??MUST READ??: Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a group of fellow basketball enthusiasts have been secretly using the NYPD Police Academy’s gymnasium in Queens to play pickup ball, according to four people familiar with the games. The mayor and his crew typically show up around 10 or 11 p.m. and enter surreptitiously through a loading dock before hitting the court. While sports fanaticism has often buoyed the political brand of past mayors, Mamdani’s choice of venue is raising eyebrows. Read the story from POLITICO’s Graham Rayman, Chris Sommerfeldt and Joe Anuta here.
FINANCE FLAWS: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been plagued by inaccuracies since the spring. Copies of the campaign’s bank statements obtained by POLITICO suggest his filings might have even more problems than previously suspected.
According to a disclosure report submitted to the state Board of Elections earlier this month, the Blakeman campaign had only $178,000 in the bank as of Sept. 28.
Yet the campaign’s checking account had a balance of $1.7 million on Sept. 28, according to TD Bank’s monthly statement.
The bank records also show dozens of transactions that are missing from his campaign finance filings.
On July 29, for example, the bank statements identified the campaign using a check with the number 1156 to make a $13,500 payment to an unspecified recipient. Yet Blakeman’s campaign finance reports do not identify any transactions that used check number 1156. It also hasn’t shown a single payment totaling $13,500 at any point over the past year.
In addition, there are instances in which the bank records show apparent contributions to the campaign that never show up in the disclosure reports. The statements show Blakeman was wired $18,000 by actress Lois Robbins on Sept. 2, for example, while the filings don’t show any transactions totaling $18,000 within two weeks of that date or any donations from Robbins. An $18,000 wire from attorney and campaign finance chair Howard Fensterman in July similarly doesn’t match anything in the disclosure reports.
Blakeman is the first gubernatorial candidate in state history to participate in the new matching funds program that lets him receive up to $3.5 million in public money. Then-Mayor Eric Adams was blocked from participating in a similar New York City program last year due to discrepancies between his bank statements and disclosure reports.
Reinvent Albany’s Kyle Kennedy said he didn’t know the cause of the discrepancies, but that it could just be due to “the timing of when things were recorded.”
But, he noted, Blakeman’s campaign “will automatically be audited by the Board of Elections after the election. … Campaign finance enforcement takes place after elections, not in real-time.”
Blakeman’s campaign didn’t respond to a request to explain the discrepancies. It has previously said its campaign finance problems are due to technical issues caused by a large number of donors.
Several of the candidate’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been repeatedly amended, often in ways that made the initial numbers wildly inaccurate. His July report showed him with $4.7 million in the bank; that was changed a week later to show his balance was $6.1 million; then in August it was changed to $4.3 million.
As POLITICO reported earlier this month, Blakeman has received about $360,000 in donations over the contribution limit that he still needs to return. Many of the donations he has already returned have been highly unusual — one person who gave $1 in July was quickly refunded $780.76.
His campaign then said he accidentally submitted some duplicate contributions. Nearly a month later, it hasn’t amended the filing to show which transactions were real.
And as New York Focus reported, the Blakeman campaign submitted requests to receive matching funds for 2,600 donations that were ineligible for matches.From the CapitolTHE WEEKEND TURNOUT: Early voting turnout has skyrocketed in every corner of the state, according to unofficial tallies provided by the state Board of Elections.
On the first two days of early voting in 2022, 261,735 people cast a ballot. This weekend, that number increased to 485,205 — a jump of roughly 85 percent.
The biggest increases were in the North Country — particularly in the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Elise Stefanik, which is now a battleground district for the first time in over a decade. Washington County’s weekend turnout was up 236 percent from four years ago. Early voting increased 196 percent in St. Lawrence County, 182 percent in Warren County, and 179 percent in Herkimer County.
The smallest gains were in the Hudson Valley. That was especially true in the district held by Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, where early turnout was the highest in the state four years ago as Ryan won his first full term in a nail-biter. His race isn’t widely viewed as competitive this year, and the smallest increase among the state’s 62 counties was in Ulster, which was up only 41 percent relative to 2022.
