Democrat Kathy Hochul edges out Republican Lee Zeldin in NY gov race

Gov. Kathy Hochul is projected to win election to a full term on Tuesday night as voters returned her to office following the surprisingly strong race run by longshot Republican challenger Lee Zeldin.

Hochul’s victory, called by NBC News just after 11 pm, came after Zeldin’s relentless anti-crime message boosted his poll numbers, which at one point showed him trailing by 24 percentage points, and sparked panic among Democratic bigwigs.

In response, the party sent President Biden, former President Bill Clinton and other high-profile — if not low-approval — Democrats to stump for Hochul in the closing days of the campaign.

The desperation moves came even though registered Democrats voters outnumber their GOP counterparts by more than 2-to-1 in the deep blue Empire State.

New Yorkers haven’t elected a Republican to statewide office since former Gov. George Pataki won his third term 20 years ago.

Hochul, 64, became the state’s first female governor in August 2021 when former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was forced to resign over a sexual harassment scandal.

Hochul was challenged for this year’s Democratic nomination by outgoing US Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Long Island, Queens) and city Public Advocate Jumaane Williams but cruised to victory after both Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James opted out of the race.

Zeldin, meanwhile, topped a field of four GOP candidates that also included Andrew Giuliani, the son of ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 2014 GOP nominee and former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and Harry Wilson, a corporate restructuring expert and a former state comptroller candidate.

Hochul’s confidence during the Democratic primary led her to skip the first of three debates, a tactic she echoed during the general election when she rejected Zeldin’s call for at least five face-offs across the state.

Instead, she tried to adopt a low-key, “Rose Garden” strategy that relied on the power of incumbency, with appearances at government-related events in lieu of political barnstorming.

In her early campaign ads, Hochul played up Zeldin’s opposition to abortion and ties to former President Donald Trump, who last month gave Zeldin his “complete and total endorsement.”

But in July, the Albany Times Union revealed that her administration had paid $637 million to buy COVID-19 test kits from a company run by Charlie Tebele, a New York City entrepreneur who, with his family, donated about $300,000 to her campaign.

The scandal heated up further with reports that Tebele’s no-bid contracts cost the state nearly 80% more than California paid for the exact same test kits and that Hochul suspended competitive bidding for COVID-19 supplies just four days after Tebele hosted the first of two fundraisers for her.

The governor also hired Tebele’s son, a 21-year-old college student, as a campaign intern before promoting him to “finance associate” and boosting his salary nearly threefold, almost $3,700 a month.

As critics called for probes into the appearance of a “pay to play” arrangement, Hochul denied any wrongdoing and maintained she “was not aware that this was a company that had been supportive of me.”

That assertion was ridiculed by Republicans, with Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Fulton) calling it “laughable.”

Hochul was also dogged by questions about her last-minute insertion of $600 million in spending into the state budget to help build a new, $1.4 billion stadium for her hometown football team, the Buffalos Bills.

The governor’s husband, former Buffalo US Attorney Bill Hochul, is a top exec at Delaware North, the company that’s in charge of the concession operations at the Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park.

Zeldin, meanwhile, focused his campaign squarely on the issue of crime, repeatedly blasting Hochul over her refusal to roll back and strengthen the state’s controversial, 2019 bail reform law, as called for by Mayor Eric Adams and others.

Zeldin held a series of news conferences near the scenes of horrifying attacks — especially in New York City’s subways — and his point was seemingly driven home by a pair of incidents that touched on him personally.

In one, he was attacked while giving a speech in upstate New York and in the other, two teens were wounded in a suspected gang-related shooting outside his suburban Long Island home while his twin, 16-year-old daughters were inside.

Zeldin’s tough-on-crime message was also amplified by a reported $12 million in TV commercials paid for by super PACs, with major funding from cosmetics billionaire Ron Lauder, a conservative activist and Republican donor who ran for mayor in 1989.

When polls showed  Zeldin gaining ground on Hochul, leading political news outlets revised their assessments of the race, with RealClearPolitics ranking it a toss-up and the Cook Political Report changing its rating from “solid” to “likely” Democratic.

Late last month, Hochul conspicuously pivoted her campaign message to focus on crime, announcing a new subway safety plan with Adams and releasing a commercial in which she said New Yorkers “deserve to feel safe.”

But days later, during the only debate to which she agreed, Hochul stunningly said she didn’t know why it was “so important” to lock up criminals after Zeldin confronted her over bail reform.

The governor also refused to answer when Zeldin asked what she’d do to address the pay-to-play corruption allegations, saying, “I don’t accept the premise. There is no pay-to-play corruption.”

As the race came down to the wire, the Democratic Governors Association created a PAC to support Hochul.

Party bigwigs and celebrities also appeared with her at a series of events more familiar to voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, instead of New York.