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The Amazon imbroglio gives the GOP a high-profile failure to run on and use as a cudgel in these battleground areas. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
New York GOP looks to weaponize Amazon fallout
By NICK NIEDZWIADEK
ALBANY — New York Republicans are hoping that the road out of the wilderness goes through Amazon.
The GOP hasn't won a statewide race since George Pataki's reelection as governor in 2002, and last November's blue wave knocked Republicans out of the majority in the state Senate for just the second time in half a century, reducing the caucus to its lowest headcount since 1912.
But the tech giant's decision this month to nix plans to build a corporate campus for at least 25,000 employees in Queens — and the bitter recriminations it inspired between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and fellow Democrats who opposed the deal — has opened the door for Republicans looking to win back the Senate and avoid the fate of their compatriots in blue states like California.
Over the weekend the state Senate Republican Campaign Committee purchased 19 Facebook ads targeting many of the chamber's newly elected Democrats and those in districts the GOP held until recently. The scale of the buys weren't enormous — each cost less than $100 and were seen by, at most, 5,000 people — but they hammered away at the Amazon message.
"25,000 lost jobs. $27 Billion in lost tax revenue," stated an ad hitting state Sen. John Brooks of Long Island. "He cost us jobs, it should cost him his."
There's little chance that Republicans will make headway in the controversy's epicenter, Democrat-laden Queens, so they're focusing instead on places like Long Island and other areas currently represented by Democrats where the GOP's economic message can still resonate.
"There was a lot of hope, and more than hope, an expectation that it was going to happen," said Nassau County Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo. "There's more opportunity now than there was a month ago because of the Amazon fiasco. The business community and others will be reminding voters of it."
Conservatives have been hoping to capitalize on a number of issues — including abortion and gun control — that Democratic lawmakers have pushed since the legislative term began in early January. But culture war issues tend to have less purchase among voters in the New York City suburbs compared with taxes and other economic issues. The Amazon imbroglio gives the GOP a high-profile failure to run on and use as a cudgel in these battleground areas.
Republicans continued to hone their message on Tuesday when they exercised a procedural gambit in the state Senate that would have reformed an obscure state body — known as the Public Authorities Control Board. The board played a pivotal role in Amazon's decision to pull out after Senate Democrats selected one of the deal's leading critics, Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Queens), to serve on it.
"Businesses no doubt will hesitate to locate in New York after Amazon's decision to pull out of the deal, because it adds to the narrative that New York is not open for business," Republican state Sen. Jim Seward, who introduced the proposal, said on the floor. (The proposal, which would change how the board approved projects, failed, but it gave the Republicans a chance to score points during the discussion.)
Senate Democrats have largely dismissed the GOP's criticisms as political opportunism, noting that Minority Leader John Flanagan himself knocked the Amazon deal when it was first announced.
While Republicans have been ramping up their message recently, they also have been happy to let Cuomo, who helped broker the deal, assail Senate Democrats virtually nonstop since it fell apart.
"As long as the Democrats beat up on themselves, that's good for Republicans," Cairo said.
Cuomo and his administration have repeatedly bashed Gianaris and other critics for putting their local political considerations over the broader economy, and have even lashed out at the Long Island contingent for not doing enough to save the deal.
Cuomo dismissed as "hogwash" the suggestion that Amazon would have exacerbated gentrification and largely benefited white-collar workers during a radio interview Tuesday.
"It was a phenomenal opportunity for the whole downstate region, and revenue for the whole state, and we shouldn't have turned it into a local political football," Cuomo said. "I think it was just irresponsible."
For their part Senate Democrats have held firm, pointing the finger back at Cuomo and chastising him for his signature no-holds-barred tactics.
"He still refuses to understand that the Legislature is a separate entity and has the right to ask questions," Senate Democratic spokesperson Mike Murphy said in a statement. "This is a Democracy not a Dictatorship."
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