The increasingly tight race between Gov. Kathy Hochul and challenger Lee Zeldin has most New York voters focused on the top of the ticket — but they could also play a key role in deciding the balance of power in the House of Representatives. Nine of the races in New York’s 26 congressional districts are described as competitive by…
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Get out and vote for Lee Zeldin to save New York & its democracy
It’s crunch time: New York’s fate will be decided today.
To save the state — cap its bloody crime surge, reverse the endless tax hikes and stop the exodus to other states — you need to get out and vote for Rep. Lee Zeldin.
It’s the last chance to stop the insanity and end the one-party rule that has monopolized power, put special interests and lefty ideology ahead of the public’s needs and left New Yorkers poorer, less safe and more taxed.
Democrats rail about the “threat to democracy,” but what kind of democracy operates with just one party that has no check on its power? That’s what’s happened to New York.
This year offers the best shot in a long time to bring back a competitive, two-party system. But it won’t happen unless New Yorkers get to the polls and cast their votes for Zeldin and other Republicans all the way down the ballot.
If you believe Gov. Kathy Hochul’s claim — and not the statistics — that New York crime is just a myth spread by a “conspiracy” of “media manipulators,” vote for her.
If you’re delighted with failing schools, soaring utility bills, vanishing jobs and disgusting pay-to-play corruption, feel free to back Hochul.
But then, don’t dare complain about crime later, if she wins. Blame only yourself for the state’s continued downward spiral.
If, on the other hand, you want a safer, healthier, saner New York, you need to get out and vote for Zeldin & Co.
Zeldin has solid plans to make the state safe and affordable — so you don’t have to flee, as so many New Yorkers already have.
He’ll declare a “crime emergency” and suspend the state’s disastrous criminal-justice laws (cashless bail, etc.).
He’ll immediately fire criminal-coddling Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for not enforcing the law.
Zeldin will give Mayor Adams the vital backup he needs against Albany radicals, who stand in the way of glaringly obvious common-sense solutions to crime.
He’ll take on teachers unions, making sure kids come first. And if union-dominated government schools don’t cut it, parents will be able to shift kids to free, non-union charter schools. Hochul, in thrall to the unions, opposes expanding charters.
Unlike the current governor, who sells her office to big-time campaign donors, Zeldin won’t even meet with contributors who have business before the state.
Hochul has gotten away with numerous corrupt deals, aided by endless COVID-19 state-of-emergency declarations, which gave her extra powers.
Zeldin will also end the constant tax hikes that saddle New Yorkers with the nation’s highest burden.
He’ll bring realism to the state’s energy plans, lifting the fracking ban and spawning jobs upstate; Hochul is recklessly ordering New York to quit fossil fuels before other reliable energy sources are available.
He’ll jump-start the economy, not by handing corporations billions of your dollars to operate here, as Hochul has, but by lowering taxes, easing regulations, squelching crime and making the state more attractive.
Most of all: Zeldin, a Republican, will provide a vital check on the left’s domination of the state government and the crazy, radical agenda it’s pushing on New York.
Let’s face it: The madness — crime, inflation, failing schools — won’t end unless New Yorkers say enough is enough and cast their ballots for Zeldin and the GOP.
But they’ll need every single vote they can get to win in deep blue New York.
This could be voters’ last decent chance for a long time to restore democracy in the Empire State and save us from the fever of progressive politics that has gripped Democrats for too long.
This is New York’s only hope. Don’t let it pass us by
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Early voting in NYC anemic for Hochul until Clintons, VP Harris arrival
Turnout during the nine days of early voting in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City was light — and experts say the lack of early enthusiasm could portend trouble for incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul, who was forced to call in the cavalry — Bill and Hillary Clinton and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — in a bid to wake up slumbering New York Democrats the past week is in the political fight of her life against surging Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.
A total of 432,634 voters turned out early in the five boroughs even as both public and internal polls have showed a very tight race.
“The lack of enthusiasm for the Hochul campaign is validated by these mediocre [early voting] numbers,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
“Zeldin has a higher possibility of winning based on these numbers.”
One Democratic strategist said of the turnout, “This race is a jump ball.”
