Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman aims to address New Yorkers’ affordability concerns to reverse the trend of residents moving out of the state, and as part of that pitch to voters, he’s aligning himself with his old friend, President Donald Trump, and his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
“I’ll spend money on New Yorkers, not on people who’ve been here for 15 minutes. The whole Sanctuary state program has been a disaster,” Blakeman, who currently serves as the chief executive of Nassau County, said in an exclusive interview at Newsweek’s Manhattan office on Tuesday.
In 2017, former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that restricted state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents. Cuomo, in 2018, made another executive order stating that federal immigration agents can only make civil arrests at state facilities if they have a judicial warrant or order. New York City implemented similar sanctuary policies as early as 1989.
“I would cooperate with ICE and I would sign an executive order the first day I get into office that we are no longer a sanctuary state,” Blakeman said.
Beyond immigration, Blakeman is sounding the alarm on the high cost of living in New York, lamenting the fact that New Yorkers are leaving the state for more affordable places to live. He believes his record in Nassau County demonstrates a record of creating economic success, while he blames Democratic policies for causing the current problems.
“There’s reasons why hundreds of thousands of people have left the state and gone to South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida because they’ve gone to places where their families can live a better life, a more affordable life,” he said.
Blakeman’s entrance into the 2026 governor’s race caused a stir among New York Republicans, who were largely aligning behind Representative Elise Stefanik. Trump had seen Stefanik as a close ally in Congress, while he had long been close with Blakeman as well. When asked about the developing primary between the two in mid-December, Trump described Stefanik and Blakeman as “two fantastic people,” declining to throw full support behind either.
Stefanik dropped out days later, citing her young son and saying she wanted to spend more time with her family. She also said she didn’t think it was good for Republicans to have an “unnecessary and protracted” primary. Many interpreted the decision as frustration with Trump for not endorsing her campaign.
“I think she’ll have a very bright future if she wants to get back into politics,” Blakeman said when asked about her decision. He also described the congresswoman as “very effective” in Congress and as “very bright, very articulate.”
While Trump endorsed Blakeman after Stefanik dropped out in December and the county executive appears all but certain to be the Republican nominee for governor, the general election in which he is expected to run against incumbent Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul will be an uphill battle. The last Republican to win the governorship in New York was George Pataki, who left office 20 years ago in 2006.
Republicans, however, have made substantial gains in New York in recent election cycles. Trump lost to former Vice President Kamala Harris by 12.6 points in 2024, whereas former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had both beaten him by about 23 points in 2020 and 2016, respectively. Republicans have also managed to flip and hold several formerly Democratic House districts in recent cycles.
Blakeman notes that he also has won multiple times in a Democratic-leaning county.
“I just won re-election in a county with 110,000 more Democrats than Republicans. And my county is basically a mirror image of the state. Our demographics are almost exactly the same,” he said, adding that he “won in landslide” because his constituents like his “policies.” Whether he can translate that success to the state level will be determined in November.
Blakeman laid out more about his plans for New York’s economy, immigration concerns and his thoughts on Trump’s policies in a wide-ranging interview with Newsweek. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Bruce Blakeman Interview Transcript
Newsweek: First off, we’ve just had this big storm in New York. How’s your county doing? And also, what’s your perspective on the Governor Hochul’s response to the situation?
Bruce Blakeman: My county’s doing very well. This was a problematic storm because of the frigid weather before the storm and after the storm, which makes the pavement very cold, and it’s harder to get down to where the pavement’s dry. But we’re doing a great job. We’ve been out salting. We’ve plowed all the roads a number of times, and every road is open. People should just take a little extra time, not only driving, but when they’re walking. The sidewalks are still slippery. So just be careful. The frigid weathers are not helping us out at all. Usually by now, it would be pretty dry all over. But it’s doing well.
