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      Newsmax Debate Lends N.Y. Governor’s Race a Far-Right Glow

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      The four Republican candidates for governor of New York faced off in their third and final debate before the June 28 primary.The four Republican candidates for governor of New York made their closing pitch to voters on Tuesday night, voicing devotion to President Trump and his policies, disdain for gun control and abortion, and worries about crime and immigration. The debate, at Kodak Center in Rochester, N.Y., was hosted by Newsmax, a network known for amplifying the Republican Party’s rightward tilt, and represented the third and final clash between the quartet of conservatives vying to unseat Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent Democrat who is expected to win her own primary on June 28.And as was fitting for its host, the candidates spent much of the debate playing to the party’s base, as well as taking shots at the Democratic incumbent.“Kathy Hochul is going to get fired,” said Representative Lee M. Zeldin, a four-term congressman from Long Island, who was chosen as his party’s designee at a party convention earlier this year. “I’m looking forward to removing her from this office.”Mr. Zeldin, the putative front-runner in a race with little definitive polling, was joined by Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive making his second run for governor; Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani; and Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround specialist.In the first two Republican debates, hosted by networks in New York City, Mr. Giuliani was required to participate from a separate location, because he was unvaccinated, something he says comports with his general disdain for government mandates, a sentiment echoed by the other candidates, despite the lifting of many pertaining to Covid.But on Tuesday, he was welcomed into the fray, smiling in front of a live audience, which openly cheered and jeered the candidates.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A Trump prosecutor. An ex-congressman. Bill de Blasio. A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.“It’s nice to be with you in person,” he said.Mr. Giuliani, 36, has tried to position himself as the race’s most right-wing candidate, saying, for instance, on Tuesday that he would “bring morality back to this state” in reference to abortion. He has also professed belief in conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, the outcome of which he called “one of the greatest crimes in American history.”Mr. Giuliani, who is making his first run for public office, worked for four years in the Trump administration and has actively sought the former president’s backing, saying that he uses Mr. Trump and his father as a model for what kind of governor he would be.Mr. Zeldin, once considered a moderate, has also been a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump, though on Monday night he stopped short of saying the election was stolen. On Tuesday, Mr. Zeldin seemed more zealous about Mr. Trump’s legacy, saying he believed that the former president’s border wall should be completed.The debate is the latest sponsored by Newsmax, which has found a niche in conservative circles in the wake of the 2020 election, often by broadcasting baseless theories about the race. The company has since been sued by several companies which make election technologies.The candidates answered questions from the debate moderator, Eric Bolling, a Newsmax host.NewsmaxIn early May, the network was the host of a Republican debate for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, moderated by Greta Van Susteren, which included spirited discussion of the drug trade across the nation’s southern border, the perils of “wokeness,” and whether China should pay “reparations for Covid.” (The primary’s winner, the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, said yes, as did several others.)The moderator on Tuesday was Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host who has conducted a number of interviews with Mr. Trump, including one on Monday in which the former president said that “so many” of the rioters who ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “well-behaved.”In addition to hot-button social issues, Mr. Bolling also asked policy questions about inflation, Medicaid fraud and economic concerns, with Mr. Wilson promising property tax and income tax cuts, something embraced by the other candidates as well.Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in New York in two decades, but are hopeful in a year in which Democrats are facing serious political headwinds, with Ms. Hochul polling poorly on issues like crime and the economy, and waging a low-key campaign thus far.Despite the recent racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket, about 70 miles to the west of the debate site, none of the candidates supported any new gun control, with Mr. Zeldin saying the state’s gun laws — some of the strongest in the nation — “go too far as is.”Mr. Astorino, who lost in 2014 to the incumbent, Andrew M. Cuomo, has stressed his experience as an executive in Westchester County, describing a state “in chaos” and arguing during the debate that a “leftist agenda” was “coddling criminals.”Mr. Wilson suggested something similar, saying, “the problem is criminals, the mentally ill, and the purveyors of hate,” rather than law-abiding New Yorkers.Likewise, Mr. Wilson