New York City’s cumulative turnout by the seventh day of early voting, Friday, stood at just 33.7% of the early turnout when compared to the presidential election in 2020.
Breaking the alarm glass seems to have worked a little — as turnout across the five boroughs picked up a bit over the weekend.
By the time early voting had ended on Sunday, the turnout had jumped five percentage points — still just 38.6% of the 2020 turnout when 1.19 million people voted early in the fiercely contested 2020 presidential election between President Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Early turnout was dreadful in heavily Democrat The Bronx, where only 39,069 residents voted — just 3,000 more votes than cast in GOP-led Staten Island, which has just about a third of The Bronx’s population.
Brooklyn registered 135,239 votes, followed by Manhattan with 133,618, Queens with 88,840, the Bronx with 39,069 and Staten Island with 35,868.
Zeldin told The Post Monday that turnout and enthusiasm for Hochul is light in many of the city’s Democratic strongholds while he’s generating enthusiastic support.
“It’s a big issue for Hochul, I don’t know if she’s gonna be able to recover from this tomorrow. The turnout in certain areas where she was expecting a higher turnout just wasn’t there,” Zeldin said.
“We’ve seen the enthusiasm gap for awhile — it’s shown themselves in different respects. While she was rallying a few days ago with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, we had 10 times as many people showing up at a rally in the capital region. There’s clearly a big energy gap and enthusiasm gap between the two campaigns.
“She just didn’t get the numbers that she needed from some of these boroughs. There are certain groups inside of the boroughs that just didn’t show up. And we’re not seeing anything today that is lighting a fuse amongst those people who had just not shown up.”
State Conservative Party chairman Jerry Kassar said that by contrast, the early voter turnout rate was stronger in Zeldin’s base in Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties than in Democratic-leaning New York City where Hochul needs to run up the score.
But State Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs, a key Hochul adviser, insisted the turnout was good for Hochul and the Democratic ticket.
Jacobs said New York City typically accounts for about a third of the vote in statewide elections. He said it was at 27% of the early vote total and was hopeful to at least hit that mark during the final vote on Tuesday.
“We feel very good. We’ll see what happens when the polls close on Tuesday,” Jacobs said.
Sources said government workers and black voters historically tend to vote on Election Day, which could boost the turnout for Hochul. But many Republican-leaning voters also prefer to vote on Election Day.
Hochul and the Democratic ticket do have a big advantage when it comes to absentee ballots, a Post review of state and city election data reveals.
The state Board of Elections reported that 62% or 349,087 of the 564,318 absentee ballots requested by voters statewide were from registered Democrats. Only 20% or 111,744 were requested by Republicans and 17% or 96,288 were requested by independents.
Of the 327,886 absentee ballots returned thus far, 200,243 were from Democrats, 72,495 from Republicans and 50,604 from independents.
The overwhelming number of absentee ballots requested in New York City were from Democrats — 171,188 of 219,228.
Thus far, 83,582 of the 102,923 paper ballots received by the local elections board were from Democrats.
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Zeldin won’t let hecklers stop his anti-crime remarks at site of NYC rape
Hecklers tried to disrupt a Friday appearance by Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin in Manhattan — but their shouts failed to silence his anti-crime broadsides against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
During a news conference near the scene of the Thursday morning rape of a tourist jogging in Hudson River Park, Zeldin said, “It is important that we are doing everything in our power to make our streets and our subway safe.”
“Now, unfortunately, Kathy Hochul doesn’t want to be here talking about these issues,” he said. “She wants to send her supporters to make sure that we aren’t talking about fighting crime.”
Zeldin also blasted Hillary Clinton for accusing Republicans of trying to keep voters “scared” while she campaigned for Hochul with Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday night.
In response to a question from The Post, Zeldin said Clinton and Hochul should be telling New Yorkers, “I understand your concerns. I want to do absolutely everything in my power to be able to fix it. Here are my solutions and I’m committed to getting it done.”
“But instead, a strategic decision was made by them, that they didn’t want to talk about crime, that they wanted to talk about other issues,” he said.
“Why is it that the polls are close? What you are hearing right now is why the polls are close. Last night, when you listened to that rally, that is why the polls are close.”
