With early voting underway and ballots being cast across New York, this week’s From the Lobby turns to the political stakes of primary day — particularly the downstate congressional and assembly races that could measure the strength of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s New York City victory. Host Joanna Pasceri sits down with Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates, to unpack what the results could mean for Hakeem Jeffries and a potentially Democratic-controlled House, the eye-popping budget gaps looming over Albany, the Assembly Speaker’s defense of New York’s high-cost, high-service model, and Mayor Mamdani’s push for new taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Plus, Jack shares highlights from his family’s trip to the World Cup in New Jersey.
Joanna Pasceri
Primary day is almost here and while the turnout may be light, the stakes are anything but. And political observers across the country are watching closely to see what New York voters have to say. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to From the Lobby with Jack O’Donnell. Early voting is underway, ballots are being cast and the results could tell us a lot about where our state and country could be headed. Joining us as always is Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates. He’s been tracking the races, the trends and the ripple effects that could stretch well beyond New York. Jack, great to have you with us.
Jack O’Donnell
Joanna, great to be with you.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, primary day is finally here in New York and a lot of the attention is focused on downstate congressional races after Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City. Are these races the next test of how much influence the progressive wing of the party really has?
Jack O’Donnell
You mentioned the congressional races there. There are a series of assembly primaries too. And this is a great bellwether on the direction of the Democratic Party. It is an indicator of how influential Zohran Mamdani is. We’ve seen him dominate the press, not just in New York and the budget conversation here, frankly too, but around the country. But the question is, does that translate into political influence? Will his voters — again, remember we talked about it a lot on this podcast and in our Monday Morning Memo — Mamdani built a unique coalition. He really drove turnout, especially from younger New Yorkers, from a lot of first-time voters. Are they going to turn out? His campaign had an incredible field operation. Are other candidates able to replicate that? So do those folks come out? Does his endorsement matter? How does that set the stage?
But also who these candidates are. Most of these races, these primaries that we’re talking about for the most part are going to determine the winner in highly Democratic enrolled districts in New York City. So it’s not just what is the future of the politics in the city look like, but are there three, five, six new Democratic socialist members of the Democratic Conference in Washington, especially with the expectation that Democrats might win the House? What is the body going to look like? Is it center left, is it far left? And what does that mean for Hakeem Jeffries, another New Yorker who’s on broadly the other side of a lot of these races from Zohran Mamdani? So just an awful lot to unpack about what that’s going to mean and who wins. So our eyes are glued on these races.
Joanna Pasceri
Let’s turn to the state budget now. In this week’s Monday Morning Memo, you highlighted some eye-popping numbers. Projected budget gaps of 6.4 billion, 10.5 billion, nearly 15 billion. This all over the next several years. The governor avoided major tax increases this year. How difficult will that be to do?
Jack O’Donnell
Again, we’ve talked about this here, I wrote about it at length in the memo last week. But next year’s budget is going to probably bring a lot of pain. So much of what New York State did around New York City’s finances were a lot of those were one-time infusions or push-off costs. And we’re finally going to see the real impacts of the Republican big beautiful bill on health care in New York. A lot of those kick in in January, after the midterms.
And we’ve talked at length about really just escalating health care costs, escalating education. Why are they going up? They’re going up for lots of reasons. But a big part of that is because Democrats care about those issues, but also because they’re really powerful communities — advocacies around both groups. So trying to get in the way of increases, even if it’s further down the road, and just trying to slow the rate of increase, those can be really politically dangerous for elected officials. So I’m very concerned about next year’s budget.
Joanna Pasceri
The Assembly Speaker was in Buffalo this week defending New York’s record high budget. He argued that New Yorkers receive services that many lower-taxed states don’t provide and suggested that housing costs are driving people out of the state. Do you think the state’s doing enough to make life affordable for New Yorkers?
Jack O’Donnell
I think like everyone else, the state could do more. It’s agreeing on what those things are. I will agree with the Speaker that New York does things that other states don’t. Our Medicaid system is much more generous. We’re seeing these investments in child care, we’re seeing investment in roads and bridges as the federal government pulls out. We’re seeing the state address a lot of things that other places don’t and there’s a cost for that.
And that’s what gets into this whole fight that we’ve talked about, about taxing the richest New Yorkers. The folks saying that it’s not the rich that are leaving the state, it’s the lower middle class who can’t afford to stay here. So a lot of that kind of plays out in real life as people make those decisions. But that’s also why jobs in New York pay more and there are other opportunities and a lot of reasons why folks want to be here. I know I do. And so that’s the balance and sort of give and take that we see.
Joanna Pasceri
Speaking of taxes, even after receiving billions in state aid and a new tax on luxury second homes, Mayor Mamdani’s administration is already talking about higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations next year. It doesn’t look like this issue is going to go away. How do you think it’ll play out?
Jack O’Donnell
Well, it definitely is not going away. We talked at the beginning here about Mamdani and his coalition. And there were a lot of folks in the Democratic left who believe that you need to tax the wealthy before they even figure out what to do with the money. And have this idea to redistribute the wealth. That is a push of the Democratic socialists. So that is live. It is real.
Again, that’s the ideology that is at stake in these congressional and to another extent, in several assembly races that we see, especially downstate, to a lesser extent, one or two in Western New York and Central New York. So those things are real. They will be a huge part of the debate next year again as we dig into the deficits and the funding challenges that we see, especially in a year that’s not an election year for the governor and the legislature. So we’re going to be talking a lot about these things this fall and come January.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, before we let you go, Jack, we have to ask you, we saw that you and your family were at the World Cup last week in New Jersey. How was that experience?
Jack O’Donnell
I can’t say enough good things. I think people who listen to this probably know my mother-in-law’s an immigrant from Brazil. And there are different levels of religion and how people participate in Brazil and in other countries, but there’s only one level when it comes to soccer, which is all in. So it was really exciting. I love soccer. I played soccer. My kids play soccer. And to be a part of it on this biggest stage was great.
I can’t say enough good things about how New Jersey Transit handled a lot of folks going in or out. That might have been tougher on some of the commuters who couldn’t follow the regular schedule. But for those of us going to the stadium and coming back, it was great. And I’ll tell you, at least for the Brazilian fans, nobody sat down and nobody stopped cheering, chanting and hooting and hollering throughout the whole thing. It was great to see our man Vinny Jr. with the goal there and really excited about their next game on Friday.
Joanna Pasceri
Good memories there. Well, Jack, as always, thanks so much for your insight.
Jack O’Donnell
Thank you, Joanna.
Joanna Pasceri
We’ll be watching the primary day races, the turnout and the signals voters send about the future of New York politics. And for more analysis, be sure to check out Jack’s Monday Morning Memo. Each week he and the team break down the stories shaping government, politics and public policy across New York and beyond. You can sign up anytime on our website at odonnellsolutions.com. Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next time From the Lobby with Jack O’Donnell.
