Bruce Blakeman Takes on Gov. Hochul

I'm gonna be. It's the Brian Lear Show on WNYC. I'm Bridget Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom sitting in for Brian today. This November isn't just about the congressional midterm elections. New Yorkers will also be electing or re-electing their governor. Governor Kathy Hochul is facing a challenge from Republican Bruce Blakeman, the current Nassau County Executive, and the results of a poll of likely voters released on Wednesday. are raising some eyebrows. Kathy Hochul's in the lead and by 10 points, but expectations were for an even bigger margin. And President Trump will be visiting Nassau County this afternoon for a joint appearance with Bruce Blakeman. To talk about the governor's race and how it's shaking out, I'm joined by my colleague Jimmy Beilkind, New York State Issues reporter for WNYC and Gothamist based in Albany, and by a former colleague, Bahar Ostadon, now Nassau County government reporter for Newsday. Hello. And welcome back to the show, Jimmy and Bahar. Hi, Bridget. Hi. Thanks for having me. Well, let's get right to it. Jimmy, do you think most of the Democrats involved in this race are saying, oh, double-digit lead? That's great. Or only 10-point lead, that's not so great. And vice versa for Republicans. You know, I think that this was a moment of maybe pause and reflection, but I actually don't think it went either way. You know, if you stack back and think about this, all signs are that this is going to be a democratic year across the nation. You know, I always think about politics as sort of a tidal metaphor, right? Right now, the tide and this year seems to be pulling to the left. We know that President Trump is broadly unpopular. We know that there is the historic. trend of the party opposite, the one that controls the White House, gaining power, gaining seats in midterm elections. That's happened pretty consistently over U.S. history with only a few exceptions. And so you have that tide going this way in a way that was very different than 2022 when Kathy Hochul ran for her first full term as governor. And then the other thing is you just have to look at, you know, how high up the... on a high ground is your house building with this with this tide coming in. In New York, there are twice as many enrolled Democrats as Republicans. Democrats control all the statewide offices. Democrats control the state legislature. They control the whole state government. And so that means that they have a lot of the trappings of incumbency, a lot of things that go along with them in terms of structural advantages. So Democrats, I'm talking to, you know, they say, oh, 10 points. That's not great. It's not bad. And but but as of now, there doesn't seem to be too much of a panic or a strong reaction. Though Republicans did say that like, yeah, this shows the race is not a runaway. Hmm, it's interesting. So not a lot of hand ringing among the Dems, but it also makes me wonder, Jimmy, we've seen polling in other parts of the country show one thing ahead of an election and then some.

slightly or extremely different results after the vote. And I wonder if there's any caution that either side is bringing to this poll, just, you know, is that just a Midwest thing? Or, you know, is there challenges associated with polling and understanding where voters' hearts and minds are these days? Oh, I think polling has gotten increasingly, increasingly difficult, in part because the electorate has been so fickle. So this Sienna poll is based on a likely voter model, which Sienna calculated, according to poll spokesperson Steve Greenberg, by looking at... recent gubernatorial elections and kind of figuring out, well, how much of the vote generally comes from New York City? How much of it generally comes from Democrats and Republicans? And so they've developed a likely voter turnout model. We saw very clearly in the last elections in New York City in 2025 that those likely voter turnout models are great and passed as prologue. until it's not, right? Zohran Mamdani snuck up in the polls because of this surge of young voters that came out. So what are we going to see in this election? There aren't many signs of a surge of young voters focused on the gubernatorial election. Will there be a surge of suburbanites who are concerned about some of the policies that have been enacted by Democrats? Will there be a surge of people who are just so angry at Donald Trump who are concerned about tariffs, concerned about the war in Iran, et cetera, that come out. That happens in an unpredictable way. So none of this is perfect and all of this is relatively fraud. But again, I go back to kind of those big structural things. All the evidence points out that the tide is pulling to the left this year. So that's an advantage for Democrats. And the numbers and the structure of New York State and its political... body favor the Democrats. They have the numbers. They have the benefits of incumbency. Listeners, we want to bring you into this conversation. How much have you tuned into this governor's race so far? What's the key issue for you in choosing who the next governor or reelecting the current governor? Call us at 212-433 WNYC. That's 212. 433-9-692. You can also text that number. And if you're undecided, what would make the difference for you? Again, the number 212-433-9692. Bahar, you are based in Nassau County. You cover Bruce Blakeman as the county executive. This poll showed that 40% of the voters in the poll said they didn't know enough about him to form an opinion. So talk a little bit about how he is perceived in Nassau County and the extent you see that changing when these campaigns start really ramping up.