There were also relatively middling gains in Erie County (up 60 percent) and Nassau County (up 64 percent). Those are the places where New York’s two gubernatorial candidates live, perhaps indicating that neither is yet the beneficiary of any outpourings of hometown pride. — Bill MahoneyFROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAILORDER’S UP: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler spent part of this afternoon working at McDonald’s in Haverstraw – a potential backup job “if things don’t work out in November,” he said while putting on his uniform. Lawler is in the final campaign stretch in one of the country’s most closely watched congressional battlegrounds against Democrat Cait Conley.
The lawmaker spent his McDonald’s shift cooking food, handing out orders and speaking with constituents – one of whom openly admitted to voting against him before taking their food and driving off. Aside from that one outlier, customers gave Lawler a warm reception at the drive-thru window. The visit was seemingly part of an effort to make inroads in Haverstraw, a town that leans Democratic.
Lawler told POLITICO he’s feeling confident going into the final days of his campaign, but insisted that he is an underdog in the Hudson Valley district. In the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris and Lawler each won the district.
“I feel very good about where we are heading on Election Day. Eight days from now, we’re going to win because I’ve done the work,” Lawler said in an interview. “I’ve delivered for my district, and the people here know me. I’m from here; I’ve lived here my whole life, I know the community..”
And for those wondering about Lawler’s go-to McDonald’s order: double quarter-pounder with cheese, a Coke and a four-piece McNugget. — Katelyn Cordero
STUMPING SPRINT: Fresh off a weekend of enthusiastic campaigning for Gov. Kathy Hochul, the mayor addressed reporters at a press conference this morning.
He stuck to his rhetoric touting the governor as a champion for affordable child care and lampooning her GOP foe Bruce Blakeman as a Trump puppet.
The mayor was also pressed about whether he expects something in return for all the campaigning he’s been doing for Hochul — such as increased taxes on the rich, a top goal for Mamdani and his democratic socialist allies in the state Legislature.
“I’m expecting a continuation of a positive and productive working relationship with the governor,” he said. “I’m excited for that relationship to continue. It’s been one that’s delivered for working class New Yorkers, and I’m confident it’s going to keep delivering.”
It’s far from an explicit commitment, but it suggests he’ll continue pushing Hochul for tax hikes should she win reelection — something City Council Speaker Julie Menin told POLITICO she would support to bankroll child care programs earlier this month.
Mamdani also repeatedly mentioned the importance of showing New Yorkers that a mayor and a governor can have a productive working relationship — an apparent dig at the storied feud between former Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“New Yorkers across the five boroughs are excited about us finally working together, where they haven’t seen mayors and governors do that often in the past to be able to deliver on common sense things,” he said. — Molly ReinmannFROM CITY HALLGRAND PLANS: Mamdani’s chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church laid out the democratic socialist administration’s governing philosophy today — including its opposition to means-testing for government programs.
“We look especially to universal social programs, facilitating forms of collective ownership, supporting the growth of unions. In short, creating shared economic security and stability through material programs,” Bisgaard-Church said at an event on Mamdani’s affordability agenda hosted by the New York City Policy Forum, a left-leaning research and publishing network. “On the contrary, means-tested programs segregate and encumber people.”
She pointed to other periods in the city’s history that saw “rich public institutions that could compete with the private sector,” citing NYCHA, the MTA and CUNY. Public housing, in particular, has seen significant deterioration in recent decades amid federal disinvestment. Reversing that trajectory is one of the most pressing issues Mamdani faces as mayor.
“Today we are governed by rules of austerity and face a withered welfare regime, means-tested policies, decayed public sector, and weakened public institutions,” Bisgaard-Church continued. “These are the political realities our administration wants to overturn, and we know that tackling the crushing cost of living is again key to doing so.”
The event drew other top Mamdani officials including Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg, Economic Development Corporation Chair Lina Khan, and Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Sam Levine. — Janaki ChadhaIN OTHER NEWS— HOMELESSNESS: Mamdani’s early efforts to address a ballooning homelessness problem in the city have largely failed, community leaders allege. (The Wall Street Journal)
— SUNNYSIDE YARD: Housing experts weighed in on the outlandishly high cost of Mamdani and Trump’s proposed development at Sunnyside Yard. (The City Reporter)
— BK DEMS: There are four state legislative seats Democrats are looking to flip in southern Brooklyn this midterm cycle, a fact that has largely been overshadowed by the party’s drama-packed leadership succession saga. (City & State)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.