NY’s first Black Republican in Congress?

By Jeff Coltin

With help from Irie Sentner

Mazi Pilip would be the first ever Black Republican to represent New York in Congress, but her campaign hasn’t emphasized its historic nature. | Pool photo by Adam Gray

If she’s elected Tuesday, Mazi Pilip would be the first ever Black Republican to represent New York in Congress.

The historic nature of Pilip’s candidacy hasn’t been emphasized by her campaign. She has instead leaned into another aspect of her identity, as an Israeli Jew who served in that country's military.

Pilip’s campaign didn’t make her available to discuss the matter, and she didn’t respond to a list of questions about it, such as whether she’d join the Congressional Black Caucus. None of the four Black Republicans in the House are members.

“It’s not a question of color,” Republican Party Chair Ed Cox told Playbook. “It’s a question of a good candidate and her values with respect to the most important issues — unvetted migrants, our foreign policy and Israel, and the issues of crime in New York.”

Pilip’s emphasis makes strategic sense. The recent Newsday/Siena poll predicted that 16 percent of the vote would be Jewish, while just 2 percent of the electorate would be Black. And support for Israel amid war in Gaza is a motivating factor for many voters.

Pilip was born in Ethiopia and emigrated to Israel as a child before migrating to the United States as an adult. She’s emphasized her own status as an immigrant while attacking Democratic policy on the current wave of migrants.

Her vote for Trump in 2020 places her among the just 8 percent of Black Americans who backed the Republican, according to the Pew Research Center. But a massive Democratic advantage among Black voters is weakening to its lowest point since polling began in 1999, according to Gallup.

Rep. Greg Meeks, who’s Black and the Queens Democratic leader, said he hasn’t seen Pilip reaching out to Black voters: “It’s not the question of the historical effect of her running. It is what she will vote for and what she will do once she’s there,” he said.

Electing her “would be a fallback on African-Americans. Because not only is Tom on the ballot for African-Americans. Hakeem Jeffries is on the ballot. And that’s what’s important to us.”

The New York GOP has nominated a handful of Black candidates to run statewide in recent years, including Joe Pinion against Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2022 and Keith Wofford against Letitia James for Attorney General in 2018. Both Republicans lost in blowouts.

But Black Republicans have seen success in the heart of the 3rd congressional district before.

James Garner became the first African-American mayor on Long Island when he was elected in the Village of Hempstead in 1989. He served for 16 years, but lost in 2005 — the same election Tom Suozzi was elected to a second term as Nassau County executive. — Jeff Coltin

Fred Thiele Jr. will not be seeking reelection after 30 years in the State Assembly. | Assembly

NO REELECTION FOR THIELE: After 30 years serving in the State Assembly, Fred Thiele Jr. will not be seeking reelection this fall, he announced today.

“Government service was my dream from my days as a student in elementary school in Sag Harbor when I heard the call of President John F. Kennedy to ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ Being chosen by my neighbors to be their representative has truly been the greatest honor of my professional life,” Thiele said in a statement.

Thiele, who has served his Assembly district in the east end of Suffolk County, said he now looks forward to serving his community that has been home to his family for more than 200 years. — Shawn Ness

NEW YORK’S PRICEY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SPENDING: Consulting group PFM has finished an independent audit of New York’s economic development programs and found that most don’t help the state anywhere near as much as promised.

The Film Production Credit, for example, provides the state with 15 cents in direct tax revenue per dollar invested. Even accounting for the program’s trickle-down impact — such as in money spent on catering for productions — the return is only 31 cents.

There might be some additional benefits to areas like the tourism industry due to New York City enjoying “exposure in film and television” thanks to the credit, but “it is likely that much of the exposure would exist [regardless] because of its prominence in U.S. culture.”

The program “is at best a break-even proposition and more likely a net cost to NYS,” the auditors concluded.

The audit was mandated by language that Senate Democrats forced into the budget that passed two years ago. The members who pushed for the report say they’ll now use it to push for reforms such as a requirement that recipients of this spending hire locally.