Yeah. So, you know, Bruce Blakeman has long held local offices in Nassau County. He first ran for county executive back in 2021. And in that race, he won against the Democrat by less than 1% of the vote. So there was, there was a name recognition issue for him at the time. Now, just in November, when he ran for re-election, he won against the Democrat by... a 12 point lead. So I think a lot of things have sort of lended themselves to Bruce Blakeman gaining popularity in NASA in the last several years. One of them is certainly he's been a local champion of Trump policies ranging from banning transgender athletes from playing in. on public property, making it a crime to wear a mask. He was one of the first local officials in the country to partner with ICE when Trump began his second term last year. That has worked in NASA. You know, NASA saw the largest voter turnout in a decade last November. And in large part, Bruce Blakeman's success came thanks to independents who came to show out for him. And Jimmy, let's talk a little bit more about the way voters are perceiving these candidates for Governor Kathy Hochul as an incumbent. What is the case that she is making to voters? You know, Governor Kathy Hochul is pretty consistently for the last year, year and a half, tried to boil her. administration down to two words, public safety and affordability. And so she's advanced several programs that she's taking to voters in both fronts that she believes earn her another term. On the affordability front, she has appropriated and pushed for state funding to make school lunches free. That's been something that is noticeable for families with children in school. She has also pushed for rebate checks. There were a round of checks that came out last fall. another round of checks will be coming out this fall tied to higher utility rates. Kathy Hochul's resisted calls to raise taxes. There are progressive, more progressive and left flank Democrats, including members of the DSA who have been pushing for an increase in state income taxes. Hockels resisted that, she says, out of affordability. She's also announced major investments in child care. She's increased state funding for a voucher program called CCAP, which helps lower income people and middle income people pay for child care, as well as has been deeply covered on these airwaves. She has pushed for the funding to start 2K in New York City, moving toward universal child care, something that is a priority of Zohran Mamdani, who has endorsed Kathy Hochul, and who Kathy Hochul, when he was a candidate for mayor, also endorsed. I want to bring some of our listeners into the conversation. Let's go to Jason in Brooklyn. Jason, you're on WNYC.

Yeah, thanks very much. I'm curious, you know, you get the two Democratic incumbent Congress people on Long Island, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi. Is there any concern that, you know, a strong Bruce Blakeman turnout there could possibly put those seats in jeopardy. I understand they're not entirely safe seats, but I assume that if Bruce Blakeman has any chance, he's going to have to turn out a lot of folks on Nassau County. So thank you. That's a great question, Jason. Bahar, why don't you start with that? And Jimmy, you can weigh in afterwards. I mean, if Bruce Blakeman is to be successful, he needs to turn out his base, and Nassau County is that base. And that does potentially pose a threat to Tom Suozzi and Gillen. Yeah, you know, we haven't heard serious concerns for those two seats for the incumbents, but certainly it's been interesting to watch how the two have sort of presented themselves in the last several months, especially when it comes to issues less. like immigration, where polling shows that across the board, the majority of New Yorkers, you know, say the most recent polls that ICE tactics have gone too far, that they don't approve of how ICE agents are arresting people. That's true. you know, in New York City, but also in the suburbs like Long Island. So it's been interesting to see how they've tailored messaging to sort of appeal to independence and appeal even to some Republicans on the issue. And Jimmy, you know, I go ahead. Yeah, I think I think that's all. That's absolutely correct. A few things worth noting. You know, Bahar and I were both there on election night when Bruce Blakeman won a pretty solid victory, especially considering what Bahar noted is that in 2021, it was a much closer race. The Nassau County Republican machine is humming. It is well-oiled. It is firing on all cylinders. And it has been. I think that almost unique among areas of the state, Long Island and Nassau County have been. revved up by kind of red meat maga republicanism, and we've seen voter turn out to prove that. So I do expect that Bruce Blakeman is going to really juice the vote in Nassau County. On the same token, this has not been Governor Kathy Hochul's home turf. It's quite the opposite. Listeners probably know the governor comes from Buffalo, very, very, very far, very different part of the state, very different kind of energy. And so in a way that someone like Andrew Cuomo, who is from Queens, sort of was a little bit more culturally a fit.