As far as Governor Hochul’s concerned, I think she made a terrible mistake not accepting the aid from President Trump and from the federal government. She mentioned ICE. I don’t know what ICE has to do unless she’s talking about the ice that’s on the pavement. I don’t know what that has to do with storm management and accepting federal funds. So I just think that she’s very polarizing, and she doesn’t understand that the citizens come first. We have to take care of our people, make sure that they are safe and secure, and that includes making sure that we have the funds necessary, so it’s not a burden on the taxpayers when we have to have cleanups like this in a blizzard.
It’s been about two decades since New York had a Republican governor. Why do you think you’re going to be the candidate that will change that trend?
That’s a very good question. So, I just won re-election in a county with 110,000 more Democrats than Republicans. And my county is basically a mirror image of the state. Our demographics are almost exactly the same. We have the same percentages of Hispanic Americans and Latinos. We have same percentage of African Americans. We have a same percentage of Asian Americans. So we are a snapshot pretty much of the State. And I won in landslide because people like my policies.
We are the safest county in America, according to one of your competitors. We are a place where it’s affordable to live because people are making more money because we invite business in, we create jobs, we want to create prosperity. The best way to make things affordable is to put more money in people’s pockets so they can make the choices on how they want to spend money. So we have a very prosperous county because we’re very business-friendly. And I haven’t raised taxes in four years, not one penny. Even though inflation was at 6 percent to 8 percent a year, we didn’traise taxes at all. We hired more cops, we hired more corrections officers, and we’re not only safe and secure, we’re prosperous and we are affordable. And that’s what I want to do in New York State.
There’s more Democrats in New York State than Republicans, but I believe a large number of Democrats are going to cross over and vote for me. And also, I’ve got a majority in my last election of independent voters, both women and men voted in the majority towards me. I believe I’ll be able to do that in the state. So I’m very confident that I will be the next governor of the state of New York.
You mentioned Democrats, and of course, to win statewide, you’re gonna likely need some of them to vote for you. How specifically do you plan to reach out to those voters?
I’m going to do it the same way I did as county executive. You know, when you’re talking to people, sometimes you have disagreements. They may disagree with one policy I have or another policy that I have, but what I try to do with people is focus on where we can agree. What do you need for your community? What do we need to make your community better, more affordable, safer? And that’s what I did. I reached out to communities. I went to places where traditional Republicans don’t go, and I went there and listened to people, and I materially made their lives better, whether it was improving a museum, whether it was improve a roadway, whether was creating a brand new park.
Those are things that I did, and I was able to garner a lot of support. So I don’t think that politics should be polarizing, and I think elected officials really need to concentrate. On being the elected official for everybody, Republican, Democrat, independent. And that’s what I’ve done. That’s why I get a majority of independent voters and a fair number of Democrats.
I’m sure that there are some Democrats who are frustrated with some of the progressive and socialist policies going on in Albany and here in New York City. But then they might see an R next to your name, and they might be concerned about LGBTQ+ rights and abortion. What would you say to those concerns that some might have?
First of all, I’m a pro-choice Republican. So the governor likes to talk about abortion when she runs against Republicans. She’s not going to be able to do that with me because I am a pro-choice Republican. I believe that in the early terms of pregnancy, it’s a woman’s body, it’s her right to choose, and she should make the decisions, along with her physician, on whether or not she wants to have a child.
With respect to the other issues, again, when you’re the governor, your job is to create an affordable economy. You do that by creating jobs and economic prosperity. We are the highest taxed and highest regulated state in the United States. And therefore, businesses have been leaving in droves, taking good jobs, jobs that pay a lot of money and pay good benefits. I wanna bring those jobs back. I wanna nurture the businesses that are here.
Again, there are policies like cashless bail that many Democrats, and I call them common-sense Democrats, they don’t agree with that. They’re against that. So I think they’re gonna look at me as an individual and not just as a Republican. They’re gonna look at me and my record—my record of achievement. I’ve gotten seven bond upgrades from Wall Street on my budgets. So that’s unprecedented; it’s never happened. I did it without raising taxes, so I think people like that.
You’ve talked about economic issues and taxes. How specifically are you going to address affordability concerns in New York?
