County Executive Bruce Blakeman might have been right in his assessment of Nassau Republican Chair Joe Cairo following yet another red wave in last Tuesday’s election.
“One hundred years from now they’ll be talking about the Cairo dynasty,” Blakeman told a jubilant crowd celebrating what were the finishing touches to the party’s virtually complete takeover in Nassau County.
Republicans captured the Town of North Hempstead Tuesday with Republican Supervisor Jennifer DeSena easily winning re-election over former Democratic Supervisor Jon Kaiman and civic leader Ed Scott unseating Democratic incumbent Town Councilman Peter Zuckerman, who was running for re-election.
That gives Republicans a 4-3 edge on the Town Council for the first time since the 1970s. For good measure, Republican Mary Jo Collins defeated former Democratic Town Councilman Veronica Lurvey to win the receiver of taxes position, long held by Democrat Charles Berman, who chose not to seek re-election.
Republicans also captured the City of Long Beach, maintained a 12-7 edge in the county Legislature and swept races in the towns of Oyster Bay and Hempstead.
All this on a night seen as a big win for Democrats nationally.
As Republicans were celebrating in Nassau, the Democratic governor of ruby-red Kentucky won re-election, Ohio voters approved a referendum protecting access to abortion opposed by Republicans, Democrats won a key Pennsylvania Supreme Court seat and captured both houses of the Virginia Legislature.
One noteworthy exception was Suffolk County, where Democrat County Executive Steve Ballone could not run because of term limits and Republicans gained control of all four countywide seats.
This is nothing new in Nassau.
The Nassau County Republican Party machine had similar success in 2022 when Democrats averted an expected red tide nationally to keep the Senate and lose the House by a small margin.
In that election, Nassau candidates picked up two of the four Republican congressional seats the party gained statewide – enough to give the GOP control of the House of Representatives.
Nassau Republicans were equally successful in 2021 with Blakeman defeating Democratic County Executive Laura Curran to lead a GOP sweep of all four countywide seats.
Cairo was at the head of the Nassau Republican Party all those years. So Blakeman may have a point in lauding Cairo and what Republicans repeatedly called the GOP team.
But there are, of course, other explanations beginning with Jay Jacobs, the chair of the Nassau County Democratic Party.
As good as Cairo’s record has been in Nassau over the past three years, Jacobs’ record has been that bad.
If Nassau Democrats were a baseball team, they would be in last place.
Not that Jacobs was willing to accept blame on Election Eve.
Sounding like a punch-drunk fighter before a dispirited crowd, the Democratic Party chair called Tuesday night’s vote a “status quo election” with no real changes.
Jacobs apparently forgot the losses in North Hempstead and Long Beach and the revised map of the 19 Nassau County Legislature Districts.
The new map, approved by Nassau Republicans, gave Democrats a 12-7 advantage in legislative districts in terms of registered voters.
This was the result of Democrats holding a nearly 100,000 advantage in registered voters in Nassau and the Republican-controlled county Legislature actually being fair in redrawing legislative maps.
This is in contrast to previous elections in which Republicans held a 12-7 advantage in districts with more registered Republicans – despite the Democrats’ edge in registered voters.
So there was nothing comparable here. The Republicans won this time despite the disadvantage, not because of it.
Jacobs also said during his remarks that the turnout in the election was “exceedingly low.”
Republicans do tend to do better in off-year elections in general. This is particularly true in Nassau County where the party has controlled the Town of Hempstead for more than 100 years and Oyster Bay for many decades.
This has allowed Republicans to employ people for generations who owe their jobs to the GOP – something that does wonders to ensure good turnout on Election Day.
Jacobs’ solution?
“We need voters who are going to pay attention to the issues,” he said. “We need voters who are going to feel engaged in an election.”
But isn’t turnout the job of party leader through the selection of strong candidates and an emphasis on issues that will drive their voters to the polls?
Many Democrats don’t think that person is Jacobs, who not only holds the title of Nassau County Democratic chair but New York Democratic chair as well.
Hundreds of Democratic officials throughout New York signed a letter to oust Jacobs as the state chair following the 2022 race.
The letter criticized Jacobs for failing “to commit the time, energy and resources necessary to maintain” Democratic control throughout the state while Democratic candidates across the country exceeded expectations.
New York Democrats bashed the Democratic chair for the number of closely contested races in a heavily Democratic state, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s defeat of Republican Lee Zeldin by just short of 6 percentage points.
Democratic candidates for governor have won by an average of 14 percentage points in the past 20 years.
Given Jacobs’ record, it is hard to believe that Nassau County Democrats wouldn’t have similar concerns – if there was a fully functioning Democratic Party. But that does not appear to be the case.
There are other reasons to blame for the losses suffered by Democrats in Nassau and Suffolk.
Democratic state legislators botched rollout of much-needed bail reforms and handed Republicans statewide a political weapon that they have very effectively used since 2021.
The Democratic legislators’ overreach in the redrawing of congressional districts resulted in a less favorable map that helped Republicans pick up four seats.
And Hochul’s efforts to address the state’s housing crisis, which included threats to local control, united Democrats and Republicans in opposition.
Notwithstanding the county’s dismal record in accepting new housing, particularly multi-family units, in one of the most segregated counties in the United States.
Still, leadership matters.
The day the Democrats announced state Sen. Todd Kaminsky as the party’s candidate for Nassau County district attorney in 2021, Cairo immediately attacked his role in bail reform.
Kaminski had a stellar record as a Queens assistant district attorney and as an assistant U.S. attorney. But neither he nor Jacobs had an answer to Cairo’s criticism.
This became a major talking point for Zeldin in his 2022 race for governor. Yet the Democrats and Jacobs still didn’t have an answer to an issue used in town and county races in 2023.
But is one-party rule such a bad thing? Perhaps Nassau County is better off with Republicans in full control.
To that we have two words for you: George Santos.
Cairo and the Nassau Republican team endorsed the embattled congressman for the 3rd Congressional District not once but twice.
Santos has brought national shame to the county, first with the disclosure that he had lied to voters about his finances, education, work history and religion, among other things.
This was followed by a 23-count federal indictment that included charges of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.
An effort to have him expelled from Congress, brought by New York Republican congressmen concerned by their re-election chances, failed last week.
And the last time Republicans had control of Nassau’s executive and legislative branches, – before Cairo became chairman – Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, his deputy, his wife and state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos from Hempstead were convicted of political corruption.
The party’s pick for Oyster Bay Town supervisor, John Venditto, pleaded guilty to a state felony charge of corrupt use of position or authority and a misdemeanor count of official misconduct.
So, there is good reason to want a healthy two-party system in Nassau.
But after Tuesday night it is clear that there is only one healthy party. And that’s not a good thing.