on parts of Long Island. You know, we saw Kathy Hochul lose those areas during her last electoral run in 2022. So, you know, there are spillover effects. I don't know if it's enough to danger. Representatives Gillen or Tom Suozzi. Representative Tom Suozzi, of course, is a very known quantity in Nassau County politics. He's been around for a long time. And his district stretches into Queens, which has neighborhoods that are more heavily favored toward Democrats. So I do think that there might be spillover effects. I don't know at this point whether it's going to be enough to take out either of those two incumbents. One thing, too, I'll just add, is something that's really worked for Bruce Blakeman and something that Swazzi certainly spoken to is the NASA GOP really pulled on the sort of Zohran Mamdani effect last November. I know I think Jimmy was at the same event where, you know, they're handing out. bright orange t-shirts that say keep the Zohran Mamdani madness out of Nassau County. That's something that local Democrats and Tom Suozzi have said, you know, we sort of are having to run multiple campaigns, one to differentiate ourselves from Zohran Mamdani and another against, you know, the Republican candidates. There's so much interesting to unpack there because it also speaks to how they will both be running their strategies across the state. I want to go back to a point you were making, Jimmy, in terms of Kathy Hochul and her roots in Western New York, you know, broadly referred to as upstate by many of our fellow listeners. But when she emphasizes upstate versus New York City. You know, we're talking about a big sort of, you know, difference in the number of eligible voters in the voters who may be supporting her and that where the concentration of voters are, you know, Buffalo versus Long Island, there's a huge difference in population there. I've also heard that Blake's, Bruce Blakeman's television ads are basically running nonstop in parts of Western New York. So. Is there a risk to her, you know, focusing more on upstate? Presumably she will do a lot of campaigning across the city as we get closer to November. You know, I don't think that there's a clear geographic focus right now of the governor's campaign. As best I can tell, she's trying to campaign in all parts of the state and take her message to all parts of the state. She obviously has, you know, hometown roots in western New York in Erie County. She spends a lot of time in Albany, the state capital, where the governor has a mansion. But she has most recently been mostly living in New York City. Her husband is a lawyer. there. And Governor Kathy Hochul knows the locus of population in the state of New York is the five boroughs of New York City. And certainly the concentration of Democratic voters in

the state of New York is in New York City. So one thing that was surprising to me, and I was looking through some of the cross tabs of the Siena poll, is sort of the relative regional breakdown of people's support. Now, particularly for Bruce Blakeman, it's difficult for all the reasons that I've been talking about for a Republican to win statewide office in... the state of New York. But to do so, a Republican basically has to win solidly in the suburbs of New York City, which is Long Island and sort of Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange County, the lower Hudson Valley. They have to get roughly a third at least of the vote in New York City. And then they just have to run up the score in upstate New York and in upstate areas. That math has kind of shifted a little bit as the population upstate New York has declined relative to increases in downstate areas. So through that lens, I was surprised that among the voters pulled by Sienna in upstate New York, it's basically a dead heat. Bruce Blakeman is up 46, 45. And again, Republican really needs to do well in the broad area known as upstate New York. In the suburbs, Bruce Blakeman is ahead of Kathy Hochul, 49% to 41%. And as expected in New York City, Kathy Hochul is winning 64% to 19%. So, you know, I think that the regional breakdown, the regional strategy... is important and will become important as voters start to focus more on this race after we get past Labor Day and after we get into the home stretch before the elections. In terms of the case that the candidates are making to voters, And particularly today, the role of President Trump in this race, we have a little tape from the candidates, thanks to you, Jimmy. Here's a bit of Bruce Blakeman talking about President Trump. I have philosophical differences with President Trump on some things, and some things I don't. In most things, I think that we are completely allied together on the important things. And here's a little bit of Governor Hokel. That is so Trumpian. The guy can't help himself. He just parrots Donald Trump. Didn't Donald Trump say that in 2020? They're trying to steal the election. Don't you have an original bone in your body, Blue Smakeman? You got to parrot everything Donald Trump says. No credibility behind it. All right. So Jimmy, Bihar, some different takes on the president there. Bahar, you know, if you could start us off, how does this fit into a Bruce Blakeman campaign strategy, given how New Yorkers feel about Trump, and particularly given how New Yorkers in Nassau County feel about Trump?