I have a different philosophy than Kathy Hochul. Kathy Hochul is driving businesses out of New York State because we’re over-taxed and we’re over-regulated, we’re not business friendly. There’s a reason why the stock exchange is moving offices to Dallas, Texas, from New York City. And the reason they’re doing that is because it’s more affordable and it’s business-friendly. There’s reasons why hundreds of thousands of people have left the state and gone to South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida because they’ve gone to places where their families can live a better life, a more affordable life.
My programs are designed to create jobs and to create prosperity. I want higher-paying jobs in New York State. I want more jobs. The more jobs there are, the more selective people can be, especially young people, on what type of job they want to spend the rest of their career in. I think economic prosperity is the way to make the state more affordable by putting more money in people’s pockets. We have a poverty rate that’s just unconscionable in New York state. Our poverty rate is 15 percent; 15 percent of all of our residents live below the poverty level. I find that to be really a national disgrace.
One of the policies that Governor Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani put forward is extending free childcare to 2-year-olds. What do you think about that proposal, and how would you help New Yorkers worried about childcare?
First of all, they only did it for New York City. So that’s eminently unfair to the rest of the state. That’s number one. Number two, Mamdani wants to give free child care to illegal migrants. More money that should go to the taxpayers is now going to illegal immigrants. We’ve spent $5 billion in New York State, $7 billion in New York City, giving it to illegal migrants who’ve been here for 15 minutes. They’re undocumented. We don’t know where they came from. A lot of them are involved in criminal activity, and that’s taxpayer dollars that are being spent on people who haven’t earned it. Free transportation, free phones, free lodging. It doesn’t make sense.
What I believe in is—I believe tax credits for child care. That way, you know it’s not going to be used for a fraudulent program. The people who need the help are going to get it. People who are gainfully employed will be able to get tax credits. For child care because child care is an important issue in New York State. There are families where both the husband and the wife are working, and they need child care for their child, and it’s getting very, very expensive. But again, I differ from Hochul and Mamdani because I don’t believe the city or the state should choose what child care you want to send your kids to. I believe it should be your choice, private institution, faith-based institutions. I don’t think it should be city-run. I don’t think it should be run by the state because they do a terrible job running everything.
President Trump actually had a very positive meeting with Mamdani a few weeks back. He spoke very favorably of him. What did you make of that meeting? And did you disagree with Trump?
President Trump has a record of meeting with a lot of different people that he philosophically agrees with, disagrees with, I should say. And Zohran Mamdani and President Trump could not be more diametrically opposed in their philosophies, their ideology, and their programs and policies. That being said, I think President Trump wanted to open up the door to find common ground and find a basis to have a working relationship for the betterment of all of New York City. And I think that’s good for New York City. I don’t think there’s anything wrong.
I have not had any conversations with Zohran Mamdani as of yet. And I’m very concerned on some of the things that he’s done. I’m deeply concerned that he signed an executive order that basically took the definition of anti-Semitism that was approved by the Holocaust Memorial Council. And he completely rejected that after [former Mayor] Eric Adams instituted that. I was very curious as to why did you do that the first week you’re in office? Of all the things that you had to be concerned with, a blizzard, transportation, housing, security and law enforcement, you chose that. It’s very troubling to me.
In addition, when I listened to his speech at his inauguration, he basically denigrated individualism. Individualism created this great economy in New York City. He talks about collectivism. Collectivism is a code word for communism. And basically what it means is if you’re really hard working and you’re very bright, you have ingenuity, and you’ve built a lot of money, and you built a good business, and made a nice life for yourself, he’s going to take that money and give it to lazy people. I don’t agree with that philosophy. It’s never worked anywhere. Winston Churchill said, socialism is shared misery.
And basically, a lot of people in New York State are miserable because of the policies of Governor Hochul. And it looks to me like Zohran Mamdani wants to make them more miserable. As governor, I won’t let him do that. I won’t let him destroy the economy of the city of New York. And I won’t let them destroy the police department, the NYPD, which is a great law enforcement agency. I will fight to make sure that New Yorkers are safe, secure, and that they have an economy where people can prosper.