Although the small band of protesters from the progressive “Rise and Resist” group made noise throughout Zeldin’s 20-minute appearance, he managed at one point to get them to change their tactics.
When Zeldin said, “They want to drown out the conversation,” the activists instead started cheering and clapping.
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Zeldin, Stefanik slam Hochul over gas car ban, denying NYers ‘right to choose’
WASHINGTON — Seven of New York’s Republican members of Congress ripped Gov. Kathy Hochul Friday for attempting to take away the “right to choose” by banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.
A letter organized by upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik and signed by gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin demands that Hochul abandon the plan, citing the prospect of higher costs and fewer consumer options if it takes effect.
“In addition to the fact that this policy will drive up prices each New Yorker must pay for their vehicles, you are also taking away their right to choose what vehicle they want to drive,” the letter says.
“Instead of picking winners and losers from Albany, you should be working to enhance consumer choice and empower New Yorkers to decide how they want to spend their hard-earned money. We urge you reverse this decision and put the needs of all New Yorkers first.”
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Stefanik told The Post “electric vehicles will not serve our communities well, especially because families in my district often have to commute over an hour each way to work” and suggested that the regulation was part of a broader agenda that “shamelessly prioritizes the needs of New York’s urban cities over our hardworking rural communities.”
Hochul faces a tighter-than-expected contest against Zeldin going into the Nov. 8 election. The RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows Hochul beating the Long Island congressman by just 6.1%, despite President Biden carrying the state by more than 23 percentage points in 2020.
Zeldin previously accused Hochul of hypocrisy for seeking to ban gas-powered cars while using state helicopters and planes 140 times in seven months.
Biden on Thursday visited Syracuse to boost Hochul ahead of Election Day with an event touting plans by the company Micron to build a $100 billion factory generating 9,000 jobs in Syracuse.
At the event, Hochul described herself as “the first upstate governor in 100 years” and said she understood the region’s economic woes as globalization caused high unemployment and stagnation in former industrial areas.
But the Stefanik-led letter says Hochul’s electric vehicle mandate, announced on Sept. 29 to align New York with California’s policies, is more representative of concerns in New York City, where fewer people need to drive.
“Forcing New Yorkers to purchase EVs in 2035 will cause significant financial hardship to the average consumer. Over the last year, electric vehicle prices have skyrocketed approximately 56.7[%], while hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars rose 30.5[%],” the letter says.
“The New York Independent System Operator predicts that approximately 7.7 million EVs will be on the road in New York by 2040, with 160,000 vehicles registered in the state by the end of 2022.
“These EVs are primarily located in the greater New York City area, and it is clear your proposed EV mandate panders to downstate priorities instead of working for all New Yorkers,” the letter to Hochul read. “Rural communities in Upstate New York and the North Country rely on vehicles at much high rates than the urban areas in and around New York City.”
The letter points to a February audit from the New York State Comptroller of the New York Power Authority (NYPA) that found the authority had put EV charging stations in just 32 of 62 counties.
“This out-of-touch mandate will further inhibit New York rural communities’ ability to prosper and maintain stable economies,” the letter says.
Republican Reps. Claudia Tenney, John Katko, Chris Jacobs, Andrew Garbarino, and Joe Sempolinski signed the letter. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and southern Brooklyn, was the lone New York House Republican not to sign.
The Biden administration is pushing federal policies to lower the cost and improve the ease of using electric vehicles. Last year’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law included $7.5 billion to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations and the administration is beginning to disburse funds to install charging stations every 50 miles along major highways.
Biden’s $437 billion environmental and healthcare spending bill signed in August included $7,500 in tax credits for buyers of new electric cars.
Hochul cited the threat of global warming when announcing the state’s plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs within 13 years.
“Governor Kathy Hochul today commemorated National Drive Electric Week by directing the State Department of Environmental Conservation to take major regulatory action that will require all new passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs sold in New York State to be zero emissions by 2035,” a press release from her office said.
“This is a crucial regulatory step to achieving significant greenhouse gas emission reductions from the transportation sector and is complemented by new and ongoing investments also announced today, including electric vehicle infrastructure progress, zero-emission vehicle incentives, and ensuring New York’s communities benefit from historic federal climate change investments,” Hochul’s release said.
