor have spent a combined $19.8 million on television ads: Gov. Kathy Hochul and Representative Thomas Suozzi, both Democrats, and Representative Lee Zeldin and Harry Wilson on the Republican side. Other candidates, including the New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, a left-leaning Democrat, and Andrew Giuliani, a pro-Trump conservative, have not yet purchased ads on television, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks television ad spending.There has, however, been some major ad spending on behalf of a familiar noncandidate, who is at least as of now not running for governor — former governor Andrew M. Cuomo.Hochul leads the spending warMs. Hochul’s first television ad shows the governor late at night at her desk in her Albany office, portraying her as an executive who has worked tirelessly since ascending to the governorship following the unexpected resignation of Mr. Cuomo in August.What the 30-second spot does not show is how Ms. Hochul has also worked tirelessly to raise campaign funds.The governor, who as of January had amassed a record-smashing $21.6 million campaign war chest, has so far spent more than $6.8 million in ad buys, according to AdImpact. Most of the spending, not surprisingly, has been focused on New York City and its suburbs, where most Democratic primary voters live.Wielding the power of incumbency, Ms. Hochul utilized her first ad to highlight some of the voter-friendly policy priorities she negotiated with lawmakers as part of the state budget in April. The ad underscores her efforts to confront some of the biggest election-year issues — crime and skyrocketing prices — by touting measures to crack down on illegal guns and cut taxes for the middle class.Ms. Hochul released a second television ad last week focused on her commitment to protect abortion rights in New York, shortly after news broke that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion across the country in 1973.Similar to other Democratic campaigns nationwide, Ms. Hochul’s operatives are hoping to wield the issue against Republicans — the ad accuses two of her Republican rivals of wanting to ban abortion — and to galvanize Democratic voters in November, when control of Congress will also be in play.Representative Tom Suozzi has used his ads to focus on his vows to combat crime and lower taxes.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSuozzi focuses on crime and taxesMr. Suozzi, a centrist Democrat from Long Island, has used his campaign ads to cast himself as the “common-sense” candidate and to attack Ms. Hochul. Some of the ads blame her for failing to address rising gun violence, chiding her for an endorsement she received from the National Rifle Association during her time in Congress.Mr. Suozzi has focused most of his ads on his promise to lower income and property taxes and to further roll back the changes to the state’s bail laws that the Democrat-led Legislature passed in 2019.Mr. Suozzi has repeatedly blamed bail reform for leading to the release of more criminals. He has accused the governor of not doing enough to fix what he sees as deficiencies in the bail laws, even though Ms. Hochul recently persuaded lawmakers to approve some changes.Mr. Suozzi, who trails Ms. Hochul in public polls, faces an uphill battle: The Democratic primary tends to attract the party’s most liberal voters, but he is running as an unabashed moderate unafraid of taking on the party’s vocal left wing.“It’s not about being politically correct, it’s about doing the correct thing for the people of New York,” he says in one ad, which the campaign named, “No B.S.”Mr. Suozzi, who had about $5.4 million in the bank as of earlier this year, has poured just over $3.9 million into television ad buys.He began spending on television ads as early as January, far before Ms. Hochul, but his campaign has not made ad buys in the most recent weeks of May, according to AdImpact.A representative from Mr. Suozzi’s campaign said that it had halted buying because of some uncertainty around the date of the primary, but planned to soon resume.Representative Lee Zeldin is running negative ads attacking the governor.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesZeldin goes negative on Hochul and state of New YorkMr. Zeldin’s television ads have consistently sought to link Ms. Hochul to the ills that his campaign argues have befallen New York because of Democratic rule, a recurring theme as he seeks to become the state’s first Republican governor in 16 years.Anchored on a pledge to “Save Our State,” Mr. Zeldin’s ads home in heavily on crime — they rail against bail reform and the defund the police movement — as well as the state’s high taxes and population loss.They also seek to tie Ms. Hochul, who served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for six years, to the scandals that led to his resignation (one calls her a “silent accomplice”). His campaign’s most recent television ad is focused exclusively on the arrest in May of Ms. Hochul’s former lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, on federal bribery charges.Mr. Zeldin, who is the Republican Party’s designee in the race, has used the ads to tout his own credentials as a military veteran and as a “tax-fighting, trusted conservative.”They make no mention of his staunch support for former President Donald J. Trump, who