| | | | |  | | By Emily Ngo, Nick Reisman and Jeff Coltin | | Presented by |  | | | With Timmy Facciola
| | 
State Senator John Mannion is moving from Albany to Washington after he unseated freshman Rep. Brandon Williams. | Craig Ruttle/AP | NEW YORK MINUTE: Gov. Kathy Hochul is coming down to rainy Puerto Rico today for the Somos conference — celebrating flipping House seats, lamenting Donald Trump’s win and planning for the year ahead. Mayor Eric Adams is unlikely to make it now, people close to him say, but candidates hoping to replace him made the rounds Wednesday night in the lobby of the Caribe Hilton. POLITICO is on the ground and will have more coverage in Playbook and Playbook PM. FROM ALBANY TO DC: Democrat John Mannion flipped a crucial Syracuse-area House seat late Tuesday, winning the office just as his party learned it would lose the White House and control of the Senate. Democrats also appear poised to stay in the House minority, which would deliver Trump and Republicans the trifecta in Washington. Playbook caught up with the outgoing state senator on his whirlwind first day as a representative-elect. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You’re going from Albany, which is controlled by Democrats, to Washington, where Republicans are at the levers of power. What’s the adjustment process? The place where I’ve lived my whole life and the place I currently represent is a down-the-middle district. You’ve got to find issues that you can work with each other on. I did that when it came to Green CHIPS in the state, with Micron. I believe that, looking forward, trying to end the cap for SALT deductions is something that’s a bipartisan initiative that I support. So no adjustment necessary? Exactly. This is what central New York and the Mohawk Valley are. We’re swing districts. The people here expect you to get things done, to work together and oppose your party when it doesn’t work for the district. Did you think you’d win this seat in time for Democrats to lose others? I did not expect that. I was very hopeful that the presidential election was going to go the other way. I knew that the Senate would be an uphill battle. And we’ll see what happens on Jan. 3, when I’m sworn in, and what the House looks like, but it’s my job to advance legislation, represent the people of this district and work together, regardless of who’s holding the gavel. What lessons should Democrats nationally take away from Election Night about what American voters really want? I think because central New York and the Mohawk Valley faced serious job losses in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s that we just can’t mess around. People expect you to deliver, and we also don’t like the toxicity, we don’t like the demonizing, we don’t like the divisiveness. Did New York do its part in helping House Democrats make a play for the majority? One hundred percent, they did. Our elected officials, Governor Hochul, I will start with. A very, very close second, if not tied, would be Senator Gillibrand and Senator Schumer. The governor, in particular, made sure that she was selfless in this and that she supported our races. And I will also say that the state party, along with the DCCC, my campaign, the coordinated campaign really did a great job. How many hours of sleep did you get on Election Night? I had three hours. I had a lot of — as you can imagine — thank you messages and voicemails. I haven’t gotten through all of them yet, but it’s a good problem to have. — Emily Ngo HAPPY THURSDAY: Got news? Send it our way: Jeff Coltin, Emily Ngo and Nick Reisman.
| | | | A message from Uber: New York City Uber riders pay $700 Million in taxes and fees annually* That’s more than the entire budget for New York City Parks Department. *Based on trips originating from NYC in 2023. Learn more. | | | WHERE’S KATHY? Attending Somos in Puerto Rico. WHERE’S ERIC? Hosting a breakfast reception at Gracie Mansion to celebrate Veterans Day, and later making a public health- and law enforcement-related announcement at City Hall. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m driving through the Bronx, and I see pickup trucks with Trump flags. It’s as if he’s the Yankees. No sports team has ever had the kind of merch this man has.” — J.C. Polanco , attorney and assistant professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, on the increase in Donald Trump’s support in the Bronx as the Republican made clear gains in New York.
|  | ABOVE THE FOLD | | | 
Assemblymember Pat Fahy is among several Albany Democrats focusing on bread-and-butter issues after Donald Trump's victory Tuesday. | Via PatriciaFahyNY.com | DEMS THE BREAKS: When Trump first won the White House in 2016, Albany Democrats in the state Legislature pledged to form “the resistance” to his policies — counteracting his administration with legislation to bolster abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, criminal justice law changes and other measures generally favored by the political left. But as Trump returns to the presidency, some Democrats in the state Legislature are not embracing an unabashedly left-leaning agenda. Instead, the lawmakers want to address more bread-and-butter issues like housing and infrastructure to find ways of growing support among working-class New Yorkers. “We’ve got to grow housing,” said Democrat Pat Fahy, who was elected to an Albany-area state Senate seat. “We’ve just got to grow housing, period. We’ve got to make college affordable and financially accessible. Things feel too out of reach for people.” State Sen. Jeremy Cooney, a Rochester-area Democrat, wants to make strides on mass transit. He’s worried the incoming Trump administration will hinder those goals. “We are making real progress on high-speed rail with the Biden administration,” he said. “And we can’t slow down.” Hudson Valley state Sen. James Skoufis — reelected to a purplish district where he outran Vice President Kamala Harris by 10 points — said he wants his party “to return to its mainstream, working-class roots” and end a slide among voters who haven’t connected with Democrats. While Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to “protect” New Yorkers from Trump on a variety of policy fronts, Skoufis believes that can only go so far. “There will, no doubt, be an interest in advancing preemptive and reactive legislation in an effort to protect New York’s interest from a hostile federal government,” he said. “It must be done in a fashion, however, that begins to rebuild trust among voters that have moved away from us the last two election cycles — not further alienate the mainstream public.” It’s a cliché that elected officials need to meet voters where they are, and the lawmakers who spoke with Playbook on Wednesday are from a moderate mold. It’s not yet clear left-leaning advocates, too, will try to prod the party in Trump 2.0. But with Trump winning both the electoral college and popular votes, Democrats appeared to absorb this outcome differently than the 2016 race. “It’s a little bit of a wake up call,” Fahy said. Republicans continue to hold super-minorities in the state Assembly and Senate. But top GOP lawmakers were happy to paint Tuesday night’s results as a sign of how their Democratic colleagues are out of touch. “The people showed they want to stop the overflow of illegal immigration, empower law enforcement officials to protect our communities and fix our broken economy,” Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt said. — Nick Reisman