You’ve been endorsed by President Trump. What’s your assessment of his first year in office?
I think he’s had an amazing first year. Let’s take a look at it. He passed a big, beautiful bill, which had a tremendous amount of tax cuts. It had scholarship money that you could, if you made a contribution for a scholarship for education, you could deduct that from your taxes. Kathy Hochul didn’t opt into that. It was free money for the people of the state of New York. And because she doesn’t like President Trump, she didn’t opt into it. So she’s hurting the residents of the state of New York, and she’s hurting their chances to be better educated.
I like the fact that he’s very proactive with the Middle East and that he has built a situation now where there is peace in the Middle East and that you have Arab governments talking with the state with Israel. I think the action that he took against Iran was absolutely essential. He needed to do that because Iran is a terrorist country. That is a threat to America, it’s a threat to the state of Israel, it is a threat to peace, and as we’re seeing right now, there’s protests that are very, very, very, active right now in Iran. I think the people are rising up now, and they’re saying they want to throw these people out. They’ve been a totalitarian government that’s been oppressive to the people, and I think that they were a threat to everybody. If they got nuclear capability, it would be a threat to the whole world, so. I’m very happy that he took affirmative action there.
And I like his war on drugs. I think the fact that he got Maduro and the fact he’s intercepting these boats that carry poison that infect our communities and kill our children is very positive. So I think that basically he has been doing a good job.
One Trump policy that’s gotten a lot of criticism—and probably from business leaders across New York—is the tariffs. What’s your perspective on the tariff policy? Would you encourage them to change it?
President Trump is the ultimate negotiator, and he’s using the tariffs to negotiate better deals, which ultimately will be better for the men and women who work each and every day in our country and in our state. And the fact is that we’ve been getting ripped off by these countries for far too long, where our goods, we sell them over in their countries, and we get these very high tariffs. They sell goods here at very low tariffs. So it’s ruined our manufacturing base. It’s taken away union jobs. It’s taking away jobs in communities that are suffering now throughout New York State.
Great cities like Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse, they used to be manufacturing capitals of the world. Now they’re just a shell of their former existence. And I believe that what we need to do is build up manufacturing, bring in new businesses. And if tariffs will help do it, I’m all for it.
You mentioned Kathy Hochul’s response to the storm, mentioning ICE. That’s a huge news story in the country right now, the ICE situation in Minnesota specifically, but also across the country. I believe you previously suggested that you thought the shooting of Renee Goode appeared to be justified. Is that still your view? And I’m also curious, what are your thoughts on the more recent killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota?
So both shootings are unfortunate, but they are the product of a governor and a mayor out of control in the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis. Basically, the streets have been taken over by these paid professional thugs. None of them are Hispanic and Latino. They’re all white people who obviously are being paid or they’vebeen brainwashed to interfere with law enforcement. I don’t think it’s right. For people to interfere with the law enforcement agencies that are trying to protect communities. Sure, you wanna protest, you can protest. Free speech is very important in our country, but they’re going beyond that. They’re engaging the ICE agents. They’ve committed acts of violence. They’ve thrown bottles and rocks at ICE agents; it’s gotta stop. And we don’t have that lawlessness in Nassau County because I wouldn’t tolerate it, not for one minute.
Look what happened here in New York City with the lawlessness by taking over Columbia University, blocking bridges, all by paid pro-Palestinian protesters; these are the same type of people, and they’re probably paid by the same source of funding. These are people who have anti-American values. They’re trying to change our culture, and I think that basically it has nothing to do with protecting immigrants. I think they want people in our country that don’t share our American values. They want people in our country that want to hand out so they’lldeplete the resources of our country. And I’m 100 percent against that.
As governor, I’ll spend money on New Yorkers, not on people who’ve been here for 15 minutes. The whole Sanctuary State program has been a disaster. Billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, people who work hard for this money, could have been used for tax cuts, could have used for new schools, could have been used for hospitals, couldn’t be used for infrastructure, could have been used to create jobs, and Kathy Hochul spent $5 billion of state funds and she’s now going to subsidize the city to the tune of another $7 billion. It’s absolutely a disgrace, and I think it has to stop immediately.