remains largely unpopular in his home state, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. Mr. Zeldin voted against certifying last year’s presidential election in January 2021, a move Democrats have used as a cudgel against him.Of the more than $5 million in campaign money Mr. Zeldin had as of January, about $3.9 million has been steered into television ads.While Mr. Zeldin has spent almost $1.5 million in the New York City area, the majority of his television ad spending has gone outside the downstate region, targeting the state’s conservative voters.Harry Wilson, a businessman who contemplated running for governor in 2018, is hoping to upset the Republican nominee, Representative Lee Zeldin.John Minchillo/Associated PressHarry Wilson spends big on airtimeMr. Wilson, a businessman who has run for state office before, nonetheless entered the race largely unknown to voters. But he’s hoping that a slate of ad buys stretching from February to June will change that.Mr. Wilson, who is reported to be largely self-funding his campaign, has spent more than $5.2 million, according to AdImpact, outspending Mr. Zeldin, who is widely seen as the front-runner on the Republican side.Mr. Wilson ran a well-regarded campaign for comptroller in 2010 that captured the support of three major editorial boards, but he lost narrowly to the Democratic nominee, Thomas P. DiNapoli. He also contemplated running for governor four years ago, but decided against it.Mr. Wilson hopes that his record coaching troubled companies and center-right social views will appeal to moderate voters looking for a change.His ads focus on bureaucratic inefficiency, rising costs and population losses that Mr. Wilson blames on “corrupt go-along to get-along politicians.” Like some of his competitors, he promises to lower taxes and add police officers. But he also pitches himself as a fiscally conscious political outsider, with the perspective and experience to turn around a failing state.“I’m running for governor because I cannot sit by and watch as New York is devastated by career politicians,” he says in one ad.Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has released two political ads and has spoken at churches as part of his campaign to rehabilitate his image.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesCuomo to New York: Don’t you forget about meThough he is not an official candidate for any office, the former governor has also run two ads — spending $2.8 million out of the campaign fund he left office with, according to AdImpact.The ads seek to restore Mr. Cuomo’s image after his resignation last year amid allegations of sexual harassment and to reframe him as the victim of political attacks.Mr. Cuomo ran the ads from late February until late March, heightening speculation that he might jump into the race, but hasn’t made any ad buys since then.Mr. Cuomo has denied any inappropriate behavior, and five district attorneys declined to prosecute claims against him after opening inquiries. However, the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, State Assembly investigators and many of those same district attorneys found Mr. Cuomo’s accusers to be credible.One 30-second advertisement begins with a smattering of newspaper headlines memorializing the closure of several investigations into sexual harassment and assault allegations, concluding that “political attacks won, and New Yorkers lost a proven leader.”The other seeks to remind New Yorkers of Mr. Cuomo’s achievements in office, citing the state’s gun laws, the $15 minimum wage and major airport and bridge projects.“I never stopped fighting for New Yorkers, and I never will,” he says. More

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      Cuomo? Oh No!

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      So, people, how would you feel about an Andrew Cuomo comeback?Hey, get back here.New York’s former governor has been in the news lately, running a TV ad that portrays him as a totally-not-guilty victim of “political attacks.” It reportedly cost him around $369,000. This from an old campaign fund that’s worth about $16 million. Can you imagine what it’ll be like if he antes up the rest? It’d make Burger King’s promotions seem like public service announcements.Cuomo also recently made a sparsely attended speech to a Black church congregation in Brooklyn, decrying the “cancel culture” that had messed up his life. Not entirely clear what he meant. That he had to resign from being governor after that sexual harassment scandal? That almost nobody wants him to run for anything again? That his brother, Chris, lost his CNN job after giving advice to Andrew’s top aides?Let’s deal with the Chris Cuomo issue first because it’s so very, very easy. He’d vowed, in his capacity as a news host, to keep clear of his brother’s battle to stay in office. But familial loyalty dragged him right in. At which point Andrew obviously should have drawn a line, forbidden anybody to talk with Chris behind the scenes. Told Baby Brother something like, “I love you, man — way too much to let you wreck your career just for me.”Yeah, didn’t happen. OK, another easy question: Who out there thinks it would be a good idea for Andrew Cuomo to run for a fourth term as governor?Tick … tick … tick. …How about running for something else?Tock … tock … tock. Wait, do I see a hand back