has said that New York has been mismanaged, but has conspicuously stayed clear of most social issues; a top official in President Obama’s automotive task force, who says he did not vote for Mr. Trump, Mr. Wilson has sought to find a middle lane in the race, voicing support for abortion rights, for instance.A lawyer and active military reservist, Mr. Zeldin periodically tried to convey a sense of statesmanship in earlier debates, reeling off a series of policy proposals, including allowing fracking in the state and rolling back changes in bail laws that conservatives have successfully used against Democrats in previous elections.At the same time, however, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Zeldin have had a series of fiery exchanges. Monday night in Manhattan, each man called the other a “fraud.”The animus was evident again on Tuesday, with other candidates joining in on attacks, including Mr. Giuliani, who called Mr. Zeldin “a child” and a “flip-flopper” on his support for Mr. Trump.Mr. Zeldin fired back at Mr. Giuliani, too, saying that his claim to fame was famously mugging for the camera during his father’s first inauguration in 1994, and then being mocked on “Saturday Night Live.” He belittled Mr. Giuliani’s time with the Trump administration, describing his duties as “Chick-fil-A runner at the White House.”The debate descended into a fit of cross-talk and bickering after Mr. Bolling asked whether the candidates would commit to endorsing the primary winner, something Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Astorino and Mr. Wilson agreed to.Mr. Zeldin, though, was more circumspect, saying merely that he’d “be supporting the primary winner next Tuesday,” while implying it would be him.Despite the clashes, there were some lighter moments. Mr. Giuliani has been regularly joined by his father on the campaign trail, including on Tuesday in Rochester. He was asked whether he was merely running on his family name, an accusation that also dogged Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat whose father was also governor, and who resigned last August.“People would say, ‘Well, with a famous last name its easy to run in politics,’” Mr. Giuliani said. “I would tell you with a name like Andrew, it’s very difficult to be the leading candidate for governor.” More

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      How Katie Britt Used Political Savvy to Trounce Mo Brooks in Alabama

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      At a gathering of Alabama Republicans last year, Katie Britt and her husband strategically positioned themselves at the end of a receiving line to shake hands with former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Britt, a lawyer and former chief of staff for Senator Richard Shelby, had recently announced her campaign to fill the seat being vacated by her former boss, who is retiring. Mr. Trump had already endorsed her opponent, Representative Mo Brooks — but the couple hoped to sow some doubt in Mr. Trump’s mind, according to four people familiar with the encounter.As the couple greeted Mr. Trump, Ms. Britt’s husband, Wesley Britt — a burly retired N.F.L. lineman — mentioned to the former president that he had once played for the New England Patriots. “The only time you’ve met me, I think I was wrapped in a towel in the Patriots locker room,” Mr. Britt was said to have told Mr. Trump, who found it hilarious and replied that Robert K. Kraft, the team’s billionaire owner, “likes me very much.”From then on, Ms. Britt positioned herself as a formidable competitor with savvy political skills who persistently tried to convince Mr. Trump that she deserved his endorsement instead.In March, Mr. Trump gave Ms. Britt half of what she wanted, withdrawing his endorsement of Mr. Brooks — at that point far behind in the polls — because, he said, the far-right congressman had gone “woke.” Then, this month, with Ms. Britt clearly on track to prevail, the former president backed her, seemingly in an attempt to pad his endorsement record.Ten months after her brief exchange with Mr. Trump last August, Ms. Britt claimed victory in the Republican primary runoff for Alabama’s open Senate seat on Tuesday, capping a hard-fought campaign for her party’s nomination against Mr. Brooks. In a state with a deep-seated conservative bent, she is all but assured of winning in the general election in November.Ms. Britt is also one step closer to making history as the first woman in Alabama to be elected to the Senate. Her Democratic opponent is a pastor, Will Boyd, who has made unsuccessful runs for Senate, House and lieutenant governor.Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, Mr. Shelby, who has known Ms. Britt since the days when she was an intern in his office, said he was overjoyed for her.