4 years after Zeldin’s near win, New York GOP still can’t break through

ALBANY, New York — Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman wants to build on former Rep. Lee Zeldin’s Empire State success, but turning New York red is proving to be a steep climb.

Republicans came tantalizingly close to flipping the New York governor’s office four years ago, with Zeldin falling just 6 points short of unseating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Today, the 70-year-old Blakeman is trailing the governor by double digits in public polls. His cozy relationship with President Donald Trump — and appearances alongside MAGA-world types like John Eastman — have become easy fodder for Hochul’s political team. And Blakeman is struggling with fundraising as Democrats signal they will try to deny him matching funds under New York’s public financing system, a move that, if successful, would cripple his campaign.

Those challenges have only intensified as the New York Democratic Party announced a seven-figure ad campaign this month to hammer Blakeman as a Trump “suck up.” Blakeman’s $1.6 million cash on hand is far behind Hochul, who has around 10 times that amount.

“What do the Irish say? It’s a long way to Tipperary,” said billionaire John Catsimatidis, a Republican mogul and radio station impresario, referring to the fundraising disparity. “Bruce Blakeman has to make sure he raises money, he has to make sure he doesn’t spend it stupidly.”

Since Zeldin’s overperformance four years ago, the GOP in New York has gained registered voters, but a yawning enrollment gap remains. Democrats captured crucial suburban swing House seats, continue to dominate the Albany statehouse and lap Republicans in statewide fundraising.

Demonstrating to the party’s deep-pocketed donors that a GOP candidate can win remains a heavy lift.

“Republican donors in New York have to be either serious about helping our candidate or they can continue to stay on the sidelines, come up with an excuse about why they don’t donate, complain and then move out,” said former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the 2014 GOP gubernatorial nominee.

“I heard complaints from our donor class, but they were afraid to donate or didn’t want to,” he said. “Money will equal things out in many ways, which is what the Democrats are afraid of.”

Blakeman’s campaign insists it's viable. An internal voter survey conducted by Republican pollster John McLaughlin between March 4 and March 8 found Hochul leading Blakeman by only 9 points, 52 percent to 43 percent. The Blakeman campaign hired Howard Fensterman, a lawyer, Democratic donor and co-founder of a politically connected Long Island law firm, to serve as its finance chair. Blakeman was a partner at the firm, Abrams Fensterman, from 2007 to 2013.

Both the poll and Fensterman’s involvement in Blakeman’s campaign were previously unreported.

Republicans are counting on Blakeman to be a strong top of the ticket during a midterm election year that’s shaping up to be a tough one for them. To maintain control of the House, the GOP will need to be successful in down-ballot races — including a handful of New York swing seats. At a minimum, Blakeman must turn out Republican and conservative-leaning independents to make the party competitive in this deep-blue state.

Unlike Rep. Elise Stefanik, Blakeman lacks the statewide profile that Hochul — once New York’s little-known lieutenant governor — has assiduously built up during her first full term. Aside from amassing a large war chest, Hochul has a fully staffed campaign that has hammered Blakeman daily.

Empire State Republicans haven’t held the governor’s office in 20 years — a drought that nearly ended with Zeldin. The former House lawmaker, who campaigned intensely on a public safety platform, raised his name recognition and sharpened his platform during a four-candidate primary. Four years later, Blakeman by contrast is barely a blip on New York’s political radar.

Republicans, including those who believe the Blakeman campaign has made strides in recent weeks to win support, acknowledge that the race’s low visibility roughly eight months before Election Day has further complicated an already tough dynamic for Blakeman.

“It’s really easy for people to say primaries are bad, but that’s usually party people who are saying that because it makes their lives easier when there's no primary,” said Steve McLaughlin, the Republican Rensselaer County executive and a Blakeman ally. “It helps the candidates find their message and become better known because there’s activity around the race. Sometimes they’re cleansing. I do think it in some ways would have benefited from a primary.”

Blakeman launched his bid for governor in December — a comparatively late start after he won reelection as Nassau County’s top official a month before. He immediately hit headwinds among fellow Republicans who questioned his prior statements on gun control and self-described “pro-choice” stance on abortion. Stefanik fans, meanwhile, were miffed after she ended what was expected to be a spirited challenge to Hochul. Her stunningly quick exit from the race gave some Republicans the impression that Blakeman forced her out.