there? City Council? Do you even know if he lives in the city? Cuomo’s official residence was the governor’s mansion for so long, he now seems to have no permanent dwelling place. Sort of like a little bat, flitting around into some mysterious recesses of the cave.The current governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who used to be Cuomo’s lieutenant, is what New York City residents rather snottily refer to as an upstater. She’s only the second chief executive in New York history who was born and grew up in Buffalo.Which is the second-largest city in the state. How many of you knew that? OK, Buffalonians, stop jumping up and down.And while we’re at it, guess who the other Buffalo governor was. Yes! Grover Cleveland. I am bringing this up only because I love to talk about him.Grover was not what you’d call a Cuomoesque figure. He was pretty boring in public — a 300-pound former sheriff who once declared he deserved no credit for doing right because “I am never under any temptation to do wrong.”But Cleveland did run into a sex scandal — he was accused by a newspaper in Buffalo (!!!) of having fathered a child by an unmarried salesgirl. We could argue for a very long time about whether this was true. I think not and would be happy to discuss it at length if we’re ever, say, stuck on a train in a tunnel for several hours. But either way, Grover spent a very painful period being referred to by headlines like “Moral Monster.” So, really, Andrew, stop complaining.Unlike Cuomo, Grover did not claim all his problems stemmed from being “old-fashioned and out of touch” with rules about, um, touching the women who work in your office. He mostly stayed silent and sullen, which worked pretty well, given that he later got elected president twice.Cuomo is good only at the sullen part.We’ve got a lot of weird political stuff coming up, New Yorkers. I know you’ll find that a change of pace, given that we spent a good chunk of the Covid season debating whether or not Mayor Eric Adams really lived in New Jersey. (Asked about Cuomo’s speech in Brooklyn, by the way, Adams said: “I was not aware of it. I was busy moving around the city, enjoying all aspects of the city.”)It’s gubernatorial election year, and the state Republicans just had a convention in which they backed a congressman from Long Island, Lee Zeldin, as their candidate to run against Hochul. But he’s apparently going to be primaried — by a couple of people you’ve never heard of and … Andrew Giuliani.Rudy Giuliani’s 36-year-old son got less than 1 percent of the convention vote, but obviously that’s not keeping this family down.“Screw the Republicans. A bunch of jerks,” said his dad, who decried the party’s failure to nominate a new generation Ronald Reagan “or a Trump, or a me.”People, who would you prefer to see as the next governor of New York?A. A Rudy or a Trump.B. Fourth-term Andrew.C. Someone from Buffalo.Rudy has defended Cuomo, arguing that he was a victim of “conviction by press conference.” And you could certainly call Giuliani an expert witness, given the fact that while he was mayor, he had an affair with a woman for whom he provided a police chauffeur and then held a press conference to announce he was getting a divorce without having let his wife know in advance.Just remember, things can always be worse on the governor front. We could have that guy from Florida who scolds kids who wear masks.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Letitia James Doesn’t Need to Run for Governor to Grab the Spotlight

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      Ms. James, the New York attorney general, highlighted her work on matters related to former President Donald J. Trump as she accepted a nomination for re-election.Letitia James took the convention stage just before lunch, hours before the Democratic State Convention’s main attractions were to appear, to accept a nomination for re-election as New York attorney general.She delivered an impassioned speech on Thursday, focusing on her broad efforts to pursue justice on behalf of New Yorkers, especially in her investigations revolving around former President Donald J. Trump and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.She scarcely mentioned Mr. Trump or Mr. Cuomo by name. Nor did she discuss her brief, abandoned bid for governor, a decision that she said was based on her desire to continue her unfinished work as attorney general, which includes her office’s inquiry into Mr. Trump and his family.The impact of that choice was hammered home just hours after Ms. James spoke on Thursday, as a judge ruled that her office would be allowed to interview Mr. Trump and two of his children in her civil investigation into the family’s business practices.