Given that New York has a large immigrant population and a lot of anti-ICE demonstrations as well, and also the sentiments are widespread, especially in New York City, how would you approach that as governor?
You’re not seeing it in Hispanic and Latino communities. They’re not protesting. I went to the Hispanic and Latino communities in my county, and I explained to the people in those communities why I was doing what I was doing. I was it to keep them safer. It’s their kids that would be recruited into gang activity. It’s their streets that would have homelessness, homeless people on their streets. It’s their schools that would be overcrowded. This is a policy that’s completely misguided. Quite frankly, there haven’t been a lot of protests because you can get Hispanic and Latinos who came here legally.
They don’t want to fund illegal migrants. They earned everything that they got the people under this migrant program with Biden-Harris they came here under false pretenses claiming asylum and they’re not entitled to what Kathy Hochul has been giving them. It’s a disgrace that she’s using our money to fund people who don’t deserve it. They haven’t been here; they don’t even have American values. They come here, take, take. They don’t love America. The immigrants that came here before, they loved America.
I’m all for immigration. I think we should have a guest worker program. I think that we should a program for people who’ve been here 10 years and maybe overstayed visa. And they have a family here and they’re law-abiding and they gainfully employed. I’m for that. I’m pro-immigration, but the right way.
Would you anticipate more cooperation with DHS and ICE at the state level and more ICE raids, more ice activity, in New York State under your leadership?
There are no ICE raids going on; that is a fiction. What is happening is they have individuals who are here illegally and they have a criminal record and they are picking them up like you would expect them to pick up. Only these people who engage in violent acts against ICE, they are subversive, they want to stop that, for what reason? How is that going to make for safer communities? Better neighborhoods. And they’re completely wrong and misguided.
And yes, I would cooperate with ICE, and I would sign an executive order the first day I get into office that we are no longer a sanctuary state because we’re not gonna spend billions of dollars on people who came here from other countries and haven’t earned a thing. And they’ve been here, like I said, for 15 minutes and you wanna give them free everything? We don’t do that with our citizens. Why should we do it for them?
Another issue, the ACA subsidies, these Obamacare subsidies, are expiring, and there’s about 450,000 estimated New Yorkers that are going to be affected by that. Do you think that’s something that Congress should work in a bipartisan way to extend, or do you think it’s appropriate that they’ve expired?
I think we’re at the point now where there has to be compromise in Congress. Both sides have to give a little. That’s the way I’ll govern as governor. I realize there’s a lot of Democrats in this state, and I’m going to have to deal with them. And I’ve always found that if you sit down and you negotiate in good faith, you may not get everything you want, but as my parents told me when I was young, a half a loaf is better than none. So, I think that both sides are going to have to work that out. Because we don’t want people walking around that don’t have adequate health care. That’s not good for the health of the community. That’s not good for our economy. That’s bad for America.
So I do think that they have to get together and find common ground. I think that the Republicans are now willing to work. We’ll see with the Democrats. The Democrats so far have been just against anything that’s proposed by the Republicans. They just put it off to the side and say, ‘We’re not going to deal with the Republicans.’ I think that’s a big mistake. I think both sides should deal together. People are tired of seeing Republicans and Democrats fight. They want to see them get things done.
Shortly after you announced that you were running, Congresswoman Stefanik dropped out of the race. That was seen as her feeling slighted by Donald Trump. Have you talked to her? Do you anticipate her support in your campaign?
I’ve let her have her privacy. She indicated that she wanted to take a pause in public life. Public life is a rough life, especially if you have a young child. She has a young son. And she made a decision that she wanted to spend more time with the family, pursue other endeavors. And I wish her the best. She was a very, very effective member of Congress. She’s very bright, very articulate. I think she’ll have a very bright future if she wants to get back into politics, but for now, she’s taking a pause, and I completely respect that.