NY GOP: We’ve got new weapon against Dems that could be better than even cashless-bail reforms
New York Republicans believe they have a powerful new weapon that might be even more successful against Democrats in upcoming elections than the state’s anti-bail-reform outrage in 2022: the migrant crisis.
GOP strategists said the potency of the migrant issue is analogous to how local Republicans bludgeoned Dems for approving the New York’s widely criticized cashless bail law — enabling the Grand Old Party to win key House seats in last fall’s elections and nearly scoring the governorship and spurring a red wave in in the suburbs.
The people in charge who are fumbling the migrant crisis are all Democrats — President Biden, Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams along with New York Sens. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, and Kirsten Gillibrand, GOP insiders said.
Even some Democrats agree the crisis is a red flag for their party’s candidates.
“There is clear political trouble for Democrats if the state remains in operational disarray on this migrant issue,” said former Rep. Max Rose, who represented Staten Island and southern Brooklyn before being ousted at least partly over criminal-justice issues.
“There is significant danger that Democrats will be unable to reclaim the congressional seats that should be Democratic seats,” Rose told The Post.
Republicans are salivating.
“The Democrats have backed themselves into a corner,” said GOP strategist Chapin Fay. “The migrants are here, and they’re not going back. You reap what you sow.
“New York is a sanctuary city,” he said, referring to the Big Apple’s declaration it would limit its cooperation with federal authorities in rooting out illegal migrants.
“It’s an issue that Republicans can use against Democrats as the unpopular cashless bail law approved by Democrats in Albany was,” Fay said. “It might even be more successful. Top to bottom, this is bad for Democrats.”
David Catalfamo, a Republican consultant who served as a top aide to former GOP Gov. George Pataki, said, “The Democrats’ ineffectiveness to deal with this issue has been astounding.
“They have underestimated the migrant issue. It’s homelessness, crime, plus the migrant issue.
“The migrant crisis is going to help Republicans across the state — next year in the races for Congress as well as in local races this year,” Catalfamo predicted.
Republican pollsters said concerns about the unrelenting influx of migrants flooding New York City — and being bused to other parts of the state — has already emerged as a top voter concern along with crime and taxes.
“The Democrats own the migrant crisis from top to bottom, and they don’t have a solution. Republican candidates are going to hold Democrats accountable for the migrant crisis,” said John McLaughlin, a pollster who conducts surveys for GOP candidates in New York for Congress and local races..
McLaughlin said the recent arrests of two migrants for sexually assaulting women in two hotels converted into emergency shelters near Buffalo airport set off alarm bells.
“The sex crimes committed by migrants in Erie County was statewide news,” he said.
Some counties that border New York City — such as GOP-controlled Nassau County on Long Island — have refused to accept migrants.
But McLaughlin said Long Island voters are “apoplectic” about the 1,000-migrant encampment for migrants that just opened at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village on the Nassau border, worrying that problems will spill over their region.
Last year, GOP candidate for governor Lee Zeldin came within 5 points of toppling Democrat Kathy Hochul in the heavily blue state by hammering her over the cashless bail law and fear of crime.
His strong performance at the top of the ticket in the battleground suburbs in Long Island and the Hudson Valley helped flip a handful of congressional seats from Democrat to Republican, almost single handedly enabling the GOP to reclaim control of the House of Representatives.
“The Democrats have created a headache for themselves by refusing to address the migrant crisis head on. I expect Republicans will be much more energized and motivated to talk about the migrant crisis and how to solve it,” Zeldin said, including by promoting a stricter border enforcement policy .
Indeed, Democrats are reeling and changing positions on the fly, with finger-pointing at fellow Dems:
- Hochul, who had backed busing some migrants from the city to the suburbs and upstate, changed her tune last week. She said there is more capacity to house more migrants in the Big Apple and criticized Mayor Adams for not using some of the sites owned by the state in the five boroughs for migrant encampments.
- Eric County Executive Mark Poloncarz, who has championed welcoming migrants to his region in the past, said this month he would not accept any more migrants in the Buffalo area after two sexual assaults at hotels there that housed asylum seekers bused from New York City.
- Adams is challenging the 1981 court-ordered right to shelter law that mandated the city to provide temporary housing to anyone who asks for it and has imposed a 60-day limit on migrant shelter stays.
About 100,000 men, women and children seeking asylum have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022, with more than 57,000 currently staying in 198 emergency shelters in the five boroughs.
Other Democrats have sought to insulate or distance themselves from the problem.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, a moderate Democrat, passed an emergency order that refuses to accept migrants from New York City for placement at Suffolk hotels. Sources said Bellone, who is term-limited, is keeping his options open to run for another office.
GOP activists said the migrant crisis will be the top concern in some competitive New York City Council races, too, including: Democrat-turned-Republican Councilman Ari Kagan vs. Democratic Councilman Justin Brannan, who are pitted against each other in southern Brooklyn thanks to redistricting; GOP incumbent Councilwoman Vicki Paladino in a rematch against former Democrat Councilman Tony Avella in eastern Queens, and Republican challenger Kristy Marmorato against Democrat Councilwoman Marjorie Velazquez in District 13 in the eastern Bronx.
Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder and GOP candidate for mayor in 2021, said the Republican candidates’ can use the migrant crisis to counter the Democrats hammering them on abortion rights, which were eviscerated with last year’s US Supreme Court ruling.
“The migrant crisis will be the defining issue that Republicans use against the Democrats,” Sliwa said.
“The Democrats will fall back on abortion, abortion, abortion,” he said. But “the migrant crisis is all anybody is talking about.”
Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said Biden is trying to contain the migrant crisis to urban areas such as New York, whose electoral votes he has in his back pocket, while pushing to win battleground states in the Midwest next year.
“It absolutely hurts Democrats in New York,” said Sheinkopf, who worked on Democratic President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign.