“When I was elected attorney general, I vowed to act without fear or favor to hold the powerful accountable, whether Republican or Democrat, in the public or private sector,” Ms. James said. “To be unbought, to be unbossed and unrelenting in the pursuit of justice and to stand up and speak up for the interests of everyday New Yorkers.”Ms. James, a Democrat from Brooklyn, jumped into the race for governor in late October following Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. She was initially seen as the most formidable challenger against Gov. Kathy Hochul, who had been unexpectedly elevated from lieutenant governor.Ms. James’s campaign hoped to garner national support by highlighting the potential for her to make history as the first Black woman to become governor in the country. But she dropped out in December, crowded out from the race by Ms. Hochul, who consistently led in early public polls and amassed an overwhelming fund-raising edge.Ms. James has not officially endorsed Ms. Hochul in the governor’s race, and mentioned her only in passing in her speech on Thursday.Ms. Hochul, for her part, praised Ms. James as “a national leader in fighting for justice, in fighting against Donald Trump-ism every place it rears its ugly head.” She added, “She’s been out there for us and I’m so proud of her.”The race for attorney general was once expected to be a highly contested one, with as many as five candidates mounting campaigns after Ms. James announced her candidacy for governor. But they all dropped out in swift succession as soon as Ms. James abandoned that bid, clearing the field for her re-election.Even with no major opponent, Ms. James gained a torrent of not-so-surprising endorsements over the past few weeks, from organized labor, from lawmakers on Long Island and from most of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation.At the same time, rumors began to swirl that Mr. Cuomo was entertaining thoughts of running for attorney general against Ms. James, who he has incessantly blamed for his downfall.Ms. James’s office oversaw an investigation that found that a slew of sexual harassment allegations against Mr. Cuomo were credible; he has denied the accusations. Their feud briefly spilled over onto the convention floor on Thursday, with the crowd applauding after Ms. James offered a passionate defense of the investigation.“It has become clear the former governor will never accept any version of these events other than his own,” Ms. James said during an 18-minute speech in a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “And to achieve that he is now claiming the mantle of victim, disgracefully attacking anyone in his path, pushing others down in order to prop himself up, but I will not bow. I will not break.”She sought to directly link Mr. Cuomo to the former president, whom Ms. James has repeatedly challenged in court as attorney general: “I will not be bullied by him or Donald Trump.”Indeed, the convention was replete with reminders of the dramatic upheaval that the New York political landscape has undergone in less than a year.Ms. James accepted this year’s nomination in the same hotel ballroom in Manhattan where Mr. Cuomo celebrated his election victory in 2018. Mr. Cuomo was not invited to the convention on Thursday, and his spokesman recently denied that Mr. Cuomo was interested in running for attorney general.The Cuomo-free convention made for a rare sight.His father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who served three terms, dominated conventions in the 1980s and 1990s. Andrew Cuomo later cast a shadow over the 2002 convention, when he famously withdrew his candidacy for governor on the eve of the event, acknowledging he did not have a path to victory against the party’s favored pick, Carl McCall. In 2006, he won the party’s endorsement for attorney general as he mounted a political comeback before being elected governor in 2010.Most of the party’s establishment, however, appears to have turned the page on Mr. Cuomo, who governed through ruthless tactics that left him with few, if any, political allies when he decided to resign or risk impeachment.“I haven’t heard anyone say his name and I think people are looking forward,” Pat Ryan, a Democrat and the executive of Ulster County, said shortly before Ms. James’s speech. “People don’t want us dwelling in the past.”Mr. Cuomo’s absence would have gone largely unacknowledged at the convention on Thursday had it not been for Ms. James’s speech, in which she also accused the Cuomo administration of lying to obfuscate the true extent of pandemic-related deaths in nursing homes.Her comments appeared to be the culmination of pent-up resentment following weeks of escalating attacks from the Cuomo camp, which has repeatedly denounced the investigation — which he authorized — as unfair and politically motivated just as Mr. Cuomo weighs how to re-enter public life.Indeed, after Ms. James’s speech, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, released a statement that accused her of being “a serial liar who continues to dodge answering a single substantive question about her sham report.” Mr. Cuomo’s lawyer said last week that he intended to file a professional misconduct complaint against Ms. James.On Thursday, Ms. James described herself as “the people’s lawyer,” thanking the delegates “for giving me the opportunity to carry your flag and to be your candidate to continue this work.” More

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      I’ll Bet on Susan Collins Over the Resistance