“She is an outstanding person — she has got the brains, the drive and the compassion,” he said.Ms. Britt, 40, is seen as part of a younger generation of pro-Trump Republicans, and her husband’s banter with Mr. Trump was viewed by those familiar with the encounter as an astute move that proved essential to her nomination.Ms. Britt entered the primary with little name recognition and long odds against Mr. Brooks, who boasted more than a decade of experience in the House and gained Mr. Trump’s backing after he riled up the crowd at the former president’s rally before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But Mr. Trump rescinded his support for Mr. Brooks in March as Mr. Brooks struggled to gain traction under an avalanche of attack ads and criticism of his decision to urge an audience at a Trump rally to leave the 2020 election behind. “Katie Britt, on the other hand, is a fearless America First Warrior,” Mr. Trump said in a statement this month as he endorsed Ms. Britt.That move did not completely wipe out Mr. Brooks, who still managed to clinch a second-place finish in Alabama’s May 24 primary, garnering 29 percent of the vote. Ms. Britt pulled in 45 percent, short of the majority that would have avoided a runoff between the two top vote-getters.Ms. Britt fashioned herself as an “Alabama First” candidate, playing off Mr. Trump’s “America First” presidential campaign slogan, and centered her run on her Christian faith, hard-line border enforcement policies and ties to the business community.As an aide for Mr. Shelby, one of the Senate’s most senior members, she worked on some of his signature issues, including a sweeping Republican package of tax cuts in 2017, confirmation of conservative judges and a push for a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.She most recently served as the head of the Business Council of Alabama, a powerful lobbying group, and led a “Keep Alabama Open” campaign in November 2020 against coronavirus pandemic restrictions that required nonessential businesses to close or limit services. She also opened the council’s resources, typically reserved to paying members, to all small businesses amid the health crisis.On policy, Ms. Britt and Mr. Brooks had ideological differences: He represented a more aggressive brand of arch conservatism as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus while Ms. Britt, like Mr. Shelby, was seen as more focused on economic development. But in oratorical style, she echoed the hard-right talking points that have become commonplace messaging in the Republican Party.“When I look at what’s happening in Washington, I don’t recognize our country,” Ms. Britt said in a video introducing herself to voters. “The leftists are attacking our religious freedoms and advancing a socialist agenda. In Joe Biden’s America, people can collect more money staying at home than they can earn on the job.”The campaigns and supporters of Ms. Britt, Mr. Brooks and a third top competitor in the race, Mike Durant, a former Army pilot, spent millions of dollars on negative ads.Mr. Brooks and his supporters tried to paint Ms. Britt as a lobbyist and a RINO — a favored insult used by Trump supporters for politicians they believe are Republicans in name only.She shot back with attacks portraying Mr. Brooks as a career politician. It also helped that Mr. Brooks had a poor showing at Mr. Trump’s Alabama rally last August, just after Ms. Britt began her quiet campaign to sway the former president to her cause. What started as an enthusiastic response for Mr. Brooks that night turned to boos when he urged those in the audience to put the 2020 presidential election behind them and focus on 2022 and 2024.Mr. Trump called him back onstage for a second appearance, calling him “a fearless warrior for your sacred right to vote.”Later, when the former president took back his endorsement of Mr. Brooks, he said the congressman had made a “horrible mistake” with his comments at that fateful rally. More

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      Will Kathy Hochul’s Low-Key Primary Come at a Cost? Allies Fear Yes.

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      Charles B. Rangel, the longtime dean of Harlem politics, had a blunt question for two of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top political aides at a private meeting last month: Where’s the campaign?Mr. Rangel told the campaign officials they were concerned that the governor was unwisely leaving vote-rich Black and Latino neighborhoods unattended. No posters, no palm cards, no subway surrogates or other ground operations typically used to drive voters to the polls for the June 28 primary for governor of New York.“There was absolutely nobody that knew anybody that was doing anything,” Mr. Rangel recalled recently. “There was absolutely no action at all in the district.”Representative Gregory W. Meeks, the head of the Queens Democratic machine, shared similar concerns around the same time. In a call with Ms. Hochul, he urged her to give more attention to communities like his and put together a more diverse political operation that could excite voters.And more recently, three major union leaders backing Ms. Hochul who spoke with The New York Times said they were perplexed that the governor’s team has not asked for help to canvass, rally or perform other political errands her predecessors demanded. One of them said flatly he saw no evidence of campaign activity.By all accounts, Ms. Hochul is headed toward a comfortable primary win. She has cornered nearly every major political endorsement and collected record-breaking donations, while outspending her opponents, Thomas R. Suozzi and Jumaane D. Williams, by millions of dollars on television and digital advertising.The commanding lead has enabled Ms. Hochul’s team to deploy a so-called Rose Garden strategy, eschewing the kind of all-out, on-the-ground campaign used by her challengers in an effort to conserve cash and position a new governor still introducing herself to New Yorkers above the political fray ahead of a grueling general election this fall.Most of the political appearances she has made this spring — in Black churches or marching in parades, for instance — have been official government events or unpublicized appearances. In the last month, her campaign has flagged only five official events for the media.In interviews over the last week, a broad spectrum of elected officials, party leaders and Democratic strategists expressed worry that the governor’s low-key approach may come at the cost of building the kind of old-fashioned political ground game and enthusiasm with bedrock Black, Latino and union voters that a relatively untested candidate from Western New York like Ms. Hochul will need to drive Democratic voters to the polls in November.They fear that the governor’s campaign strategy could cause Democratic turnout in the state’s largest liberal stronghold to falter, leaving Democrats in key congressional and state races vulnerable, if not endangering the party’s hold on the governor’s mansion.