NEW YORK MINUTE: Former Rep. Charles Rangel — the trailblazing “lion of Lenox Avenue,” one of Harlem’s iconic Gang of Four and a Congressional Black Caucus founding member — died Sunday at age 94.Tributes poured in for the Korean War veteran on Memorial Day. Rangel had spent nearly five decades in Congress.His successor, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, told Playbook that they went from rivals to best friends and said Rangel loved to get updates on Washington politics even in his final days.CLOCK’S TICKING: Voters will head to the polls in four weeks — sooner for those voting early — to pick the Democratic nominee to challenge Mayor Eric Adams in November, and the race remains stagnant.Andrew Cuomo continues to get bad headlines and lead every public and private poll anyway. Zohran Mamdani retains his second-place position (more on that below), and everyone else keeps looking for new ways to dent Cuomo’s lead and grab voters’ attention in what precedent dictates will be a low-turnout race.Over the holiday weekend, the slate of Working Families Party-based candidates gathered in Brooklyn to rally with a mariachi band.The third party has yet to assign rankings to its slate of four endorsees. Its preferred candidates — Adrienne Adams, Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani and Zellnor Myrie — have yet to cross-endorse each other.But they campaigned together to send a simple enough message: Rank us, not Cuomo.Adrienne Adams described the need for a safer, more affordable city. “I know what that feels like, and I know that Andrew Cuomo cannot relate to my everyday situation,” the City Council speaker said. “That is why you need to rank this slate.”Through ranked-choice voting, New Yorkers will be able to choose up to five candidates on their ballots.On Sunday, Cuomo appeared at a predominantly Black church in the Bronx where he spoke about the wealth disparity in the city and said the borough “has the greatest need” of the five.“I am running for mayor because I believe we can fix this city. I believe we need to fix this city,” the former governor said, the phrase evoking the name of a pro-Cuomo super PAC. “I believe the time is now.”Today, POLITICO’s Joe Anutatakes a deep dive into Mamdani’s plans to drastically expand city services at little or no cost to those who would benefit.The democratic socialist is proposing free buses, city-owned grocery stores and far more affordable housing built through a unionized workforce. (For comparison, even the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, a self-avowed lefty, blanched at the cost of some union rates.)Mamdani’s plans rely largely on raising taxes on rich New Yorkers — something Gov. Kathy Hochul would have to approve and, so far, has shown no appetite for.This week we should find out whether Adrienne Adams — who has risen in the polls despite her late entry, low name ID and financial disadvantage — qualifies for public matching funds from the city’s newly emboldened Campaign Finance Board.The board is denying Eric Adams matching funds, owed to his federal corruption case that a judge dropped in April at President Donald Trump’s behest. And it’s withheld over $620,000 from Cuomo as it probes whether he coordinated with the super PAC backing him.When it meets Friday, it’s expected to render its decision on Adrienne Adams, who has raised $521,000, moved $219,000 from an old account and spent $446,000, including outstanding liabilities, per public records. That leaves her with $294,000 in the bank — not nearly enough to compete in the city’s expensive ad market.HAPPY TUESDAY: Got news? Send it our way:,and.WHERE’S KATHY? In New York City, with no publicly scheduled events.WHERE’S ERIC? No public schedule available as of 10 p.m. Monday.QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Five years later, I’m like, ‘Come on, we should have been moving faster than this. I don’t see the change that we want,’” George Floyd’s brother, New Yorker Terrence Floyd,via Gothamist, on the anniversary of his older sibling’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer.