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      Here are two anecdotes from the still-unspooling saga of Jeff Zucker, no longer the head of CNN. First, from the aftermath: According to The Los Angeles Times, in a meeting between some of the network’s staffers and its corporate leadership, the CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel shared that four members of the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6 had called to say that Zucker’s exit left them “devastated for our democracy.”Second, from the background to Zucker’s departure: We already knew that he blessed the wild prime-time lovefest between the brothers Cuomo, the CNN anchor and the New York governor. But now it’s being reported by The New York Post that Zucker helped arrange the absurd interviews, sometimes through the influence of his paramour, a former Andrew Cuomo communications director, and even allegedly gave the New York governor advice on how to swat at Donald Trump during his famous Covid-19 briefings.You can put these anecdotes together and get a decent understanding of what went wrong in important parts of American media during the Trump presidency. The powerful belief that only CNN — indeed, only Jeff Zucker — stood between democracy and authoritarianism encouraged the abandonment of normal journalistic standards, the sacrifice of sobriety and neutrality to what Armin Rosen, writing for UnHerd, dubs the “centrist-branded panic industry.”Undergirding this shift, at CNN and elsewhere, was a theory that the way to blunt Trump’s demagogic power was to assemble the broadest possible coalition of elites in media and politics, to establish moral clarity and create an effective cordon sanitaire.In 2016, I believed in this strategy, urged it on Republicans during the primaries and participated in it — along with most conservative commentators I respected — by opposing Trump’s election in the fall.But then Trump won — with a minority of the vote, yes, but all that elite opposition couldn’t even get Hillary Clinton to 49 percent, and the Republicans won more votes nationally than Democrats in House elections, paying no obvious price for having nominated Trump. The American people listened to the Never Trump alliance, fanned out across our newspapers and magazines and networks, and delivered their verdict: For every Republican we persuaded, a different sort of swing voter seemed to discover that maybe there were good reasons to take a chance on Trump.What followed in Trump’s presidency was a doubling down on the elite-opposition strategy — but increasingly I doubted its approach. In its most sincere form the anti-Trump front became paranoid and credulous, addled by the Steele dossier and lost in Twitter doomscrolling. In its more careerist form, it became a racket for former Republican consultants. And in general it became its own ideological echo chamber, a circle of clarity closed to anyone with doubts.In detaching somewhat, I remained an anti-Trump conservative; after the 2020 election’s aftermath, it’s safe to say that I’m forever Never Trump. But I decided that fundamentally the elite-consolidation strategy was a failure — that it succeeded in 2020 only because of the pandemic and that it may fail in 2024 — and that if Trump were to be permanently defeated, one of two things needed to happen: Either some adaptation from Republicans, one that might seem ugly or compromised in its own way (as you see now, say, in Ron DeSantis’s winks and nods to anti-vaxxers), or some shift that made the leftward-lurching Democrats seem less dangerous to cross-pressured Americans.So those are the two questions that this column takes up regularly: Can there be Trumpism without Trump, and what’s so unappealing or frightening about progressivism and the Democratic Party? And the consistency of those themes clearly sometimes exasperates people who think they amount to moral equivalence or denial about how awful the Republican Party has become.I don’t mind those critiques, but I will close this exercise in navel-gazing with a concrete example of where I think that they go wrong. For the united front of Never Trump, there’s no greater heroine at the moment than Liz Cheney, and no clearer embodiment of Republican cowardice than Susan Collins, the Maine moderate who even now won’t say definitively that she’ll oppose Trump if he’s the 2024 nominee.I also admire Cheney’s direct anti-Trumpism, as I’ve admired it from Mitt Romney, and now even a little from Mike Pence. (Yes, it’s a low bar.) But if you believe, reasonably, that the immediate danger posed by Trump’s demagogy involves an attempted Electoral College theft in 2024, then Cheney’s work is a lot less important than the bipartisan effort underway in the Senate to reform the Electoral Count Act. And that effort is being steered, with some success so far, by Collins.Maybe the effort will ultimately fail. But it’s quite possible that the most important response to the events of Jan. 6 will be shepherded by Republicans playing a careful inside game, with the cautious navigation of the senior senator from Maine more essential than a thousand essays about never giving Trumpism an inch.That’s not a heroic view of how democracies are stabilized and demagogues finally retired. But if the choice is between this unheroism and the mentality that gave us Jeff Zucker and the brothers Cuomo, for now I’m inclined to bet on Susan Collins.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Kathy Hochul's Speech Is a Road Map to the Campaign That Lies Ahead

