NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Speaker Adams’ Campaign Funds, Cuomo Gains Key Endorsement, Crackdown on Ghost Plates, NY Republicans Plot for Red Wave

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams collected more than $128,000 a few days into her campaign but won’t qualify for matching funds. Plus, the head of the Brooklyn Democratic party moves support in the mayoral race to New York’s former governor. Also, city officials are taking more steps to crack down on drivers who obstruct their license plates. And finally, some Republicans in New York are feeling bullish about their chances of winning statewide office next year.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jena Pierre. Candidates in New York City's mayor race are closely monitoring campaign funds these days. City Council Speaker Adrian Adams is already putting together a sizable campaign war chest in her bid to become mayor. Her team says it's collected more than $128,000, just five days into her campaign. That's more than most other candidates running for mayor. However, the campaign was dealt a major blow over the weekend as it failed to qualify for public matching funds. Meanwhile, an influential Brooklyn political leader is dropping her support for Mayor Eric Adams and instead will endorse former governor Andrew Cuomo's campaign for City Hall.

WMYC's Ramsey Caliphé has the latest development in the mayoral race. Assembly member Rodneyes Spichott Hermlin is siding with Cuomo. She's the head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party who is a major player in Mayor Adams. Williams winning campaign four years ago. She'll serve as political advisor to Cuomo. It's the latest blow to Adams' re-election bid that's been upended by corruption charges. A federal judge is weighing whether to allow the Trump administration to drop the case against the mayor, and Adams has avoided campaigning while the charges are still pending. A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month estimates that 56% of registered New York voters want the mayor to resign.

New York City is taking more steps to crack down on drivers who obstruct their license plates to evade traffic tickets and tolls. The Transportation Department is finalizing new rules that make it extra clear to drivers that they'll face fines if their license plates are blocked or covered. Obscaring a plate with any kind of coating or substance that prevents a camera from reading it is against the rules. They also explicitly ban car owners from altering the characters on their license plates to trick toll. and enforcement cameras. The rule changes go into effect on April 16th. GOP hopefuls are plotting for a red wave next year. More on that after the break.

Some Republicans in New York are feeling bullish about their chances of winning statewide office next year. WMYC's Jimmy Fieldkind has more. For Republicans, the road to the governor's mansion in 2026 starts at a cocktail party in downtown Binghamton. Several hundred people are here for the annual Lincoln Day dinner, a fundraising banquet. Benji Federman, who chairs the local GOP committee, says the crowd is excited about President Trump's win and wants to take out Governor Hockel next year.

But we'll welcome any Republican that's motivated to beat Kathy Hokel. That is mission critical for the Republican Party in 26. We're preparing and ready to strike. It won't be easy. Republicans have been out of power in society. state government since 2019, but two potential candidates are hitting the stump. One is Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakman, who drove up from Long Island to explain how he won in a Democrat-dominated county.

We listened to the people. We got down to basics. We worried about our communities and not about people who've been here for 15 minutes who came across our border illegally. Blakeman's speech focused on immigration, keeping transgender girls from playing girls' sports teams, and his ties to Trump. He's running for re-election to his current job, but he won't rule out a statewide run. Another politician openly pondering a run for governor is Congressmember Mike Lawler from the Hudson Valley. He fended off a Democratic challenger in November, and he's since gone around the state attacking Hokel, including at a recent conference in Albany.

Kathy Hockel is a feckless and failed governor who must be defeated in 2026. A poll taken this month shows Lawler leading Blakeman among Republicans in a hypothetical gubernatorial primary. The same Sienna College survey found 56% of voters would prefer to back someone other than Hockel in 2026. Still, pollster Stephen Greenberg says there are 3 million more Democratic voters in New York than Republicans. Take a step back. New York is a state that has been solidly blue for a long time. The last time a Republican won statewide in New York was when George Patack. Potaki won his third term as governor in 2002. Pataki said the ingredients for a statewide winner there,

if you have a GOP candidate who can attract some Democrats. If you want people to not vote their party, you have to have someone who is able to articulate why they should do that. Both Blakeman and Lawler talk about bipartisanship, but they also emphasize their ties to Trump. Back in Binghamton, several dozen protesters gather outside Blakeman's speech. Barbara Mullen, a co-leader of the local indivisible, group says Trump and Elon Musk's work to dismantle federal agencies is a power grab.

Because of checks and balances, we expect our Republican neighbors to do their job to stand up and stop the coup. Fred Akshaw is also on hand. He's the local sheriff and a former state lawmaker. He says a lot of what Republicans hope to do in New York depends on Washington. I mean, there are still a lot of anti-Trump, anti-Elon Musk people amongst us. If we don't produce, on behalf of the American people, then we will suffer for that. The latest poll shows Trump's job approval in New York has ticked down to 42%. That's WMYC's Jimmy Veilkind. March is Women's History Month. To market, we're profiling women in music and their journeys

through the industry. Sky Hume is a music business major at Hofstra University on Long Island. I've been interested in music since I was old enough to conceptualize that I was. And since I was a kid, it has been the creative process that I have been passionate about. Whether that involves working as an artist manager, working on song releases, or directly with artists and songwriters, whatever it may be, to uplift voices that maybe have a been heard and that really deserve to be heard. The music industry looks vastly different today than it did just five years ago when we were going through a global pandemic and it looked different in the early days of streaming. Things change quickly.

And if you are not willing to take those changes in stride, you're probably not going to thrive as much. And I think being a woman and furthermore, someone who identifies as queer is something that undeniably makes it more difficult to feel like I have space that I can take up. And seeing other women and people who identify as queer, non-binary and come from diverse communities in the music industry is really important because we are here and we are plentiful and these numbers are growing. My college community has been really, really instrumental in helping me foster a really collaborative environment. And last April, a few other classmates and I founded a chapter of women in music at Hofstra because we saw this need for women and non-binary individuals in our program to have a space where they felt like their voices could be amplified.

And we made that space. And when I'm navigating the industry and I inevitably encounter tough days, I'll remember that that community can still exist in other spaces, even beyond graduation. Sky Hume is a music business major at Hofstra University. This song was produced by the group Oziotic, which Hume is a member of. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.