“There’s not a shred of doubt, not a shadow of a doubt, if we’re being honest with ourselves, that we can come to any other conclusion than that we are wasting billions of dollars,” Sen. James Skoufis said. — Bill Mahoney

New York City is expected to see at least five to eight inches of snow on Tuesday. | AP Photo/John Minchillo

SNOW DAY: New York City public schools will shift to remote learning Tuesday in anticipation of a winter storm, Mayor Eric Adams announced today.

The city is expected to see at least five to eight inches of snow. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, former Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that snow days are “a thing of the past.”

The Adams administration’s early announcement represents the first substantial test of that strategy.

The mayor defended the decision and cited learning loss students experienced due to the pandemic. “Snow days, my mother had to walk us to school with her arthritic knees,” Adams told reporters during a briefing. “If you are a parent and you are not willing to navigate a computer for your child, that’s a sad commentary.”

Schools Chancellor David Banks said: “The mayor and I spoke earlier this morning and he gave the word that we should start the preparation."

Adams said New Yorkers should expect low visibility and high wind gusts later today and through tomorrow.

Gov. Kathy Hochul estimated more snow for the Hudson Valley and Catskills, perhaps as much as eight to 12 inches in the region and between two to six inches in the Albany area.

“Mother Nature is sending her love our way for Valentine's Day in the form of a massive snowstorm,” she said. — Madina Touré

Senator Andrew Gounardes showed off his new Working Families Child Tax Credit calculator. | Shawn News/POLITICO

WORKING FAMILIES TAX CREDIT: Sens. Andrew Gounardes, Rachel May and Robert Jackson unveiled a new “working families tax credit calculator.”

It will allow for families to calculate how much the tax credit would save them if passed. The measure would consolidate several child tax credits in New York and expand them to income-eligible New Yorkers.

“[It] would basically help us reach our child poverty reduction goals here in New York State and do what we know is going to help put money back in the pockets of working families now,” Gounardes, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.

The calculator, which was demonstrated to viewers at a press conference, will have four boxes of necessary information: Combined household income, number of dependents, filing status (single or married), and if the filer is using a social security number or an individual tax identification number.

It will then show the user how much they are currently saving with the tax credit already in place, as well as showing what they would be saving if the working families tax credit (S. 277B/ A. 4022B) is passed. — Shawn Ness

JOHN KING TO HARVARD?: SUNY Chancellor John King is rumored to be a contender for the Harvard presidency, just a year after taking the helm at SUNY, a report said.

While a search committee is set to begin the formal search process, the Harvard Crimson named King, along with nine others, as a candidate who would be supported by faculty and alumni. King has ties to Harvard as the former president and CEO of the Education Trust and a current member of the Harvard Board of Overseers.

While the school newspaper points to King as a potential candidate, it’s unclear if he is even considering putting in an application for the position. SUNY wouldn’t discuss whether he’s interested, saying he’s focused on his current job.

“Chancellor King is committed to fulfilling SUNY’s promise to deliver an excellent, accessible, and affordable college education by providing a place for every New Yorker and achieving SUNY's goal of doubling research across the system,” SUNY spokesperson Holly Liapis said in a statement.

“From expanding internships to scaling up ASAP and ACE across 25 campuses to the launch of Empire AI, Chancellor King is focused on the great work ahead at SUNY.” — Katelyn Cordero

PUMP THE ELECTRIC BREAKS: Senate and Assembly Republicans gathered today in protest of Hochul's mandate to convert school buses to electric, zero-emission buses.

“There are about 800 school districts in New York State, and there are 50,000 school buses. That means it is roughly $20 billion to buy all the electric school buses, which run about triple what a standard school bus would run,” Sen. George Borrello, a Southern Tier Republican, said.

The Republican conferences want to replace the initiative with a pilot program to determine the feasibility of Hochul’s $500 million proposal. It would require school districts to replace all their school buses with zero-emission vehicles by 2045. School districts must begin the transition by 2027.