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul sought to exude decisiveness in crisis, previewing her efforts to run as the steady-hand candidate as she seeks her first full term.As Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her most consequential speech since becoming chief executive of New York, she did not discuss the contested Democratic primary she is navigating to retain her seat, nor did she mention the likelihood of an expensive general election against a well-funded Republican.But in tone and substance, her address on Wednesday and accompanying 237 pages of policy proposals offered a road map to how she is approaching both dynamics.In her State of the State remarks, her first as governor, Ms. Hochul often emphasized core Democratic priorities, from combating climate change to expanding access to affordable child care. But she also moved to blunt more conservative messaging on matters of public safety, the economy and the culture wars that have raged around how to handle the coronavirus pandemic.“During this winter surge, our laser focus is on keeping kids in school, businesses open and New Yorkers’ lives as normal as possible,” she said, even as some Republicans seek to paint the Democratic Party as the party of lockdowns.Ms. Hochul assumed the governorship last August, taking over after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace, and she is running for her first full term as governor this year at yet another moment of staggering challenges for the state.As coronavirus cases spike, parents grapple with uncertainty around schools,and the Omicron variant upends the fragile economic recovery, Ms. Hochul acknowledged the pain and exhaustion gripping many New Yorkers. But she also emphasized a record of accomplishment, in particular around vaccination rates, and sought to exude competence and decisiveness in crisis, offering a preview of her efforts to run as the steady-hand, above-the-fray candidate.A number of Democrats are seeking to challenge that image.Representative Thomas Suozzi of Long Island, a former Nassau County executive who has positioned himself to Ms. Hochul’s right on some issues and in tone, is sharply questioning her executive experience. He sometimes refers to the state’s first female executive as the “interim governor” — a move that could backfire with some voters — and he is working to cut into her base in the suburbs.“New York needs a common-sense governor who has executive experience to manage Covid, take on crime, reduce taxes and help troubled schools,” Mr. Suozzi said in a statement after her speech.Jumaane D. Williams, the New York City public advocate who lost the 2018 lieutenant governor’s race to Ms. Hochul by 6.6 percentage points, is running as a self-declared “activist elected official” with close ties to New York’s left-wing political movement, which can play an important role in energizing parts of the primary electorate. He said on Wednesday that some of her proposals were not sufficiently “bold” to meet the challenges of the moment — a view echoed by leaders of a number of left-wing organizations.“Discussion of these issues is important, acknowledged and appreciated,” Mr. Williams said in a statement. “But that discussion must be accompanied by the political courage to envision and enact transformational change for New York City and across the state.”Former Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City has also taken steps toward a run.Attorney General Letitia James had been Ms. Hochul’s most formidable opponent, but she dropped her bid for governor last month, and on Wednesday she stood next to the governor, applauding. Ms. James’s exit cleared the way for Ms. Hochul to rapidly lock down more institutional support from unions and elected officials, and she is expected to post a formidable fund-raising haul later this month.Ms. Hochul, who has referred to herself as a “Biden Democrat,” on Wednesday sounded by turns like a centrist who welcomes big business and an old-school politician keenly focused on the needs of working-class New Yorkers.For example, she called for efforts to bolster the salaries of health care workers “so those doing God’s work here on Earth are no longer paid a minimum wage.”Ms. Hochul, who wore an all-white outfit to honor the women’s suffrage movement at her inauguration, did so again on Wednesday.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesBut at another point, she pledged that New York would be “the most business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation.”Ms. Hochul laid out a number of measures to bolster the social safety net, and she also endorsed some left-leaning criminal justice proposals, including a “jails-to-jobs” program and other efforts to help formerly incarcerated people access employment and housing.She also pledged to pursue a five-year plan to offer 100,000 affordable homes, though some housing advocates thought she should have offered far more comprehensive protections since the state’s eviction moratorium is poised to expire. And she laid out a bevy of climate, infrastructure and transportation-related initiatives.If many aspects of the speech played into concerns of rank-and-file Democratic voters and union officials, Ms. Hochul also repeatedly made overtures to a broader ideological and geographical swath of voters who will power the general election. (“I think I have a personal experience with just about every pothole in New York as well, especially on the Long Island Expressway,” she said, referring to an important political battleground.).A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More