The primary elections held in New York this Tuesday brought very few surprises. First, everything indicates that the Democratic Party will continue to retain, without a doubt, the governorship of the state with the eventual re-election of Kathy Hochul, who prevailed comfortably in the internal elections. Second, the enormous apathy towards this type of partisan internalism was reissued, even when it was expected that incendiary debates that cross the country would mobilize citizen participation a little more.
Out of a total of 12, 9 million of voters, just 1.2 million of the registered Democrats and Republicans went to select their candidates for the governorship, the lieutenant governorship and the seats in the State Assembly. In other words, abstention once again exceeded 92%, just like the last primaries held in 2008.
In the five counties of the Big Apple, where there are more than 3 million voters in the databases, the number of voters from both parties did not even break the barrier of 500 thousand votes, of which about 60,000 were deposited by Republicans.
Of course, what is clear for the next primaries, scheduled for the next 23 of August, where the candidates for the House of Representatives and the state senators are chosen, is that from now on more “energy” must be injected into the voters to excite them to two more votes, in this 2022.
“I am independent. And really, people in New York assume that the Democrats always win, so sometimes they even forget to vote. In the case of this primary election, everyone already knew that the current governor, Katty Hochul, had more than enough, so people do not move”, reasoned the Colombian merchant, Luisiana Cabrera, from 28 years old, a resident of Jackson Heights in Queens.
Other voters, such as Puerto Rican Jesús Salvador, from 65 years, assures that the Democrats in New York “live very confident” because they know that “the numbers here do not give the Republicans never to win”.
“But beware. Many Democrats also stay home on election days, disappointed in their leadership. They will never go to vote for the Republicans, but they abstain. And it is a way of saying that they are not useful either”, argued the islander.
It is still too early to analyze how was the participation of Hispanics in these inmates, where the total of 14% of the voters, call themselves on the registration forms as a member of this ethnic group.
Democrats line up for November
The novelty that these inmates presented is that despite the supremacy of the formula of the state president, Kathy Hochul, who today does not find obstacles to be re-elected in the position for four more years, very critical voices emerged during the campaign within the same Democratic party, which made it clear that they will join in working for the victory of that political organization. But, emphasizing that they have great differences, in the way New York has been governed.
One of these voices was precisely that of Ana María Archila, the Colombian who was a candidate for vice-government, who within hours of knowing his defeat, added his hand to collaborate with a convincing electoral victory of the blue party, in the next elections in November, where not only New York will be at stake, but also the seats in the Capitol.
“Every day it is clearer that our Republican opponents have become actively hostile to democracy and fight only for extremist interests. I hope to support the efforts throughout the state to ensure that New York remains a totally blue state, in the general elections,” said Archila, who was part of the duo with the ombudsman, Jumaane Williams, to displace the current governor in that position.
After a campaign in which this activist did not miss an opportunity to make her opinion clear about how the billionaires manage the agenda of the Democratic central committee in the state, she said Wednesday that from any position, she will continue to promote that the state government “include the working class and not only comply with the wishes of the real estate and financial emporiums.”
For her part, the former councilwoman of Dominican origin, Diana Reyna, the other Democratic opponent of the Hochul formula in these primaries, recognized that “Unfortunately, turnout was very low” in these elections.
“When I traveled around the state of New York during the campaign, together with my running mate Tom Suozzi, we heard many stories of people who are tired, who feel that the government has abandoned them. And it doesn’t respond to your needs. They have lost hope. In addition, having primaries on two different dates caused a lot of confusion“, he asserted.
Republicans and their titanic task
According to the results of these primaries, in the Republican arena the representative to Congress , Lee Zeldin will have the daunting task of electorally challenging the current governor of New York, in a state where the red party has lost the last 23 state elections.
However, the Republican standard-bearer reacted on his twitter account: “On November 8, Kathy Hochul will be fired as governor. She lives a walking identity crisis, pandering to the pro-criminal elements of her party and the elements of the extreme left. Hochul is out of step with the issues that matter most to New Yorkers.”
Primaries in NY:
- Approximately 6 million Democrats have the Democratic Party in NY, based on the latest record from the State Board of Elections.2022
- 2.7 million Republicans on the register, this means that there are now more voters registered as “blank” or “no party”, than in the red party.
- 864,864 Voters registered as Democrats participated in the last primaries of the 28 June throughout the state.
- 446,515 they did it for the republican party.