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.15 Democrats, 1 Seat: A Trump prosecutor. An ex-congressman. Bill de Blasio. A newly redrawn House district in New York City may be one of the largest and most freewheeling primaries in the nation.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.“She’s not from New York City, she’s from Buffalo,” Mr. Meeks said in an interview, suggesting that Ms. Hochul needed to “move very vigorously” to expand a team currently led by top advisers from upstate New York, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina, by bringing more labor, business and nonwhite voices to the table.“She acknowledged lots of people in her campaign ran statewide but are not necessarily endemic to New York City politics, which is important,” he added. “When you’re running for governor, you’ve got to expand that base. That’s what she is doing.”Representative Gregory Meeks said that Gov. Hochul needed to diversify her campaign team, especially as a candidate with few ties to New York City.Pool photo by Sarah SilbigerAnd although Ms. Hochul seems poised to win the primary, Democratic strategists warned that soft turnout in the primary could hurt her running mate, Antonio Delgado, who is in a tighter contest against Ana María Archila and Diana Reyna, and potentially saddle Ms. Hochul with an adversarial running mate in the fall.“Everyone is scratching their heads. She’s held no rallies and she needs to get out the vote,” said George Arzt, a Democratic strategist who has run campaigns in New York City since the 1980s. “The person who’s in jeopardy is not her, but her running mate.”Tyquana Henderson-Rivers, a senior adviser to Ms. Hochul with deep ties among New York City Democrats, defended the governor’s approach in an interview, acknowledging that the campaign was taking a “slower build” approach than some elected officials might be used to. But it has its reasons.This is the first year New York’s primary for governor is occurring in June, rather than September, extending the campaign season between the primary and the general election. The pandemic still makes certain in-person campaign tactics difficult. And Ms. Hochul’s team is consciously conserving resources to prepare for a greater general election threat than her Democratic predecessors have faced in years.“We hear you,” Ms. Henderson-Rivers said, when asked about fellow Democrats raising concerns to the campaign, before adding that Ms. Hochul’s operation would be humming when it matters. “It will not be cold, I assure you. We’re revving.”To be certain, there are signs that the governor’s campaign is ramping up.Ms. Hochul attended a breakfast hosted by Mr. Meeks in southeast Queens with more than 200 clergy and civic leaders in mid-June. Mr. Rangel acknowledged that the Hochul campaign had increased its presence in Harlem, where dozens of volunteers and paid staff, including from the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, fanned out this past weekend to knock on doors and hand out literature.A campaign spokesman, Jerrel Harvey, said that Ms. Hochul’s paid media and field program “will reach voters where they are, and benefit all Democrats now and in November.”The campaign says it has spent more than $13 million on TV and radio airwaves so far, another $1 million-plus on digital advertising, and the state party has targeted more than 400,000 households with traditional mail, many of them African American, Latino and Asian — figures far higher than any of her rivals.“If I were the Democrats, I’d be worried about a lot of things in November,” said Jason Ortiz, a veteran political operative with close ties to the hotels and casino union. “But Kathy Hochul being governor would not be one.”And yet, second-guessing about Ms. Hochul’s approach has been relatively common. Some supporters of the governor are quietly making comparisons to her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, a ruthless political tactician who deployed labor unions, political surrogates and wielded the governor’s office to run up big margins.Mr. Cuomo made particular use of organized labor, using them as de facto political staff, deploying union members to shadow his opponents, knock on doors and create a sense of momentum around his campaign.Ms. Hochul, with notable exceptions, has so far largely limited her requests to donating money. Some of the unions, who requested anonymity to avoid alienating Ms. Hochul, said they planned to start get-out-the-vote efforts of their own volition.