| | CITY HALL: THE LATEST | | | | 
FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker previously led a security firm and served on the Police Foundation Board before his appointment this past August. | Yuki Iwamura/AP | TUCK AND ROLL: Several top people in Mayor Eric Adams’ orbit have reached out to FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker to gauge his interest in being NYPD commissioner instead, a person with knowledge of the conversations told Playbook. The outreach comes as Adams’ search for a new top cop continues — and following an embarrassing public shouting match between interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon and Chief of Staff Tarik Sheppard. Adams’ press secretary Kayla Mamelak said it wasn’t true that Tucker was in the running. And while FDNY spokesperson Amanda Farinacci didn’t deny he had been approached, she said “Commissioner Tucker loves his job at the FDNY and has no plans to go anywhere.” Tucker is a “great guy. He would be a good fit,” former NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said to Playbook. But he thought it would be unlikely he’d take the job just three months after joining the FDNY. Tucker previously led a security firm and served on the Police Foundation Board, but has never been part of the police department. There’s precedent though, as Howard Safir was moved from fire commissioner to police commissioner in Rudy Giuliani’s administration. Since Edward Caban was pressured to resign as NYPD commissioner in September after a federal probe came to light, speculation has continued to grow in the two months the department has been without a permanent leader. Adams has said Donlon is still in the running. Other names floated for the job have included Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch and former NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker. — Jeff Coltin More from the city: — Adams did little to allay fears of “mass deportations” under Trump as he pledged to work with the president-elect on immigration issues. (Daily News) — How NYC neighborhoods voted in the presidential race, in map form. (THE CITY) — Live updates from Somos. (City & State)
| | | | A message from Uber:   | | | | | NEW FROM PLANET ALBANY | | |  Gov. Kathy Hochul was blamed two years ago by the party’s leading lights, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for disappointing results that led to the party losing control of the chamber. | Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul | A MUTED VICTORY LAP: As Hochul unveiled her plan to counteract the potential impacts of the incoming Trump administration, she did not dwell on helping flip three swing House seats. She did, however, take credit for reviving a state party apparatus that in the past was deployed for the governor’s political fortunes and not for down-ballot candidates. “No one expected to see the gains that we had,” Hochul told reporters Wednesday. “The House of Representatives is at least in striking distance of being a Democratic majority because of the unprecedented efforts of bringing the state party back from the dead.” Democrats flipped House seats on Long Island, in the Syracuse area and in the Hudson Valley. (GOP Rep. Marc Molinaro has not conceded his seat to Democrat Josh Riley with about 12,000 absentee and affidavit ballots to be counted.) Hochul was blamed two years ago by the party’s leading lights, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for disappointing results that led to the party losing control of the chamber. Democrats may not regain their toehold in the House this time around either. But Hochul won’t be blamed. The party has touted a vast field operation, one that included 1.3 million door knocks and 5 million phone calls. And, crucially, New York Democrats engaged with 23,000 volunteers. This can all be kept as valuable voter data and deployed when Hochul herself is on the ballot in two years. — Nick Reisman More from Albany: — The status quo will be maintained in the Democratic-led chambers of the state Legislature. (POLITICO Pro) — Democratic Assemblymember Patrick Burke overcame a past scandal to win reelection. (Buffalo News) — Democrat Chris Ryan holds a narrow lead in the race to replace John Mannion in the state Senate. (Post-Standard)
| | KEEPING UP WITH THE DELEGATION | | | 
Rep. Marc Molinaro has yet to concede defeat, despite the Associated Press calling the race. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | THIS DEMOCRACY: There it is, the peaceful transfer of power. It was smooth going between the presidential candidates Wednesday, with Harris calling Trump and then delivering a concession speech. Several New York House candidates also followed the American rite central to the democratic process. In central New York, Mannion and Rep. Brandon Williams talked by phone before Williams gave a speech thanking his supporters. In the Hudson Valley, Democrat Mondaire Jones finished his concession statement with, “Finally, I wish Congressman Mike Lawler, whom I have known for years, the very best in his next term.” Upstate, Molinaro has yet to concede to Riley, who the Associated Press declared the victor, but Molinaro did stress in his statement that after all the votes are counted, “Whatever the result ends up being, I will accept it, and am beyond grateful to my family, friends and supporters.” — Emily Ngo More from the Congress: — Democrats are turning to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as their last hope for stopping a Trump-led Republican trifecta in Washington. (Axios) — Jewish voters played a key role in New York House races, but the number of Jewish members of Congress will drop. (Forward)
| | NEW YORK STATE OF MIND | | — Democrat Susan Cacace will lead the Westchester County district attorney’s office. (LoHud) — A former judge who took bribes has been accused of making a threat at a poll site. ( Times Union) — New York City liquor stores reported a brisk business on Election Day. (New York Post)
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