SUSTAINED SECOND PLACE: Mamdani, who has consistently polled second to Cuomo, is closing the gap, according to a recent survey his campaign shared in full with Playbook.The campaign’s internal poll found the ex-governor beating the state lawmaker 41 to 28 in the first round of a simulated ranked-choice faceoff. Cuomo eventually won the race in round seven, 56 to 44, once third-place Lander was eliminated. As other polls have shown, Lander’s support was fairly evenly split between the top two contenders.Cuomo had a 53-47 favorability rating, a slight improvement from the Mamdani camp’s January poll that put him at 50-50. Polling has consistently shown him with relatively high negatives for such a durable frontrunner.Mamdani’s favorability rating was 48-19; Lander’s was 51-17.A plurality of respondents, 24 percent, ranked affordable housing as their top issue and another 16 percent named affordability, inflation and cost of living. When combined, those answers doubled the number of people who cited crime as a leading concern.The multi-modal survey of 500 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted between May 14 and 18 by the relatively new firm Workbench Strategy and had a 4.4 percent margin of error. Jane Rayburn, previously a partner at EMC Research, co-launched Workbench Strategy in February.Internal polls generally skew toward the candidate for whom they’re conducted, and Mamdani fares better than he usually does in this survey. But the lineup and eventual outcome in this poll mirror public opinion surveys and private ones reviewed by Playbook.Four in 10 respondents were white, 27 percent Black, 18 percent Hispanic or Latino and 6 percent Asian or Pacific Islander. Thirty-eight percent were over 65 years old and about three-quarters described the city as “on the wrong track.” The split among Democratic ideologies was fairly even, with 32 percent describing themselves as progressive or “very liberal,” 18 percent as “somewhat liberal” and the remainder varying degrees of moderate. Just six percent identified as a socialist, like Mamdani.Cuomo and Mamdani each benefit from portraying this as a two-person race. For Cuomo, it justifies his practiced messaging: An experienced executive who eschews far-left ideology, versus a young socialist. For Mamdani, it stands to help him persuade the few relevant people who have yet to endorse — namely Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — that he stands a better chance than Lander of defeating Cuomo.“With still a third lower name recognition than Cuomo and millions in cash on hand, Zohran is nowhere near his ceiling,” campaign spokesperson Andrew Epstein said, promising a big final push to close the gap.FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso will launch a TV and digital ad today, a six-figure buy that focuses on the pressure campaign to reverse the planned closures of child care centers.Reynoso, a Democrat running for reelection, cites both Trump and Eric Adams as threats in the spot called “Nuestros Niños,” or “Our Children.” The title is also a nod to a daycare center in Williamsburg that was marked for closure.“We took him on and won,” the borough president says in the ad of his predecessor, Adams.The Adams administration in February walked back its decision against renewing the leases for a handful of centers.ALSO FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: A Manhattan City Council candidate now has two former congressional rivals in her corner.Former House candidate Suraj Patel has joined ex-Rep. Carolyn Maloney to endorse nonprofit leader Sarah Batchu for the lower Manhattan seat being vacated by term-limited Carlina Rivera. Patel and Maloney competed in the heated post-redistricting 2022 primary that Rep. Jerry Nadler ultimately won.HOCHUL GETS DEM GUV LUV: Hochul may face formidable challengers in the primary and general elections next year, but the Democratic Governors Association has her back.First in Playbook, the national committee is out today with a state-of-the-race memo that knocks the “cadre of Trump loyalists and largely unknown Democratic opponents” who may go against the governor. Its leaders cite her record, campaign infrastructure and fundraising as reasons they believe she’s on the path to reelection.Hochul’s job approval ratings have been middling at best. A Siena College poll earlier this month found her unfavorability to be just two points higher than her favorability. And she’s frequently targeted for criticism from Republicans and within her party. But she’s in a relatively strong position.Her potential primary opponents include Rep. Ritchie Torres and her deputy, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado. The Republicans weighing a campaign for the statehouse in 2026 include Reps. Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.WINE SOME MORE: Republican state Sen. George Borrello wants only New York vino stocked on grocery store shelves.The western New York lawmaker recently proposed the new twist in the wine-in-grocery stores debate in the post-budget legislative session.