NYC NOW - Midday News: Newark Airport Delays, Arts Institutions Scramble for Funding After Federal Cuts, and Big Money Floods NJ Governor’s Race

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Hundreds of flights at Newark Airport face delays or cancellations due to staffing shortages and weather. Meanwhile, New York City’s cultural institutions are rushing to fill funding gaps after the Trump administration cut support for the National Endowment for the Arts. Plus, with just over a month to go until New Jersey’s primary, money is pouring into the governor’s race, but following the cash trail isn’t easy. NJ Spotlight News reporter Colleen O’Dea joins us to explain why.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, May 5th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. More than 350 flights into and out of Newark Airport have been delayed or canceled so far today. As it continues to struggle with staffing shortages and bad weather, flight aware tracks air traffic. It says more than 200 Newark flights have been delayed and at least 130 have been delayed. canceled. The Federal Aviation Administration says low clouds and issues with air traffic controllers are hindering traffic today. It says delays were averaging four hours for some arrivals.

Officials recommend travelers check with their airlines to see if their flights are affected. United Airlines is the hardest hit with more than 110 delays in cancellations. The Port Authority says the delays are expected to continue through the day. Local New York City cultural institutions are scrambling for money after the Trump administration pulled funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Ty Jones is the producing artistic director of the classical theater of Harlem. The theater lost a $60,000 grant to fund an upcoming play in Marcus Garvey Park about an Ethiopian king. But Jones says the show must go on.

It's a spark that's going to put a flame in motion. All it's done is energized. My folks, I feel confident that we will be able to cover this gap. And we're going to deliver the best show in New York City this summer. Arts groups receive notices. Their funding was pulled the same day. President Trump suggested eliminating the national endowment for the arts entirely. In his budget proposal, the president says he plans to, quote, reduce unnecessary governmental entities.

61 with rain now rain mainly after 10 and then patchy fog. A high of 62 winds up to 21 miles an hour this afternoon. Stick around. There's more to come. On WNYC, I'm David First. All it takes is a quick look at the ads on TV and online right now to know that serious money is being spent on the New Jersey Governor's race. There are a lot of candidates and there are a lot of ads. Colleen O'Day is with NJ Spotlight News. She has been studying and reporting on the money raised during primary season.

and as we're down to just over a month before primary day on June 10th, she says cash is pouring into the race and that tracking where it's coming from is harder than ever. Collino Day joins us now. First of all, this is a very different New Jersey governor's race from what we've seen in recent memory. There are six well-known candidates on the Democratic side. Newark Mayor Ros Baraka, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fullop, representatives Josh Gottheimer and Mikey Sherrill, president of the New Jersey Education Association Sean Spiller and former State Senate President Stephen Sweeney. And on the Republican side,

there are three major candidates, state senator John Bramnick, former State Assemblyman Jack Jitterrelli, and former conservative radio host Bill Spadia. And at least on the Democratic side, this seems to be a much more wide open race than what we've seen in recent years. Can you break it down for us? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, this is a case where you've got at least three or four, and possibly all of them have a path to victory. Mikey Cheryl seems to have gotten most of the endorsements of the county political parties,

but New Jersey has a different kind of election this year because the county line is gone. I'm sorry to back you up, but you have to explain what you mean when you say the county line is gone. Yeah, so, you know, New Jersey had this kind of weird situation, which I didn't realize because I've lived my whole life here, but other states don't have where if you get an endorsement from a county political party, you got this preferential treatment on the ballot in that county so that you and all of the other endorsed candidates were in a line or in a road together. And so if you're a voter going in who doesn't know much, you might say, oh, I'm going to vote for all these people.

You get prime placement in the voting book when you go in there. Yes, exactly. So that's gone. So we're not sure how much those endorsements mean. I mean, they still will mean a lot because there are county organizations that will be pushing for her. But Josh Gottheimer is very well funded, and he certainly has his supporters in North Jersey. You've got, as you said, two mayors who have prime support in their areas. Plus, Raz Baraka has gotten a lot of support from progressive groups and endorsements.

And Steve Fullup is well known for his organizing. And he's got supporters throughout the state. Probably the best-funded candidate, although not officially, is the NJEA president because he's got reportedly $35 million in a special independent group from essentially the New Jersey Education Association. That's Sean Spiller. That's Sean Spiller, exactly. that money is behind him and potentially if the teachers who are a huge voting block in the state think that he can help them maybe help their pensions they may vote for him then you've got steve sweeney the only south jersey candidate and he's pretty much got most of south jersey

sewn up and if the other north jersey candidates kind of split the vote steve sweeney could come right in there and win by taking south jersey so nobody can really predict at this point, you know, who might win. Okay, so let's talk about the money. In your NJ Spotlight News coverage this week, you report that total spending on the gubernatorial primaries could break records with outside money. That's from groups not controlled by the candidates,

now playing a major role in a New Jersey governor's race for the first time. What can you tell us about the money that's being raised and what's different this time? Yeah, so, you know, two years ago, the state legislature passed and the governor signed something called the Elections Transparency Act, which essentially made it easier to become an independent spending group in the state. Now, these groups have to report for the first time, but this is not something that New Jersey had seen before because they weren't really addressed in state law. So now you've got,

we've counted so far, $64 million that has been raised by, 28 independent groups backing. It's eight of the candidates have at least one committee backing them. As I mentioned, Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association has a group called Working New Jersey backing him. And as far as we know, there's so far a 17 million that has come into them of that 35 million I talked about. But all of that money theoretically is coming from the NJEA. But so far, the only reason that we know any money has come into them is because of filings that the NJEA's PAC had to make. I know this is complicated.

It's a web of committees. But, you know, we haven't even seen yet the exact spending or fundraising from most of these groups because they don't have to file any reports until May 30th, again, under that new state law. May 30th, this is after voting by mail will have been going on for some time and very close to actual primary day on June 10th. Just 11 days before Election Day, that's right. So for those people who, I mean, certainly for reporters, but for those people who really care about, you know, who's behind the candidates, that's not a lot of time to figure that out. And, you know, remember all of these campaign reforms that we know about in terms of. of campaign financing come because of the idea that you're trying to prevent someone from being able to spend a lot of money to influence a candidate potentially if that candidate gets elected to maybe, you know, throw some contracts your way or implement some other policy that might

be favorable to donors. When you look at the money raised and money spent, how does it compare between the two parties during primary season and how might that shift as we move into the general election this fall? Well, so there's definitely more money on the Democratic side. There are more candidates. And certainly when you've got something like the NJEA saying they'll spend $35 million, I mean, that's just going to make the Democratic side spending much larger. The Republican side, I think it's going to depend on what kind of commitment national organizations make.

Will Elon Musk come in and spend some money, as I think has been teased or perhaps threatened? will Donald Trump and his MAGA group come in and spend money. We just don't know that yet. But they certainly don't have anywhere near the money that the Democrats have. Colleen O'Day with NJ Spotlight News, thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you again, David. Tune in to WNYC Wednesday night at 7 for a conversation with the Republican candidates, co-moderated by Michael Hill, WNYC's Morning Edition host,

and by David Cruz with NJ Spotlight News. and the following week on May 12th, we bring you a conversation with the Democrats. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday. Three times a date for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.