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Kathy Hochul slammed for $1B election-year ‘slush funds’
Gov. Kathy Hochul treated herself to nearly $1 billion worth of pork-barrel spending in this year’s state budget — allowing her to freely hand out cash as she runs for election against Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.
Hochul and her Democratic allies in the Legislature added the $920 million worth of outlays to the $220.5 billion fiscal plan in an 11th-hour move in April that government watchdogs warn is wide open to abuse.
“These slush funds are totally unaccountable. It’s not how public dollars should be doled out,” senior policy adviser Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany said Friday.
Another nonpartisan nonprofit, the Citizens Budget Commission, said the cash “will go to projects and purposes that primarily will be identified behind closed doors.”
“As such, they are ripe for political allocation rather than a distribution based on sound, holistic capital planning that addresses critical infrastructure needs,” the CBC wrote in a July analysis.
The group also noted that the $535 million poured into two of three “lump sum” spending programs — the Long Island Investment Fund and the Local Community Assistance Program — can be spent “for essentially any purpose” and “isn’t subject to any agreement with the Legislature.”
In recent weeks, Hochul announced two expenditures that squarely targeted the Long Island home base of Zeldin, an outgoing, four-term US representative.
One provided $50 million in funding for a competition to “attract and grow companies in the life sciences, health technology and medical device sectors” on Long Island.
The other awarded a $10 million grant to the Northwell Health network’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research for 26 new, state-of-the-art laboratories in Manhasset.
Hochul touted both initiatives on the state’s official website, which also says that “the Long Island Investment Fund will focus on large-scale projects that will support and grow the regional economy, enhance communities, and have lasting impacts across the Long Island region.”
And on Sept. 27, Hochul was joined at a news conference about the Feinstein Institutes funding by state Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Carle Place), who faces Republican Jack Martins, a former state senator, in a race that’s expected to be close due to local outrage over New York’s controversial bail-reform law.
“Kathy Hochul hasn’t simply blurred the line between governing and campaigning — she’s completely erased it,” remarked state Senate Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Fulton).
“New York has the least transparent budget process imaginable and what we’re seeing now is a product of creating pools of money with no guidelines whatsoever.”
In addition to the “lump sum” funding, the CBC identified six “individual purpose” pork projects, including the controversial $600 million earmarked for a new stadium for Hochul’s hometown football team, the Buffalo Bills.
The governor’s husband, former Buffalo US Attorney Bill Hochul, is a top executive at the Delaware North hospitality and food service company that manages the scores of concession and retail outlets at the Bills’ Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.
Another project with a direct tie to Hochul is the planned $20 million reconstruction of the Carrier Dome sports stadium at Syracuse University, her alma mater.
The planned Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the South Bronx and the planned Mohawk Harbor Events Center in Schenectady were awarded $11 million and $10 million in funding, respectively.
The New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens, and Pace University’s Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts in Lower Manhattan will also get $10 million and $5 million, respectively, for upgrades.
In its analysis, the CBC said as much as $1.2 billion of the spending could be financed by bonds that would “consume” the state’s ability to issue debt and potentially prevent it from financing other, “critical” projects in the future.
Several critics compared Hochul’s budgetary maneuvers to those of her widely reviled predecessor, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal last year.
“This is Cuomo crony capitalism 2.0,” said city Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island), spokesman for the pro-Zeldin Save Our State political action committee.
“It’s the same old from the same old Albany crowd. And there’s nothing to address the real issues New Yorkers are concerned about.”
Said GOP political consultant William O’Reilly: “This is a classic Andrew Cuomo tactic — a pre-election Santa Claus giveaway to key voting constituencies. It costs Gov. Hochul nothing, but it costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, all to benefit her reelection drive.”
“You can’t get much swampier than this,” O’reilly emphasized.
In an emailed response, Hochul spokesperson Avi Small said, “Gov. Hochul worked with the legislature to craft a fiscally responsible budget, using an influx of federal pandemic relief to make strategic investments in public safety, infrastructure, and tax relief while also making unprecedented deposits in rainy day reserves to protect against future uncertainty – even leading to Moody’s upgrading the state’s credit rating after the budget was passed.”