“It’s an unusual approach for a governor, but I think it’s a strategic one that may prove to be better in the city than one would expect,” said Henry Garrido, executive director of the city’s largest public union, District Council 37. “Normally what would happen, we have a model where you try to get as much momentum through physical presence, showing up everywhere, rallying and speaking.”Instead, Mr. Garrido said, the governor had enlisted his help in quieter events in Latino communities in Inwood and the Bronx. He predicted they would work in her favor.Unlike Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Hochul has tended to shun the political spotlight for many more overtly political events, like a Monday stop in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park, electing not to publicly announce them beforehand.“She’s walked the streets with me,” said Representative Adriano Espaillat, who represents Mr. Rangel’s old district. Mr. Espaillat has tweeted about the events, but he said Ms. Hochul’s decision not to broadly publicize them was her prerogative: “They do what they think is best.”From left to right, Governor Hochul; Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney; and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in June.Porter Binks/EPA, via ShutterstockIn central Brooklyn, home to another large block of Black voters whose votes help power winning Democratic coalitions, Ms. Hochul appears to still have work to do to win over two powerful leaders who could help galvanize votes: Letitia James, the popular New York attorney general who briefly ran against her, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries.Mr. Jeffries has formally endorsed Ms. Hochul (Ms. James has not), but he has yet to campaign with her and has told associates he is disappointed Ms. Hochul did not speak out against a court-imposed congressional redistricting plan that wreaked havoc on some communities of color and the state’s delegation to Washington.Asked if he thought Ms. Hochul was doing enough in communities of color in New York City, Mr. Jeffries said he had no comment. Ms. James’s campaign also declined to comment when asked if she expected to make an endorsement in the race.Democratic officials and campaign strategists in Latino strongholds in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx have shared their own concerns.Luis A. Miranda Jr., a founding partner of the MirRam Group, a political consulting firm that is working on Ms. James’s re-election campaign, said he emerged from a recent dinner with Ms. Hochul impressed with both the governor and a new “Nueva York” initiative by State Democratic Party leaders dedicated to turning out Latinos. But he said the governor and her team had more to do to persuade Latino voters and leaders, some of whom have cast doubt on Mr. Delgado’s claim to Afro-Latino roots.“Where she has to do the work is not exclusively with her campaign, it’s with the Democratic Party that should be serving her and her ticket,” he said. “Everyone thinks that if they hire three people and have a slogan, they are reaching to the community. It’s window dressing.”For his part, Mr. Meeks said he was confident Ms. Hochul understood the gravity of correcting course, and would generate a strong showing in his part of Queens. But given the stakes for the party, he said “of course there can be improvement.”“It’s essential,” he said, summoning memories of Republican Gov. George E. Pataki’s 1994 victory. “The one time that we ended up with a Republican governor, I remember that very vividly because it was a low turnout, particularly in the African American community in the City of New York.” More

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      Some Democrats Wonder: Where Is Hochul’s Ground Game?

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul appears to be cruising to a likely win in next week’s primary, but allies worry that she is not doing enough to excite voters for November.Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll look at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign, with an eye toward November. We’ll also check on what to know now that the global outbreak of monkeypox has reached New York.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressGov. Kathy Hochul appears to be sailing toward a comfortable win in the Democratic primary for governor next week.With an apparently commanding lead, she has followed a Rose Garden strategy against her opponents, Representative Thomas Suozzi of Long Island and Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate. She has spent millions of dollars on television commercials and digital ads. But she has mostly stayed above the political fray, avoiding in-person campaign appearances. In fact, most of her appearances this spring — in Black churches or in parades, for instance — have counted as official duties. Her campaign has listed only five events in the last month.Her approach has been so low-key that some elected officials, party leaders and Democratic strategists are worried. They fear that Hochul, a relatively untested candidate from western New York who was not well known downstate before she replaced Andrew Cuomo as governor 10 months ago, has not built the kind of political ground game that would generate enthusiasm among Black and Latino voters and union members in New York City.That, they say, could have implications for the turnout in November — and low turnout, in turn, could endanger Democrats down the ballot. Democratic strategies say that it could hurt Antonio Delgado, the Hudson Valley congressman she chose to be lieutenant governor. He is in a tight contest against Ana Maria Archila and Diana Reyna.Charles Rangel, the longtime dean of Harlem politics, sounded the alarm in