‘Take back our subways’: Lee Zeldin calls for Democrats to unite with him vs. crime

Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin reached out to New York’s Democratic voters Monday during a pre-Election Day rally at which he highlighted his tough-on-crime message.

Speaking outside a Bronx subway station where a rider was stabbed in the neck Sunday morning, Zeldin said, “New Yorkers of all walks of life are uniting as New Yorkers to take back our streets, to take back our subways.”

“People have said: Enough,” he said.

“This isn’t about Republican vs. Democrat. This is about all of us uniting.”

Zeldin — whose surging campaign has forced President Biden, former President Bill Clinton and other Democratic bigwigs to stump for Gov. Kathy Hochul — also said voters in the deep-blue Empire State “are not monolithic.”

“You can’t just paint somebody who is a registered Democrat and say because they are a registered Democrat, that means that they are just going to vote one particular way — that they don’t think for themselves, they don’t have their own ideas, their own vision,” he said.

“And what they really want is to see action.”

Zeldin repeated his criticism of New York’s controversial bail reform law and endorsed Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ proposals to give judges the power to lock up dangerous defendants and to roll back the “Raise the Age” law for criminal responsibility.

“He’s right,” Zeldin said.

“We all need to work together and that will be the first call on Wednesday morning — to Mayor Adams — because we have to represent our mutual constituents.”

Zeldin summed up by saying voters would go to the polls “with a breaking point in this state and a passion and a desire to save the state.”

“This current direction does not work. Kathy Hochul is not getting this job done,” he said.

“I look forward to doing everything I can to make the streets of New York safer, to make our subways safer, to make sure we are rolling back pro-criminal laws, we are firing weak district attorneys who refuse to enforce the law and make sure that we are back on our men and women in blue.”