“If you allow any wines into grocery stores, it’s going to be the big boys made outside of New York,” Borrello told Playbook. “It’s the two buck chuck made out on the West Coast or foreign countries.”The proposal is a form of protectionism injected into the long-running debate over allowing supermarkets to carry wine. The move, in part, is aimed at boosting Hudson Valley and Finger Lake wineries. But Borrello also wants the bill to signal support for local liquor stores that oppose wine in grocery stores that are more likely to carry a wide variety of alcoholic products.“It’s going to help our wineries and grape growers, but also mitigate the harm to liquor stores,” Borrello said.YOU CAN CALL ME AI: State lawmakers want to regulate artificial intelligence — and have new polling to bolster their approach.A survey this month by Beacon Research found a majority of voters — 84 percent — support a bill that would require AI firms to safeguard against “catastrophic risk” and implement whistleblower protections for employees who flag safety concerns.The poll also found support across racial and party lines, while 60 percent of voters expect it would make people safer.The bill, known as the RAISE Act, is backed by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Alex Bores.“People want AI to make life easier and better, not threaten it. My RAISE Act helps get us there by creating simple, reasonable regulations to protect us from existential risks while allowing beneficial uses of AI to flourish,” Gounardes said. “This is about creating the future we all want and deserve.”The bill also has the back of state Attorney General Letitia James — boosting its chances of passing in the Democratic-led Legislature.THAT’S THE TICKET: Resale ticket companies are pushing back against proposed regulations that would place restrictions on secondary sales.State Sen. James Skoufis and Assemblymember Ron Kim have proposed a measure meant to crackdown on purchase fees and secondary market prices — including a ban on the resale of tickets to events like concerts and Broadway shows above face value. They also want to ban the sale of speculative tickets that resellers don’t yet control and expand refund requirements.“The current, abusive system which governs how New Yorkers access live entertainment tickets affects the relationship between fans and the artists, athletes, and performers they admire,” Skoufis said.The industry pushed back Monday and in a statement to Playbook warned the regulations would force businesses to close.COMPTROLLER WATCH: Democratic comptroller candidate Drew Warshaw is launching a website today highlighting the state’s unclaimed funds — a $20 billion pot of money that incumbent Tom DiNapoli’s office controls.SALT (AND MORE) IN THE SENATE: Moderate and battleground New York House Republicans are watching the Senate for potential changes to the deals they negotiated in their chamber’s hard-fought megabill.They have reason to worry. It could be in for a buzzsaw of a rewrite. The state and local tax deduction, or SALT, and clean energy tax credits are two areas Senate Republicans will scrutinize, POLITICO reports.“Nothing is final until it’s final, right?” Rep. Mike Lawler of the Hudson Valley told Playbook. “There’s still a number of areas to focus on, including obviously wanting A.) to protect SALT, B.) any prospective changes on the Medicaid front and C.) the IRA tax credits.”Rep. Nick LaLota — who with Lawler, Rep. Andrew Garbarino and others struck a last-minute deal with House Speaker Mike Johnson to quadruple the SALT cap — said he’s keeping his foot down on the tax deduction.LaLota, a Long Island Republican, told Playbook that unlike SALT Democrats “who four years ago said, ‘No SALT, no deal,’ we say, ‘No SALT, no deal, but we’re for real.’ If the reconciliation bill that comes back from the Senate doesn’t have our SALT fix, we will vote no.”Lawler and LaLota regard the SALT agreement in the House as a victory for their highly taxed districts.Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) previewed senators’ stance on SALT, referencing Garbarino missing the House vote because he did not wake up in time from a nap during the overnight procedures.“The number that we care most about is 218, depending on how many we can get to fall asleep,” Cramer said, referring to the number of House seats held by Republicans.HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Assemblymember Michaelle Solages … former Assemblymember Adam Clayton Powell IV … Ethan Stark-Miller of amNewYork … Arthur “Jerry” Kremer of Empire Government Strategies.