a meeting with two of Hochul’s top political aides last month. He asked: Where’s the campaign? No posters had gone up, and no surrogates were working subway stations to get out the vote for the primary.Three major union leaders who are backing Hochul told my colleagues Nicholas Fandos and Jeffery C. Mays that they were perplexed about the relative quiet from Hochul’s team. They said they had not been asked for help to canvass or do other errands her predecessors had routinely sought. One of them said flatly that he had seen no evidence of campaign activity.Tyquana Henderson-Rivers, a senior Hochul adviser, acknowledged that the campaign was taking a “slower build” approach than officials like Rangel might be used to.But it has its reasons, she said, including the pandemic — which has shifted some in-person campaign outreach onto harder-to-see digital platforms — and the calendar. This is the first year in which New York’s primary for governor is being held in June rather than September. The change will lengthen the time between the primary and the general election. Hochul’s team is consciously conserving resources now to prepare for campaigning in late summer and fall.“We hear you,” Henderson-Rivers said, when asked about fellow Democrats’ concerns, before adding that Hochul’s campaign operation would get in gear. “We’re revving,” she said.WeatherPrepare for a chance of showers in the afternoon, with temperatures near the high 70s. At night, the chance of showers continues with temps in the mid-60s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until July 4 (Independence Day).The latest New York newsJefferson Siegel for The New York TimesAn accident downtown: A taxi cab jumped a sidewalk in Manhattan and hit several pedestrians. Three people were taken to the hospital in critical condition.The toll of lower-profile attacks: A Father’s Day shooting in Harlem killed one person and wounded eight others. Over the weekend there were also shootings in Queens, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Vestavia, Ala.Unionizing Starbucks:Jaz Brisack was a Rhodes Scholar who became a Starbucks barista and worked to help unionize the company’s stores in Buffalo.Living in the cityReturn of the happy hour: Companies are struggling to coax employees back to the office, but after-work crowds at some bars are nearing prepandemic levels.Dog insurance: Many insurance companies have long refused coverage or charge more for dogs considered more dangerous, but New York and other states say policies shouldn’t be breed specific.Arts & CultureMan behind the bob: Being Anna Wintour’s hairstylist may sound glamorous, but it’s his art practice that gets Andreas Anastasis talking.Art heist recovery: A librarian and a curator in New Paltz, N.Y., helped the F.B.I. track down 200-year-old paintings that were stolen in 1972.Monkeypox cases are ticking upCDC, via Associated PressMonkeypox, a virus long endemic in parts of Africa, is spreading globally. Some 23 cases have been reported in New York, but health officials believe there are more undetected cases. Most reported cases are among gay or bisexual men or men who have had sex with other men. The city has said that most of the cases so far have been mild, but even mild cases can cause a painful rash that can take two to four weeks to resolve. I asked Sharon Otterman, who covers health care for Metro, to explain.How is it spread? Can it spread through respiratory droplets the way the coronavirus can?The virus is spread primarily by skin-to-skin contact with the sores of someone who is infected.It appears to have been spreading mostly through intimate and sexual contact, though it is not officially considered a sexually transmitted disease. Scientists say it can also spread by contact with sharing objects with an infected person, such as towels or sex toys.It can spread by respiratory droplets, which are created when we speak, sneeze or cough, but that would probably take prolonged close contact. There is also some evidence that it may be able to spread in a limited way via tiny aerosols, like Covid-19, meaning that it may be airborne.But the monkeypox virus in general is much less contagious than Covid-19. It is not thought that you can get it just by breathing the air in a room where an infected person is sitting, for example. So, overall, the risk for most people is low at this point.You write that testing remains rare, which sounds troublingly like the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. How are monkeypox tests handled?Only about 70 public labs in the country can conduct the test for orthopox, the family of viruses to which monkeypox belongs. To get a test, a health care provider has to call the local health department and have a conversation about whether a test is warranted, and right now, health officials in New York will not test everyone who just comes in with a rash.But if an orthopox virus test is positive, the sample then goes to the C.D.C. in Atlanta for final confirmation of monkeypox. The whole process can take several days. To speed the response, any orthopox test that’s positive is presumed to be monkeypox even before the confirmation test.If you text positive for monkeypox, what’s the treatment?Most patients get better on their own, with some supportive care for symptoms, such as to relieve the itching from the pox.What to Know About the Monkeypox VirusCard 1 of 5What is monkeypox? More

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      How Many N.Y. Democrats Does It Take to Fill a House Seat? Try 15.

