In Suffolk Dems fight, Hochul backs Schaffer

Daily Point

'Bonkers ... ugly ... intense' — how Suffolk Dem chair contest is playing out

In a normal election, the candidates for public office are the ones getting endorsed by party leaders and elected officials, not the other way around. But Suffolk County's Democratic Party chair race is anything but normal.

Democrats are really getting under each other's skin.

Chairman Rich Schaffer, who's held the post since 2000, is racking up big-name endorsements in his fight to fend off challenger Kathryn Casey Quigley, the Southold Town Democratic Party chair.

Just how big? Gov. Kathy Hochul, who issued a statement that Schaffer’s team then posted to Schaffer's Facebook page touting his experience in the trenches.

Hochul said the Babylon Town supervisor is “a battle-tested leader for Long Island Democrats,” adding, “With so much at stake this November, we need an experienced leader to take on the toughest races, showing up in every town ..."

But some Casey Quigley supporters say Schaffer does the opposite by not rolling up his sleeves and getting in the scrum with rank-and-file members.

Shoshana Hershkowitz, a lifelong Democrat who changed her enrollment to the Working Families Party in 2023 and then back again to Democrat in December to support Casey Quigley, said Schaffer has lost touch with everyday Suffolk Democrats.

“A lot of people say our party leaders are completely disengaged from people on the ground,” Hershkowitz said. “They want their leaders to care as much as they do and be willing to put themselves out there.”

As an example, Hershkowitz said Casey Quigley was at an Islip Forward protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December as a member of the “Democratic base.”

Schaffer has garnered endorsements via social media from other electeds like Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, Hudson Valley Rep. Pat Ryan and Islip Town Councilman Jorge Guadrón.

Some of those endorsements, Casey Quigley said, show how disconnected Schaffer is from Suffolk Democratic Party values. Toulon ran unopposed last year and was cross-endorsed by the Conservative Party, a move largely seen as a deal Schaffer cut — the type of deals she wants to end.

In a statement to The Point, Schaffer said the more than 30 endorsements from local, state and New York City Democrats prove he's a winner. “This kind of support doesn't happen by accident — it reflects trust, results, and a shared focus on moving the party forward,” Schaffer said.

For her part, Quigley cited endorsements from former Suffolk Democratic congressional candidates and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin but said she is not forcing Democrats to pick a side.

“I want to be sensitive about the nature of an intraparty fight and not put candidates and electeds on the spot,” she said.

As for Hochul backing Schaffer, Casey Quigley said she thinks the governor is “probably not fully tuned in to what's been happening on the ground here,” but that she is “incredibly supportive of Gov. Hochul.”

The battle started in December when Casey Quigley announced her challenge to Schaffer, but the roots really go back further, to 2022 after Democrats suffered big losses in Suffolk, like Steven Englebright losing his seat after three decades in the Assembly. During an executive committee meeting on Zoom after the election, Casey Quigley said she questioned why Schaffer should be given a $10,000 raise. She said Schaffer removed her as party vice chair a few months later.

At stake in this year's fight for control of the party is the influence of the position — and, of course, jobs. But Casey Quigley said if she wins, she won't remove anyone from patronage positions at the county Board of Elections or Off-Track Betting.

“I'm not interested in the patronage machine,” Casey Quigley said. “I'm not going to clean house in the BOE and OTB. I'm not interested in that model of politics.”

The attacks on social media between Democrats have gotten nasty, with one Suffolk Democratic Party source saying the reason is the importance of the fight for party control — a fight that is greater than those for public office. “It's bonkers. It's gotten ugly. The fierceness of loyalty to Rich Schaffer, it's really intense … The county chair race is a more consequential race than the congressional races.”

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

Pencil Point

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Reference Point

The cost of campaigning, then and now

As The Point tracks 2026 campaign fundraising and the expansion of public financing for this year's candidates, it's worth noting the transparency of today's system comes after a long history of wrestling with the conundrum of cash in campaigns.

Sixty years ago today, the editorial board weighed in on a bill that passed the New York State Assembly in 1966 to regulate the amount of money that candidates for public office in the state could spend.

“The idea appears to be a lot better than the present, slipshod system under which limitations as to campaign spending are vague, easily evaded through the creation of dummy committees, rarely audited when reported to the Secretary of State and virtually never enforced,” the board wrote in an editorial titled "The Cost of Campaigning."

The bill was “the simplest of all proposals” — it allowed for 10 cents to be spent per person in the district of the office where each candidate was running. So, in 1966, this meant the governor of New York could spend no more than $1.7 million, a dime for each of the state's 17 million residents. This also meant a state assemblyman on Long Island could spend around $10,000 based on district size, to which the editorial board noted was possibly too little, “in view of the cost of newspaper, radio and TV paid advertising space, not to mention other expenses.”

The impetus for the bill was President Lyndon Johnson's attention to federal campaign laws after a controversy involving Sen Thomas J. Dodd over two $100,000 fundraising dinners that the IRS and the Senate Ethics Committee were investigating.

“Statewide and nationally, as all this shows, the laws on campaign expenditures are too loose and enforcement is inadequate. Some way must be found so that there will be fair and equal campaign limitations for all political candidates,” the board concluded.

That groundbreaking Assembly bill didn't make it through the State Senate six decades ago, but a new version was signed into law later in 1968. The momentum of the movement was evident in the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971 signed by President Richard Nixon that limited campaign spending and later established the Federal Election Commission. The New York State Board of Elections was created in 1974 and among its tasks was enforcing campaign finance rules in the state. Public financing of campaigns came to New York City in the late 1980s, and statewide across New York after 2022.

With $1.5 billion raised and $851.9 million spent by federal campaigns in 2025, according to the FEC, the cost of campaigning has certainly gone up amid the increasing doubt any of these guardrails have made a difference in limiting the influence of cash in campaigns.

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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