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SUSTAINED SECOND PLACE: Mamdani, who has consistently polled second to Cuomo, is closing the gap, according to a recent survey his campaign shared in full with Playbook.The campaign’s internal poll found the ex-governor beating the state lawmaker 41 to 28 in the first round of a simulated ranked-choice faceoff. Cuomo eventually won the race in round seven, 56 to 44, once third-place Lander was eliminated. As other polls have shown, Lander’s support was fairly evenly split between the top two contenders.Cuomo had a 53-47 favorability rating, a slight improvement from the Mamdani camp’s January poll that put him at 50-50. Polling has consistently shown him with relatively high negatives for such a durable frontrunner.Mamdani’s favorability rating was 48-19; Lander’s was 51-17.A plurality of respondents, 24 percent, ranked affordable housing as their top issue and another 16 percent named affordability, inflation and cost of living. When combined, those answers doubled the number of people who cited crime as a leading concern.The multi-modal survey of 500 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted between May 14 and 18 by the relatively new firm Workbench Strategy and had a 4.4 percent margin of error. Jane Rayburn, previously a partner at EMC Research, co-launched Workbench Strategy in February.Internal polls generally skew toward the candidate for whom they’re conducted, and Mamdani fares better than he usually does in this survey. But the lineup and eventual outcome in this poll mirror public opinion surveys and private ones reviewed by Playbook.Four in 10 respondents were white, 27 percent Black, 18 percent Hispanic or Latino and 6 percent Asian or Pacific Islander. Thirty-eight percent were over 65 years old and about three-quarters described the city as “on the wrong track.” The split among Democratic ideologies was fairly even, with 32 percent describing themselves as progressive or “very liberal,” 18 percent as “somewhat liberal” and the remainder varying degrees of moderate. Just six percent identified as a socialist, like Mamdani.Cuomo and Mamdani each benefit from portraying this as a two-person race. For Cuomo, it justifies his practiced messaging: An experienced executive who eschews far-left ideology, versus a young socialist. For Mamdani, it stands to help him persuade the few relevant people who have yet to endorse — namely Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — that he stands a better chance than Lander of defeating Cuomo.“With still a third lower name recognition than Cuomo and millions in cash on hand, Zohran is nowhere near his ceiling,” campaign spokesperson Andrew Epstein said, promising a big final push to close the gap.FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso will launch a TV and digital ad today, a six-figure buy that focuses on the pressure campaign to reverse the planned closures of child care centers.Reynoso, a Democrat running for reelection, cites both Trump and Eric Adams as threats in the spot called “Nuestros Niños,” or “Our Children.” The title is also a nod to a daycare center in Williamsburg that was marked for closure.“We took him on and won,” the borough president says in the ad of his predecessor, Adams.The Adams administration in February walked back its decision against renewing the leases for a handful of centers.ALSO FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: A Manhattan City Council candidate now has two former congressional rivals in her corner.Former House candidate Suraj Patel has joined ex-Rep. Carolyn Maloney to endorse nonprofit leader Sarah Batchu for the lower Manhattan seat being vacated by term-limited Carlina Rivera. Patel and Maloney competed in the heated post-redistricting 2022 primary that Rep. Jerry Nadler ultimately won.HOCHUL GETS DEM GUV LUV: Hochul may face formidable challengers in the primary and general elections next year, but the Democratic Governors Association has her back.First in Playbook, the national committee is out today with a state-of-the-race memo that knocks the “cadre of Trump loyalists and largely unknown Democratic opponents” who may go against the governor. Its leaders cite her record, campaign infrastructure and fundraising as reasons they believe she’s on the path to reelection.Hochul’s job approval ratings have been middling at best. A Siena College poll earlier this month found her unfavorability to be just two points higher than her favorability. And she’s frequently targeted for criticism from Republicans and within her party. But she’s in a relatively strong position.Her potential primary opponents include Rep. Ritchie Torres and her deputy, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado. The Republicans weighing a campaign for the statehouse in 2026 include Reps. Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.WINE SOME MORE: Republican state Sen. George Borrello wants only New York vino stocked on grocery store shelves.The western New York lawmaker recently proposed the new twist in the wine-in-grocery stores debate in the post-budget legislative session.