The Three Forces That Drive State Politics: New York Brief

I’m leaving Planet Albany after seven years and I gotta say: It takes time to see what makes the place spin around.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was a two-term political winner back then. Zohran Mamdani was the newly unemployed campaign manager for a failed state Senate candidate. Republicans controlled the state Senate.

The 2018 “Blue Wave” created a Democratic trifecta in Albany when the party was looking to legislatures to show what government could do, while President Donald Trump was doing his thing at the federal level.

Expanded voting rights. Limits on pre-trial detentions. Restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Albany Democrats ...