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      A congressman, an ex-congresswoman, an ex-mayor, a Trump prosecutor and several state and city officials are eyeing an open congressional seat in New York City.Beneath a maple tree by a red brick elementary school in Brooklyn, a lanky, recognizable figure lingered on a recent morning, hoping to catch the attention of moms, dads, the custodial worker mowing the lawn.“Registered Democrat?” asked Bill de Blasio, the former two-term mayor of New York City, as he cajoled potential voters to help him get back in the game.Mr. de Blasio, who once believed he could be elected president, has now set his sights lower, aiming to represent a newly redrawn House district in New York City. But he is far from alone.Others contesting the seat include a Levi Strauss heir who helped impeach Donald J. Trump; rising stars from the City Council and State Assembly; a Chinese American activist involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; and a pathbreaking liberal who was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — 50 years ago.There is also a sitting congressman currently representing a suburban region, who only recently moved into the district. Exactly when, he couldn’t say.“Time is a blur,” said the congressman, Mondaire Jones, pivoting away from questions about his new residency, “when you’re fighting to end gun violence in America.”Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do politicians. So when New York’s redistricting fiasco last month unexpectedly opened up a House seat in a safely Democratic area, stretching from Lower Manhattan through much of brownstone Brooklyn, the political floodgates opened wide.A total of 15 Democrats, representing a broad range of ages and backgrounds, have taken steps to enter a summertime primary that may prove to be one of the largest and most freewheeling in the nation.“It’s like a sweepstakes contest,” said Steven M. Cohen, a longtime government official and frequent donor from the district who said he has been inundated with fund-raising requests. “Everyone can potentially be a winner, no purchase necessary.”Bill de Blasio hopes his name recognition as the former mayor of New York City will carry him to victory in the race.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesThe candidates only have until Aug. 23 to win the sympathies of primary voters who represent some of New York’s most politically engaged and diverse neighborhoods: Greenwich Village, Wall Street, Chinatown, Park Slope, Sunset Park and even parts of Borough Park, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish stronghold.A Guide to New York’s 2022 Primary ElectionsAs prominent Democratic officials seek to defend their records, Republicans see opportunities to make inroads in general election races.Governor’s Race: Gov. Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, will face off against Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi in a Democratic primary on June 28.Adams’s Endorsement: The New York City mayor gave Ms. Hochul a valuable, if belated, endorsement that could help her shore up support among Black and Latino voters.The Mapmaker: A postdoctoral fellow and former bartender redrew New York’s congressional map, reshaping several House districts and scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment.Maloney vs. Nadler: The new congressional lines have put the two stalwart Manhattan Democrats on a collision course in the Aug. 23 primary.Offensive Remarks: Carl P. Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, recently drew backlash for praising Adolf Hitler in an interview dating back to 2021.The result is not so much a contest of ideas — almost every major candidate has condemned threats to abortion rights and bemoaned the lack of strict limits on guns — as of brute force, blunt ambition and identity politics.“Let me start by saying this: I fear no man,” said Mr. Jones, the sitting congressman who decided to try his hand in the reconstituted 10th District, rather than run for re-election in the 17th District or contest the neighboring one to the south. Either option would involve competing against a House incumbent.Mr. Jones did not have to move to Brooklyn to run for the seat; House candidates must live in the state they represent, but not the district. Mr. Jones, who grew up in Rockland County, contended that his status as a newcomer was irrelevant. He suggested that he is sufficiently tied to the district by virtue of his time living elsewhere in the city and socializing in Greenwich Village, as a young gay man of color trying to discover his “authentic self.”In any case, he said, regular voters care more about what a congressional candidate has done and whether he can fight for their interests rather than where he hails from or when he moved. (A spokesman later clarified that the move occurred June 6.)“Harping over the length of someone’s residency in a district and lines that were just drawn a few weeks ago is something that the political class, including many journalists, give outsize weight to,” Mr. Jones said.Jo Anne Simon, a former disability rights lawyer who currently represents parts of the district as a state assemblywoman in Brooklyn, adamantly disagreed as she pitched her own candidacy.State Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon’s district in Brooklyn is part of the newly redrawn 10th Congressional District.Hans Pennink/Associated Press“People vote for people that they know, that they trust and they have reason to know show up,” said Ms. Simon, referencing her decades of activism on local issues like pollution from the Gowanus Expressway. “Nobody here has voted for Mondaire Jones.”Then again, in such a crowded race, there may be no such thing as home-field advantage.Take Carlina Rivera, a city councilwoman who lives just outside of the district, and Yuh-Line Niou, another state assemblywoman. Both are up-and-coming progressive women of color representing parts of Lower Manhattan and could end up cannibalizing each other’s base of support.Ms. Niou said she had more than 600 volunteers eager to carry petitions for her. Ms. Rivera on Friday won the endorsement of Representative Nydia Velázquez, who currently represents much of the new district and is expected to wield substantial sway among voters. She is expected to win re-election in a neighboring redrawn district covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens.Carlina Rivera, a New York City councilwoman.