Gov. Kathy Hochul wasn’t supposed to have a tough election this year. Neither was fellow New Yorker and five-term Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. But with just days to go before the 2022 midterms, both races are tightening. The entire ballgame will come down to what motivates people to turn out. And the answer, at least for Democrats, isn’t simple.
In Croton, Ossining and Mount Kisco, the issues enraging voters weren’t the costs of gas or child care.
Just two weeks ago, I followed canvassers in the working-class community of Braddock, Pennsylvania. The voters I spoke with cared about abortion rights, but worries about child care, groceries and the job market felt much more urgent.
Yet in Croton, Ossining and Mount Kisco, the issues enraging voters weren’t the costs of gas or child care. Instead of the economy, a surprising number of people were outraged not just by the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, but also by election deniers and the spread of disinformation.
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I met Alex Smoller when he was walking home with his daughter. “The misinformation that’s out there right now and seeing some of the candidates who are pushing these, like, absurd agendas” were really motivating his vote, he told me. “Because I think it’s poison in our society.”
And he wasn’t alone. Across the street, Andy Newberg didn’t hesitate when he was asked what issues make his blood boil. “The whole idea of election fraud just burns me up,” he said. “I can see people lying so openly and with confidence, and it’s just … terrifying and disgusting.”
When I asked residents what issue they worried would prevent their candidates from winning, the same topic came up again and again — crime and bail reform. And yet, these are neighborhoods, and, indeed, counties, where crime has actually decreased for the most part over the last few years. Walking along tree-lined streets, it felt more likely that we’d get hit by a falling Halloween decoration.
But it’s the type of fear-based dog whistling that might have an effect on the election. For these predominantly white Hudson Valley communities, resident Jeanne Claire Cotnoir told me, it wasn’t about the actual threat of crime but instead about the threat of change.
“If you look at every single advertisement,” she said, people of color are always the representatives of fear and “the other.” Republicans sense this and are pushing these messages hard.









