Did you know there's an election Tuesday? The Hell Gate podcast will be LIVE on our YouTube channel starting at 9 p.m., and we'll be bringing you the type of pipe-cleaner, construction-paper-based analysis you will NOT find anywhere else.
As you await our livestream, please peruse our election-adjacent content: Hell Gate Interviews Governor Kathy Hochul, Our Crash Course on New York City's Ballot Proposals, Hell Gate chats with Clairializa, Who the Fuck is Bruce Blakeman? and A Visit to Battleground Southern Brooklyn. Last week, we had elections-knower Michael Lange on the pod to talk about many things, including what these midterms mean for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
New York is hardly a swing state, but it's still taken center stage in this year's midterms. A Hudson Valley congressional seat is one of Democrats' best chances for a pick-up, and a North Country seat has become surprisingly competitive. In a year so grim for Republicans that they could lose a Senate seat in Texas, Vice President J.D. Vance is weirdly coming to New York to rally with an absolute car wreck of a Republican congressional candidate. If Democrats take back the House and Senate, leadership of both chambers could fall to two New Yorkers. And while he's not on the ballot, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looming just as large in this election as President Donald Trump is.
New Yorkers are clearly following this year's elections. Early voting turnout is way up. Kathy Hochul received a kind-of warm welcome in Dimes Square on Friday. Voter registration data released by the state Board of Elections showed that tens of thousands of people have registered to vote since February, most of them unaffiliated with a political party, as City & State reported.
All statewide offices are on the ballot. In New York City, Democrats are working to flip four Brooklyn state legislative seats, and there's a rare swingy vacant Assembly seat in the Rockaways. The election is nigh. The popcorn is out. Here are some of the things we're watching for on Tuesday:
How does Governor Kathy Hochul fare against Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman?
Many underestimated Kathy Hochul, but she has been a surprisingly durable governor. Since the was thrust into power in 2021, she's found her footing, bringing the Legislature to heel, forming a partnership with New York City's juggernaut mayor, and holding her own against President Donald Trump. She's led the way on a national stage with social media regulations, banning cell phones from schools, and pausing data center development.
Still, Hochul is having to answer for an affordability crisis that is pushing people out of the state as the economy seems to be on the brink of transformation. She's facing Bruce Blakeman, the Republican Nassau county executive who claims he can dramatically reduce taxes and energy bills. Blakeman, now 71, has had a patchy career in politics. He bounced around local office in Nassau in the '90s, then lost reelection to the county legislature following deeply unpopular tax hikes in 1999. Blakeman has made several attempts at higher office, running unsuccessfully for state comptroller, New York City mayor, U.S. Senate and for Congress. He did a stint at the Port Authority and then was appointed to the Hempstead Town Council in 2015. So far, his career has culminated with his capture of Nassau's previously Democratic county executive post in 2021.
Then came the theatrical MAGA turn: Sometime around 2024, as Donald Trump was running to take back the presidency, Blakeman got really on board, embracing an anti-trans, anti-immigrant, crime-fighting ideology. In March of that year, he memorably held Trump's umbrella for him while Trump addressed reporters outside the funeral of an NYPD officer. Blakeman ran for county executive on lowering taxes in Nassau, but he found more success charging into the culture wars when he banned trans women from playing sports with cis women in county facilities in July of that year. (A legal challenge to that law is ongoing.) A couple months later, he tried to gather a group of 75 dudes with gun permits to form an armed civilian group that he insisted was NOT a militia. He has raised eyebrows by hosting campaign-style events with Trump in county facilities or using county resources. He directed local police to cooperate with ICE and then called it the "one of the saddest days of my life as county executive" when a new state law forced him to end that partnership.
Blakeman has touted achievements in getting Nassau County on solid fiscal footing, but his decisions to use pandemic federal funds and opioid settlement funds to balance the budget were controversial. He has not managed to lower property taxes so far as county executive, and he's opted to freeze property tax rolls multiple years in a row. That approach has drawn a state audit and accusations that it puts the burden on individuals to contest their now extremely outdated property tax assessments.
This is Hochul's second reelection fight, and she's already saying she'll seek another term in 2030. Polling this year has been all over the place, but most surveys now show Hochul with a lead that at least hits the low double digits.
What's up with fundraising? Hochul has a huge, huge fundraising advantage, which is all the more notable because she opted out of the state's brand-new public matching funds program. She's also gotten a boost from outside spenders, including former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Blakeman has opted into the state's matching funds program, messily, and he's benefited from the largesse of Madison Square Garden billionaire James Dolan.
Hochul Yankee Candle Recipe: Aroma of toasted plain English muffin, the beery sweat of a Buffalo Bills bar, baby powder
Blakeman Yankee Candle Recipe: Notes of gunsmoke, Debra Messing's conditioner, the chemical smell of newly printed T-shirts for these "Gen-Z" dancers