Quinnipiac University analysis<\/a> gives the governor a whopping 19-point lead, with 58% of likely voters choosing Hochul over Blakeman, who was at 39%.<\/p>\nIn both surveys, Hochul leads in the five boroughs.<\/p>\n
But the race gets tighter in the suburbs, and Blakeman has the edge upstate.<\/p>\n
“Kathy Hochul has been very smart to go out on a listening tour of suburban New York and specifically on Long Island, where Bruce Blakeman is the strongest,” said Ryan Adams, a consultant.<\/p>\n
Playing a dominant factor for the candidates: President Donald Trump. Voters surveyed by Siena gave a thumbs down to Trump’s endorsement of Blakeman by a 51% to 30% margin.<\/p>\n
The president’s favorability rating is far underwater in both polls.<\/p>\n
“No one wants a Trump puppet in the governor’s mansion who will cut their healthcare, raise their costs, and let ICE trample their rights. They trust Gov. Hochul’s record,” said Hochul’s campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki, responding in a statement.<\/p>\n
Blakeman, at a separate event in Queens, compared results from September 2022, when Hochul was running for her first full term against GOP nominee Lee Zeldin.<\/p>\n
“The Siena poll is a biased poll. It’s a fugazi poll,” said Blakeman.<\/p>\n
“Two weeks before the election four years ago they had Zeldin 11 points down, so they were five and a half points off,” he added.<\/p>\n
But four years ago, Democrat Joe Biden was in the White House, and the two major parties split control of Congress. Now, Democrats like Hochul are tying the GOP to Trump and his policies.<\/p>\n
“Donald Trump is bearing the burden of his choices and actions, and people are willing to blame him for it, and Bruce Blakeman has to account for that,” said Adams.<\/p>\n
And then there’s the Mamdani factor.<\/p>\n
“The fact that Republicans have desperately tried to make Mamdani Hochul’s anchor, but instead Mamdani’s becoming Hochul’s life jacket,” said Carlucci.<\/p>\n
“Politics makes for strange bedfellows, but it makes for practical politics. Hochul doesn’t need Mamdani’s platform, she needs his voters,” he added.<\/p>\n
Both studies give the new mayor high marks, and when Siena asked whether Mamdani’s endorsement of Hochul was a good idea, 50% of voters called it positive compared to 30% negative.<\/p>\n
Since the new year, moderate Democrat Hochul and democratic socialist Mamdani have painted a picture of unity: announcing universal childcare aid, a compromise on taxing wealthy New Yorkers and finding common ground on policing.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Trump held a cordial meeting with the mayor this week, although a focal point of Blakeman’s campaign has been criticizing Hochul for her coziness with Mamdani.<\/p>\n
“I have no issues with that, including Mamdani, if he’s the mayor of the city of New York. Obviously, as governor, I will have to sit down and meet with him and talk to him even though I don’t like his policies and his positions. That’s what you do if you’re a leader,” said Blakeman when asked about the meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two polls released Wednesday show Gov. Kathy Hochul ahead of her Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[148],"tags":[6667,9629,2149,14256,13210,560,9628,50,9627,21644,51,3241,2150,553],"class_list":["post-240228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bernadette-hogan","tag-local-politics","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117322919094539170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}