A spokesman for the Budget Division said the state had $6 billion in cash available to pay for capital projects, but didn’t immediately respond when asked whether that would cover all of the $1.6 billion in spending cited by the CBC.
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Hochul’s questioning charges against McDonald’s ‘ax man’ is political theater
Yes, Gov. Kathy Hochul is questioning the handling of McDonald’s “ax-man” Michael Palacios. But it’s to try to blur the ugly fact that his instant release without bail highlights her own public-safety failures as Election Day nears.
Palacios walked free after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office lowered felony criminal-mischief charges to a misdemeanor and dropped menacing charges altogether. Then, on Monday, after video of him threatening customers with an ax and destroying property went viral along with news of his release, Hochul played damage control.
“We’re actually asking what the thought process was,” she said, because officials had “the discretion” to file “bail-eligible” charges.
First: Yes, Bragg’s decision was outrageous — but typical. The moment he took office in January, he made clear his main goal was to keep criminals out of jail, and he’s repeatedly declined to seek the toughest possible charges and penalties. Yet Hochul has refused to use her power to remove him for fear of upsetting perp-coddling progressives.
Second: As ex-prosecutor Jim Quinn explained in The Post, even if Bragg hadn’t reduced the charges, “Palacios STILL would have been released without bail,” thanks to New York’s disastrous bail laws. “Everything that Palacios is seen doing on that video,” he noted, “from smashing plate glass partitions, breaking tables, chopping his hatchet into walls and waving it at patrons, is a non-bailable offense.”
The laws require judges to release, bail-free, all accused criminals except those charged with the most horrendous crimes. New York judges, unlike those in every other state, can’t consider defendants’ threats to public safety — or their criminal records or risk of reoffending.
Alas, Hochul lacks the backbone to shame pro-crime Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins into fixing the statutes. Instead, she pretends they’re fine and shifts all the blame to judges and prosecutors like Bragg.
Her governor’s-race foe Rep. Lee Zeldin, by contrast, vows to fire Bragg and fix the laws.
And ground-level Democratic leaders, from Mayor Eric Adams to Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy, want the laws fixed too. It’s “about the safety of our residents,” said Kennedy in joining a bipartisan call from Long Island officials.
Rather than do something about outrages like the bail-free release of ax-wielding madmen, Hochul opts to lie. She’s a pathetic excuse for a leader.
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NY governor candidates Hochul, Zeldin agree to debate — but not yet on number
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin have found something they agree on – New Yorkers ought to hear them debate ahead of the Nov. 8 election for governor.
“New Yorkers deserve the opportunity to witness first hand where the two candidates for Governor stand on the issues most important to voters,” Zeldin said in a statement Wednesday.
The GOP standard-bearer has called for five debates – two held downstate, a third in Syracuse, a fourth in either Rochester or Buffalo, and a fifth somewhere else in the state – but it remains unclear how many Hochul will agree to.
“As she has in every election throughout her career, Governor Hochul looks forward to debating Congressman Zeldin this fall,” Hochul spokesman Jerrel Harvey said in a statement Wednesday. “New Yorkers need to hear about Lee Zeldin’s allegiance to the MAGA agenda and far-right record on guns and abortion rights.”
Harvey did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the number of debates Hochul would take part in. CBS News and PIX 11 have already planned to host one debate apiece.
In 2018, then-Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Marc Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, had one televised debate. Both Zeldin and Hochul faced off in multiple debates against primary opponents earlier this year.
More debates offer Zeldin, who has been endorsed by the Post, a chance to make up ground in a race where the Democrat Hochul has many built-in advantages — including a two-to-one edge in party registration.
A recent Siena College poll showed Hochul ahead of Zeldin by 14 percentage points and recent campaign filings showed her with $11.7 million to spend compared to just $1.57 million for Zeldin, who will appear alongside former President Donald Trump at a September fundraiser.
But Zeldin says he remains bullish about his chances this November if enough voters are able to hear his message explaining why he should become the first Republican to win a statewide election in two decades.
“As I travel throughout the state,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “New Yorkers tell me that their top issues are rising crime, high cost of living, quality of education, corruption scandals plaguing Hochul, and massive government overreach.”
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