CHA-CHING: New York’s Democrats are rolling in it. As our colleague Bill Mahoney reported today, New York Democrats are outraising Republicans big in state legislative races this year. And that financial edge is being felt by campaigns across the state, from Albany candidates to House hopefuls. “New York Democrats are fired up and working tirelessly to protect our rights and defeat MAGA extremism in November,” Jen Goodman, a campaign spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, told Playbook in a statement. The party, led by Hochul, is in the midst of a $5 million effort to flip the House. They’re using that money to hire 80 staff members and open 35 field offices in battleground congressional districts, state Democrats said in a memo released today. Almost every single Democrat in the state's most competitive House battles also raised more than their opponent this past fundraising cycle. But nowhere is the cash advantage more apparent than in Albany, where Dems are besting Republicans nearly 5-to-1 in the cash dash over the last year for the state Senate and the past two years for the Assembly. “There's an increased activism at this point in history, because of the real concerns about national trends and the importance of states and combating them,” said state Sen. Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, who has chaired the Democrats’ state Senate Campaign Committee for the last decade. Those trends, according to Gianaris, revolve around the specter of a Trump presidency and increased fundraising energy around pivotal issues including abortion and gun regulations. Jon Paul Lupo, a New York-based Democratic consultant, attributed the bump to “the Trump effect.” “There's a tremendous amount of fear associated with Trump and that motivates people to get involved,” Lupo said. “People want to do something. They have direct relationships, they feel connected to their local representatives. They're going to make contributions to them when they feel there's a lot at stake and there's definitely a lot at stake this year.” The fundraising success on the state legislative level could also be a reflection of the fact that donating to Republican candidates is almost certain to be a pointless effort. While Republicans once hoped to win back control of the state Senate after losing it in 2018, that dream seems to have died in the night. “What I've seen is Republican-aligned interests being smart enough not to waste their resources on futile efforts to try to take back the Assembly or Senate,” Gianaris said. “I can't say we've seen a flood of support from that side of the world, but I think they have been smart enough not to engage in some of these races.” A spokesperson for the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee declined to comment for this story. There’s also more confidence among Democrats that state party funds will be more readily available now that Andrew Cuomo is out of the picture. The former Democratic governor, who used state party money to shore up support for his own candidacy, once spent $5.3 million of the party’s money in 2013 on TV ads boosting himself. “Having a governor who is not actively opposing us as our own Democratic governor did when it was Andrew Cuomo is a plus for us,” Gianaris said. Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, disagreed with that assessment. Under the former governor, Azzopardi said state Democrats “spent millions” to “drive record turnout, retake the senate, and help take back the house - including $2 million just for ads for State Senate races.” “In the time since we left, the political operation run through the state party singlehandly lost the House,” Azzopardi told Playbook in a statement. “If that’s what the senator prefers that says more about him than us I guess.” — Jason Beeferman
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