“Zero-emission school bus mandates ignore the practical challenges faced by districts and the financial strain they impose,” Assemblymember Ari Brown, a Queens Republican, said. — Shawn Ness

Tom Suozzi, the Democratic candidate in the Long Island special election to replace George Santos, campaigned at a Glen Cove bakery in Nassau County today. | Emily Ngo/POLITICO

ELECTION EVE: Democrat Tom Suozzi’s final pitch to voters on the eve of the Long Island special election included Italian pastries and a pledge to turn the page on Capitol dysfunction.

Republican-backed Mazi Pilip planned to spend the evening showing the GOP has her back with a rally of national party leaders and campaign volunteers in Franklin Square, just outside the district.

Both candidates sought to project confidence that they would prevail Tuesday in a race that polling shows is a toss-up. The seat vacated by disgraced Republican Rep. George Santos is critical to both parties because the Republicans hold one of the slimmest House majorities in history.

“People want change. And they say, Oh, how can Tom Suozzi be the agent of change; the guy’s been around for so long,” Suozzi told reporters today. “But the change they want is: They’re sick of Washington, D.C. They’re sick of everybody fighting with each other.”

The former congressman campaigned in Glen Cove at St. Rocco’s Bakery, proffering pignoli to patrons.

Pilip in a FOX 5 New York interview this morning blasted Suozzi as a smooth talker, as she did in their sole debate.

“He is a talker, excellent talker. He’s really good at that. I am a person of action,” the Nassau County legislator said.

She also praised Donald Trump effusively while again linking Suozzi to Joe Biden, even though Suozzi has rejected the president’s help in his campaign. — Emily Ngo

EARLY VOTING NUMBERS ARE HERE: Early voting numbers in the NY-03 special election obtained by Playbook show Democrats holding an early lead, but Republicans remain in striking distance ahead of a snowy Election Day likely to upend voter turnout.

In total, about 66,800 voters turned out for the nine days of early voting: 29,604 voters were registered as Democrats and 22,649 as Republicans or Conservatives; 12,979 were “other” or “blank” voters.

The numbers provided to Playbook by the elections boards in Nassau and Queens counties were unofficial. Jay Jacobs, chair of the state Democratic party, said he was pleased with them.

“Every indication that I've seen shows us that either Democratic enthusiasm is higher, or it's certainly not any more than the Republicans’,” Jacobs said.

“If that translates into turnout, the Republicans have a big problem. Typically what we see in turnout is Democrats underperform our registration and Republicans overperform. That is not what we're seeing now,” he said.

Pilip’s campaign and the Nassau GOP did not respond to Playbook’s questions about how they felt about the early numbers.

Preliminary numbers from Nassau County alone showed 11,846 total absentee votes counted, with more absentee votes coming soon. About 6,190 of those votes were from Democrats, 3,341 were from Republicans or Conservatives and 2,040 were blank voters, which historically tend to skew Republican in the district.

Jacobs also said that the Democrats have more new voters in early voting numbers at 4,583. That’s about 1,400 more than Republicans’ 3,176 new voters.

Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said the early numbers were good for Democrats, but the storm and other factors mean this race is still anybody’s game.

“The closer that the Democrats get to having more early votes than Republicans, plus so-called blanks, the better for them,” Levy said. “There's a lot of reasons for [Jacobs] to be optimistic, but I don't think any of the Democratic leaders are kidding themselves about how difficult and close this race can be. ” — Jason Beeferman

HOCHUL SETS SPECIAL: Hochul today scheduled the special election for the Western New York congressional seat vacated by Democrat Brian Higgins earlier this month. As expected, it will be on Tuesday, April 30.

Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy won his party’s ballot line in the district that has traditionally been a stronghold for his party. Republicans have not yet settled on a candidate. — Bill Mahoney

– Pilip and Suozzi are encouraging residents to vote early in the election ahead of Tuesday’s snow storm. (POLITICO)

– A new analysis found that Adams’ government is not as efficient as he wants it to be. (POLITICO)

– Adams is locking up 31 percent more teens this past year, and the city is on track to incarcerate more this year. (Daily News)

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