Well, I don't think that Bruce Blakeman has shied away from his relationship with Trump so much. They've known each other for several decades, actually. They met back in the early 90s at one of Trump's real estate project openings in New York City. And Trump has, of course, publicly... backed Bruce Blakeman in his run for local office and now, of course, for governor. You know, the two appear events from time to time when Trump visited Nassau County for the for the Ryder Cup last fall. Him and Bruce Blakeman, you know, were together. Of course, Trump is coming to Nassau County today to speak about crime statistics, but also to appear side. by side with Bruce Blakeman. We'll see, you know, what the two will speak about this afternoon. In terms of strategy, I think, you know, Bruce Blakeman has really zeroed in his campaign in NASA on, like I said, some of these Trump policies, transgender issues, partnering with ice, wearing masks, making that a crime. Now, when it comes to his strategy in New York City, Actually, two of my teammates, Candace Friday and Yancey Roy, did some good reporting on this. Bruce Blakeman's mailers in the city focus elsewhere, right? They talk about middle class fears. He talks about private property rights, stopping inheritance taxes, tax cuts for the middle class. I think, you know, it's been a little harder for Bruce Blakeman. to tailor with mailers in that way in the social media age, right? But it's certainly a tough line for him to walk. You know, polling shows that just 37% of New York voters now approve of the job Trump is doing. So I think it'll be sort of interesting to look at in this final stage of the campaign the decisions Bruce Blakeman makes when it comes to aligning himself with the president. And Jimmy, if I... Yeah, I mean, it sounds like Governor Kathy Hochul is just counting on Democrats being so opposed to the president as a way to boost her own campaign, you know, weigh in on sort of how you hear both of them there. Yeah, it was interesting. That little clip we played, it was what, eight seconds. And I think she said the word Trump six times. So it's very clear that she is saying this. And Bruce Blakeman's response is that, hey, Kathy Hochul's not running against Donald Trump. She's running against me. And whenever she mentions Donald Trump, it's because she doesn't want to talk about her record. So we'll see where voters are more focused going on. To just build on what Bahar said, I was with Bruce Blakeman at a rally in Fulton County, sort of the foothills of the Adirondacks. upstate New York. And he was really leaning into those same issues, talking about his support for ICE and his cooperation with federal immigration agents. He got big applause for that. And he closed the speech by talking about his policies, restricting transgender people from sporting activities and his executive order and law there that he passed. So he certainly is comfortable throwing red meat to the base. But at the same time, he didn't.

really mentioned Donald Trump's name. I think in certain upstate areas, he didn't have to, but I think it's certainly as helpful to not necessarily make that such an explicit part of his pitch. Kathy Hochul, of course, is talking as much as she can about Trump's policies. Democrats are trying to focus on the cost of tariffs, higher prices at the gas pump, which they're tying to the war in Iran. So it's clear that Democrats feel that by tying Bruce Blakeman to Trump, which is, again, not a difficult thing to do because, as Bahar correctly says, he's not... shy about his close relationship with the president. They think that they can get voters to reject Bruce Blakeman based on their displeasure with some of the things that are happening in Washington and trickling down into their lives in New York. Well, I'm going to bring in Eli from Brooklyn, who I think is a voter that has views that kind of fit what you were describing there, Jimmy. Eli, go ahead. Thank you so much. I guess I have two questions. One is given the plausibility of a Bruce Blakeman victory, do you see Democrats stopping their inter-party squabbles and doing the kind of aligning that Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani are doing. It's really depressing to see the wings of the Democratic Party fighting while someone like Bruce Blakeman might actually pull off a victory in New York. And I also don't understand Bruce Blakeman's strategy of aligning or campaigning with someone like Anthony Constantino, who is so, this is an upstate candidate for Congress whose tone is. I think just massively inappropriate, he uses vulgar language to describe his opponents. He is sort of blatantly a toady for Trump, and I just don't understand how it could help Bruce Blakeman to ally himself with a sort of cartoon bag of character like that. Eli, thanks for your question. And Jimmy, I know you have done some coverage of that race up in, I think it's the 21st congressional district. But it raises the question that, you know, another listener asked in terms of how this will help, how this gubernatorial race is going to impact or how some of these congressional races are going to impact the gubernatorial race, vice versa. You know, what's your take on? And Eli's... question about the way Bruce Blakeman is aligning himself with some of these, in this case, particularly far-right candidates.