“If you allow any wines into grocery stores, it’s going to be the big boys made outside of New York,” Borrello told Playbook. “It’s the two buck chuck made out on the West Coast or foreign countries.”The proposal is a form of protectionism injected into the long-running debate over allowing supermarkets to carry wine. The move, in part, is aimed at boosting Hudson Valley and Finger Lake wineries. But Borrello also wants the bill to signal support for local liquor stores that oppose wine in grocery stores that are more likely to carry a wide variety of alcoholic products.“It’s going to help our wineries and grape growers, but also mitigate the harm to liquor stores,” Borrello said.YOU CAN CALL ME AI: State lawmakers want to regulate artificial intelligence — and have new polling to bolster their approach.A survey this month by Beacon Research found a majority of voters — 84 percent — support a bill that would require AI firms to safeguard against “catastrophic risk” and implement whistleblower protections for employees who flag safety concerns.The poll also found support across racial and party lines, while 60 percent of voters expect it would make people safer.The bill, known as the RAISE Act, is backed by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assemblymember Alex Bores.“People want AI to make life easier and better, not threaten it. My RAISE Act helps get us there by creating simple, reasonable regulations to protect us from existential risks while allowing beneficial uses of AI to flourish,” Gounardes said. “This is about creating the future we all want and deserve.”The bill also has the back of state Attorney General Letitia James — boosting its chances of passing in the Democratic-led Legislature.THAT’S THE TICKET: Resale ticket companies are pushing back against proposed regulations that would place restrictions on secondary sales.State Sen. James Skoufis and Assemblymember Ron Kim have proposed a measure meant to crackdown on purchase fees and secondary market prices — including a ban on the resale of tickets to events like concerts and Broadway shows above face value. They also want to ban the sale of speculative tickets that resellers don’t yet control and expand refund requirements.“The current, abusive system which governs how New Yorkers access live entertainment tickets affects the relationship between fans and the artists, athletes, and performers they admire,” Skoufis said.The industry pushed back Monday and in a statement to Playbook warned the regulations would force businesses to close.COMPTROLLER WATCH: Democratic comptroller candidate Drew Warshaw is launching a website today highlighting the state’s unclaimed funds — a $20 billion pot of money that incumbent Tom DiNapoli’s office controls.SALT (AND MORE) IN THE SENATE: Moderate and battleground New York House Republicans are watching the Senate for potential changes to the deals they negotiated in their chamber’s hard-fought megabill.They have reason to worry. It could be in for a buzzsaw of a rewrite. The state and local tax deduction, or SALT, and clean energy tax credits are two areas Senate Republicans will scrutinize, POLITICO reports.“Nothing is final until it’s final, right?” Rep. Mike Lawler of the Hudson Valley told Playbook. “There’s still a number of areas to focus on, including obviously wanting A.) to protect SALT, B.) any prospective changes on the Medicaid front and C.) the IRA tax credits.”Rep. Nick LaLota — who with Lawler, Rep. Andrew Garbarino and others struck a last-minute deal with House Speaker Mike Johnson to quadruple the SALT cap — said he’s keeping his foot down on the tax deduction.LaLota, a Long Island Republican, told Playbook that unlike SALT Democrats “who four years ago said, ‘No SALT, no deal,’ we say, ‘No SALT, no deal, but we’re for real.’ If the reconciliation bill that comes back from the Senate doesn’t have our SALT fix, we will vote no.”Lawler and LaLota regard the SALT agreement in the House as a victory for their highly taxed districts.Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) previewed senators’ stance on SALT, referencing Garbarino missing the House vote because he did not wake up in time from a nap during the overnight procedures.“The number that we care most about is 218, depending on how many we can get to fall asleep,” Cramer said, referring to the number of House seats held by Republicans.HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Assemblymember Michaelle Solages … former Assemblymember Adam Clayton Powell IV … Ethan Stark-Miller of amNewYork … Arthur “Jerry” Kremer of Empire Government Strategies.
