Hochul and Heastie talk politics at the state fair

Politics briefly took over the state fair as Gov. Kathy Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie visited the fair in Syracuse on Thursday. Along with a host of lawmakers from all levels of government, the governor and speaker took in what state Sen. John Mannion called “the greatest state fair in the world.” But fried dough and Empire State pride-inducing chocolate milk aside, New York politicians had elections on the brain. 

Hochul and Heastie addressed criticism that the governor was partly responsible for Democrats’ electoral losses in the 2022 midterm elections, which led Republicans to gain control of the House. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at the Democratic National Convention last week that the Democrats’ poor results in 2022 were related to Hochul’s closer-than-expected victory over Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.

“I just disagree with that assessment,” Hochul said on Wednesday, adding that “everything’s good” between her and Pelosi. For his part, Heastie said that rather than engage in “a blame game,” Democrats should focus on having a successful cycle. “I think there’s a strategy in place to win the seats back and I think we should just be concentrating on winning the seats back in 2024,” he said. 

After praising the virtues of the state fair, Democratic Assembly Member Pamela Hunter said that it probably wasn’t reasonable to assign blame to Hochul given how new she was to her role, acclimation to a gubernatorial campaign and leftover baggage from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tenure. But Hunter, who represents Central New York, expected the governor to receive most of the blame, even if it wasn’t fair. “Fair? There is no fair in politics,” she said.

Looking ahead to November, Heastie said that Republicans were “twisting the truth” about Democrats’ positions on immigration and other controversial issues. “Even with the migrant issue, there was a plan, a bipartisan plan, that would have dealt with the border, but Donald Trump thought that if it got solved, it would take away his political issue, and we should never be putting politics over the needs of the people,” he said.

Senate Republicans pulled out of a bipartisan immigration reform deal earlier this year, reportedly at the behest of former President Donald Trump, in what was viewed as a politically cynical move in New York and across the country. 

Heastie also accused Republicans of twisting the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment, which is now slated to appear on the ballot in November following legal battles over its validity and language, into a fight over adolescent female sports equality rather than one of abortion access, which is a major talking point for Democratic campaigns this year. 

Mannion, who is challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Brandon Williams in the 22nd Congressional District in a race that both parties see as Democrats' best opportunity for a pick-up, sought to tie his opponent to extremist Republican policies. “Some of those policies that Williams has either advanced or voted for are not a good reflection of the district and certainly not moderate,” he said. 

But Democrats weren’t the only lawmakers at the fair. Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who trekked to Central New York from Staten Island for the fair, argued that Democrats in the state should be more worried about their own policies – like bail reform and the migrant crisis – than what Republicans are doing. “They should be more concerned about their voting record,” she said. 

Malliotakis suggested that voters would be less concerned about Republicans’ position on abortion, given that New York already has comprehensive options available to terminate a pregnancy, than they would be about inflation and crimes allegedly committed by asylum-seekers. “These disastrous results are brought to you courtesy of the Democratic Party,” she said.