Yeah, you know, Eli, that is a good point. I guess from Bruce Blakeman's perspective, it's looking to reality and looking to where the GOP bases. Eli mentioned a man named Anthony Constantino, who maybe listeners aren't so familiar with because he's running in a district that stretches basically to the Canadian border from the Mohawk Valley. It's just north of where I am in Albany. Constantino decisively won a Republican primary over a more traditional Republican candidate, a guy named Robert Smullen, who's been a member of the State Assembly, was a Marine Corps colonel. So I think from Bruce Blakeman's perspective, it's clear where the base of voters is. They love Trump. They like MAGA-ism. If he wants to turn out the vote in rural areas, you know, someone like Anthony Constantino is clearly someone tapping into that base and is more likely than not going to be heading to Congress in November. Of course, you know, we'll see what the election is, but that that seat is not particularly considered a toss up by the independent evaluators. And Constantino is the favor to win. The first thing that you mentioned, though, Eli, which I think was really interesting is, you know, we see the Democratic inter-party squabble sort of fall off here. It's noteworthy to me that there was no primary for Governor Kathy Hochul. Antonio Delgado, the lieutenant governor, did mount a left-flank challenge and essentially had to abandon it for lack of institutional support. And when major progressive figures, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Zohran Mamdani, fell in line behind Kathy Hochul. So in New York, we have a moderate Democrat. at the top of the ticket, unabashedly so. And so it's an interesting question whether progressives will sense a threat from Bruce Blakeman. You know, as we said, I don't know how big of a threat it is given the structural realities of politics this year. But will that be enough to energize progressives or will they just say to themselves like, oh, Kathy Hochul doesn't get me excited. Maybe there are things that she has said, including her. steadfast refusal to levy taxes on the wealthy. That would maybe make a progressive voter or a DSA supporter want to just stay home in November. I think that that's going to be something to watch. And we'll have to see if Kathy Hochul pivots a little bit going into the final stretch of the campaign because she senses some kind of vulnerability there. I want to sneak a few texts in, and then I have a question for Bahar. One listener writes, this is Steve from Lindbrook. I'm a libertarian living on Long Island, and I'll be voting for Bruce Blakeman. Unlike Kathy Hochul, he has a proven record of supporting the police. He supports us blue-collar workers. He cares about border security, and he wants to put American-born citizens first.