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesYuh-Line Niou, a state assemblywoman.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesThey, in turn, will face off against a progressive rising star from another era, Elizabeth Holtzman, spurred to re-enter the arena by the threat to abortion rights.In 1972, Ms. Holtzman became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, when she defeated a 50-year incumbent at age 31. Now, at age 80, she is trying to become the oldest non-incumbent elected to the House of Representatives in history.In between, she had a trailblazing career as the first woman elected district attorney in Brooklyn and as New York City comptroller, racking up experience that she argues positions her to make an immediate impact in Washington. Still, she has not held elected office since 1993, when several of her competitors were in elementary school.“Somebody said to me, your slogan should be something like ‘Google me,’” Ms. Holtzman said.Former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman.David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesMs. Holtzman, in 1974, with President Gerald Ford.Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesThe Chinese American activist, Yan Xiong, who after his role in Tiananmen went on to become a chaplain for the U.S. Army and now believes he can attract a significant number of votes from large Asian populations in Manhattan’s Chinatown and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park.Voters can be forgiven for being overwhelmed. There was not even supposed to be a primary race in New York’s 10th District until a court-appointed expert so thoroughly scrambled New York City’s congressional map in May that the technical incumbent, Representative Jerrold Nadler, decided to run in the 12th District in Manhattan instead.That decision set him on a collision course with a longtime ally, Representative Carolyn Maloney, but it also left a rare open seat in Manhattan and Brooklyn — political gold to which no one had a rightful claim.“Anyone who tells you that they know what’s going to happen in this race, or that there is an obvious outcome, is lying to you and themselves,” said Chris Coffey, the chief executive of Tusk Strategies, who is unaffiliated in the race.Mr. de Blasio has his claim. He enters the race with near universal name recognition, years of electoral successes and some policy triumphs too — most notably, universal prekindergarten. But Mr. de Blasio does not have a fund-raising advantage. That belongs to two other candidates.As of March 31, Mr. Jones had $2.9 million on hand — a huge sum in a race so short it will make fund-raising difficult. Last week, he dropped his first in an expected deluge of television advertising, a placement of at least $169,000, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm.Daniel Goldman, the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of Mr. Trump, and a frequent legal analyst for MSNBC, is running on his record fighting for democracy and public safety.He is also a former federal prosecutor who spent a decade working in the Southern District of New York, a lesser-known part of his résumé that may help him stand out with voters as the city confronts what Mr. Goldman called “the biggest public safety crisis in decades.”“The core experiences of my professional career, which has been devoted entirely to public service, happen to be very timely for the circumstances we are in now,” he said in an interview.Daniel Goldman served as the chief investigator for House Democrats in the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesStill, he is a relative newcomer to electoral politics and starts the abbreviated race with few of the institutional relationships other candidates will draw on. To try to make up the difference, Mr. Goldman, the Levi Strauss heir who rents a Tribeca apartment listed for sale for $22 million, said he was prepared to “put some of my own money into this to level the playing field.”But given the timing of the contest, and its brevity, the race is also widely expected to turn on get-out-the-vote efforts, which may help candidates like Ms. Niou.“Field is the most important thing,” she said. “We’re running against folks with 100 percent name recognition.”Labor unions and outside political groups could also help turn the race. The retail workers union has endorsed Mr. Jones. Aspire PAC, an outgrowth of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Members of Congress, has been reviewing candidates and will make a decision soon, according to Grace Meng, the Queens congresswoman and PAC chair. It remains unclear if other unions will engage.It is also difficult to gauge how many voters will be in the district in late August, when the city gets torrid and all those who can, leave town. Matthew Rey, a prominent Democratic consultant who is unaffiliated with any of the campaigns, estimated voter turnout could be between just 70,000 and 90,000 in a district of 776,000 residents.The other Democratic candidates are Brian Robinson, John Herron, Maud Maron, Peter J. Gleason, Quanda Francis, Laura Thomas and Jimmy Li.Given the overcrowded field and the late summer election date, the race is hard to pin down.Last week, after dropping off his two children at school in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, Nicholas McDermott said he would absolutely consider voting for Mr. de Blasio.“I think it’s great to have someone with experience who’s from the area,” Mr. McDermott said.He was less certain if he would be around in August to vote.“That’s a good question,” he said. More