At the same time, the Long Islander had to win over right-leaning upstate voters suspicious of New York City’s influence on the state.

Yet Republicans believe he has successfully started to win people over outside his sizable Nassau County remit. Trump’s formal endorsement — something that eluded Stefanik when she was briefly in the race — gave him a clear boost with GOP voters.

“Among Republicans, he’s making his mark,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official who was the campaign manager for Carl Paladino’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign. “A lot of us were into Elise. He’s successfully consolidating the base and the base is looking happier and happier with his candidacy.”

There’s also no shortage of issues for Blakeman to exploit against Hochul — who in January recorded her highest favorability rating of her gubernatorial career in the closely watched Siena University poll.

Blakeman’s team has hammered Hochul over skyrocketing utility bills. He’s blasted the state’s high tax climate and warned the governor will acquiesce to demands from left-leaning Democrats like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to hike taxes on corporations and wealthy people. On that front, he has moved to attach the governor to the mayor’s lefty proposals, like a far-fetched move to significantly lower the inheritance tax threshold from $7.3 million to $750,000. Such a change would make the tax apply to a broad swath of middle-income people.

“There’s a cornucopia of issues that Bruce has to choose from,” Caputo said.

Yet Democrats are trying to demonstrate they learned from the 2022 debacle, when Hochul’s weak coattails cost them several House seats in the New York City suburbs.

The governor has moved to build up the political infrastructure of the state Democratic Committee — an apparatus that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo let atrophy during his decade in office. She has used the committee as a fundraising vehicle and, this month, the party announced it would launch a sustained advertising blitz against Blakeman, spending more than $1 million to hammer him over his support for Trump.

The ad campaign underscores a far more active effort by Hochul to define her opponent as a MAGA sycophant — a bet that the president’s deep unpopularity with Democrats and independents will hurt the New York Republican.

Hochul’s team has been eager to highlight Blakeman’s appearance alongside Eastman at a GOP event in Queens. The attorney is considered the architect of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results. Blakeman’s campaign said he was unfamiliar with Eastman and did not spend a significant amount of time at the event.

Blakeman’s support for aggressive deportation enforcement has also put him crosswise with voters who have become critical of federal enforcement agencies like ICE following deadly unrest in Minnesota earlier this year.

Policywise, Hochul is moving to water down a climate law she argues will make utility costs more expensive. She is resisting calls from the left to raise taxes in her election-year budget, contending that doing so will lead to more people leaving the state. Hochul is taking these stances after her sole primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, ended his campaign following Mamdani’s endorsement for her reelection. Both developments neutralized much of New York’s political left.

Taken together, her positioning paints a picture of a governor who is cutting off potential avenues of attack and consolidating support.

The firepower is difficult for Blakeman to match.

Blakeman’s campaign, by comparison, has struggled with fundraising. He’s taken in less than $1 million since his mid-December launch. His burn rate, meanwhile, is high: Blakeman reported $1.1 million in expenditures after receiving a seven-figure transfer from the Nassau County GOP.

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing to disqualify Blakeman from receiving public matching funds, arguing that he did not file the proper paperwork, a development that was first reported by Newsday. If successful, he would lose out on millions of dollars in cash; Hochul is not participating in the program.

A Blakeman campaign spokesperson blasted the effort to deny him matching funds as “desperate” and noted that, in a Kafkaesque twist, the necessary form that public financing officials argue needs to be filed does not yet exist.

"The fact is the state’s own website lists Bruce Blakeman as eligible for the matching funds program, the form they claim he needed to file doesn’t even exist, and Hochul changed the rules right after Bruce qualified — pure corruption to cover Hochul’s affordability crisis,” said spokesperson Madison Spanodemos.

Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki knocked the Blakeman campaign for “MAGA brainrot” for defending Trump’s policies on tariffs, deportations and Medicaid.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the New York GOP: WE wouldn’t want to be stuck with him either,” he said.

Still, Republican activists, accustomed to being outspent, are not sounding an alarm just yet.

“The governor has just a gazillion dollars,” said Tom King, the president of the New York State Rifle And Pistol Association. “So you can always use more money. That’s the only advantage of not having a primary, you don’t have to spend money on it — you can put it right into the race.”