Another listener writes, I received a two and a half pound large mailer from the Bruce Blakeman campaign with a large prepaid response mailer to donate. Who is funding his campaign? And that question, along with a listener who writes, can you please talk about Bruce Blakeman's Nassau County militia? He floated it a few years ago. Did it get off the ground? Does he talk about it when he's campaigning? Bahar, on the question of the money and the militia. Can you give us some information from the Bruce Blakeman's side of this race? Sure. So first of all, hello, Steve from Lindbrook, and thanks for listening from Long Island. On the militia, Bruce Blakeman has not pulled that out in the campaign. It's something that he has not only received legal challenges about, but some backlash, certainly from Democrats locally. When he's asked about it publicly at appearances, you know, in front of reporters at various events, he makes it very clear. that, you know, I think his words were something like this was a list of names, right? He, you know, created a list of names, former law enforcement first responders that he said he could tap in case of an emergency. They have not been activated. But like I said, you know, this sort of been in the throes of legal challenges and it's something that he's certainly not. touting on the campaign trail. In terms of fundraising, you know, Kathy Hochul has a huge fundraising advantage over Bruce Blakeman. His, you know, main sort of sources of funding, certainly the NASA GOP machine, as Jimmy put it, has backed Bruce Blakeman hugely both in the local race and in the governor's race. You know, there's about... Half is from the Nassau County Republican Committee and from his county executive campaign committee. He ran, you know, just last November. And also from public matching funds, which were sort of central in this other legal challenge and worked out for him. So, you know, analysts have said that, you know, it's certainly the fundraising disadvantage for Bruce Blakeman has not helped when it comes to getting his name out there, especially in parts of upstate that don't know who he is. But we'll have to see how I think the most recent polls will affect his ability to fundraise. You know, he's closing the gap and... He's a little bit closer than Republican Lee Zeldin was at this point in August 2022 against Tokal. That's really interesting. We know that President Trump will be with Lakeman today. Just briefly, Jimmy Bahar, what are you watching for in today's appearance? I'm very curious to see exactly how much the president and...

Bruce Blakeman talk about immigration. There is a looming showdown about state law that essentially bans the cooperation agreements between localities, including Nassau County and ICE. So I'm curious if that's something the president is going to touch on explicitly or if we're going to get news from Bruce Blakeman about what he's going to do in the face of a state law that's taking effect later this month that essentially requires him to wind down that. I fully expect they're going to talk a lot about crime, crime going down, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm interested to hear what they say about immigration, if anything at all. And Bahar, you're going to be there today, as I understand. I also understand that there is going to be some counter protest happening. So which, you know, a lot to cover. Where's your focus going to be? A lot to cover. I completely agree with Jimmy. I'll be looking at immigration. Actually, today is a key deadline for Bruce Blakeman's administration. This is the day that he is required to tell state officials, here's how we plan to unwind our agreement with ICE. Pocle's office said this morning, they haven't heard from Blake's administration yet. They have until... 5 p.m. today to let state officials know how they're going to go about this. Bruce Blakeman has said that he's going to protect and defend this partnership in civil court. But like Jimmy said, you know, the state imposed deadline is just 12 days away. Before I let you guys go, I can't resist this, Jimmy, because as some of our listeners may know, you are from upstate. I am from a part of New York that some people refer to as upstate. And Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Your upstate-ad-ad-ad-ad-ad-ad-jason version. Exactly. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has actually said that he is heading, in quote, upstate for some vacation this week. He hasn't revealed where. I'm wondering if you had a recommendation for him, Jimmy, where would you recommend him go, for him to go? Oh, wow. Is Ranam Dani Upstate? Well. I grew up just north of Albany and have spent a lot of my time this time of year in the Adirondacks. And so, Zohran Mamdani, if you're listening, I assume you are listening. Of course. You know, I don't think you can beat an Adirondack Lake. You get some mountains. You get fresh air and sunshine. None of this salt water, none of these jellyfish, just a nice Adirondack Lake somewhere. And go to Stewart's, get yourself an ice cream cone. It's the best ice cream cone money you'll buy for... to three bucks.

And I have done extensive research here. I can tell you that the best flavor is brownie cookie Sunday, literally years of research into this exact topic. So that's my recommendation. How about you, how about you, Bridget? You know, I know you are an upstater. I know you come from Western New York from the Rochester area. That's the globally upstate New York. So what would you tell the mayor? What would you tell the mayor? Well, if I had to make a recommendation, obviously the Finger Lakes are a beautiful region to visit, but I want to keep in mind his sensibility. So I might suggest Hyde Park. That would be the home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, get a little New Deal inspiration. And there's this very cool political museum in the basement. So if you're into buttons and various political paraphernalia, which I presume he is, you can get your fill of that as well. So we're going to wrap things up. My thanks to Jimmy Vilkind, my colleague, the New York State Issues reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, and Bahar Ostidon, NASA County Government Reporter for Newsday. Thank you both so much for joining me. Thanks, Bridget. Thanks, Bridget. Always a pleasure.