New York Democrats are heading back home after traveling to Puerto Rico for the annual SOMOS political conference, where lawmakers convened and recounted what went wrong for the party in the presidential election.

Jessica Ramos, a state senator and New York City mayoral candidate, was among those in attendance and told "Mornings On 1" Monday that conversations around the Nov. 5 election dominated the conference.

"Post-election analysis always sets the tone for SOMOS," said Ramos, who represents district 13, covering most of northern Queens. "In this case, it was an excellent space to commiserate but also get straight back to work and start talking about all of the issues, what went wrong, what we could be doing better. And I think for us, it's largely about our pocketbook and people wanting to feel like they're working toward something."

While New York maintained its Democratic stronghold, awarding 28 electoral votes to Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump made significant gains, capturing 30% of the vote in New York City.

Ramos—one of six Democrats so far who have announced their candidacy for New York City mayor, including incumbent Eric Adams—addressed the economic pressures facing New Yorkers, suggesting that may be the cause for the shift toward the GOP among city voters.

"I think there's the economic issues that people are facing and struggling with," Ramos said. "The high cost of living here in New York, right? We have a low vacancy rate. We've been in an affordable housing crisis for a while, including with property tax. Some poor neighborhoods are paying more than some of the more affluent neighborhoods in New York City, and I think wage issues are among the problems we need to tackle."

Gov. Kathy Hochul's recent comments on congestion pricing also generated discussion at SOMOS. Hochul suggested lowering the proposed toll from $15 to $9, but Ramos argued that this reduction would not solve the funding challenges faced by the MTA.

"I think it should go ahead," Ramos said. "Reducing it to $9 doesn't solve our issue. We also have the congestion issue. We do have to get more people on our public transit, but we haven't done a very good job of extending our bus service and our train service in order to reach those farther corners of the city and suggest and hopefully encourage people to ditch their car."