The Governor's Race on Its Last Day: Blakeman Flies the State, Hochul Works the City, and the Polls Say a Double-Digit Gap

New York's race for governor spent its last day in two different states at once. Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul, launched Monday morning from a diner in Bethpage on the second day of a statewide tour with the Republican ticket — planned stops in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton, an expected finish in Manhattan, and a plan to end the night at Madison Square Garden, cheering the Knicks against the Nets. Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, worked the ground she has to hold: stops at Harlem subway stations, an appearance on the Upper West Side, and a scheduled close at a 'New York Fights Back' Election Eve rally in Williamsburg with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Attorney General Letitia James, lieutenant governor nominee Adrienne Adams and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

The two campaigns also share the ticket with the rest of the statewide slate. Blakeman traveled with Saritha Komatireddy, the federal prosecutor challenging James for attorney general, and Joseph Hernandez, running for comptroller against DiNapoli — a unified-slate presentation the tour was designed to make. Republicans have not won a statewide election in New York since George Pataki was re-elected governor in 2002, and Tuesday is the slate's attempt to break a drought that has lasted a generation.

The public numbers say the attempt starts from behind. The final Siena poll of likely voters, released Oct. 28, put Hochul ahead 54 percent to 40 percent, up from 50-41 in September, and the other late surveys agree in shape if not in size: Quinnipiac had it 55-41 on Oct. 21, Emerson/PIX11 52-40, and Marist 53-42. Hochul, who won her full term in 2022 with 53.1 percent in the state's closest governor's race since 1994, pointed Monday to the strong early-voting numbers as an encouraging sign for her side.

Blakeman's closing argument is that the polls are missing his voters. At a Saturday rally in Middle Village, Queens, he promoted his plan to eliminate the state income tax on the first $100,000 for joint filers and to cut utility costs by 50 percent, and said, 'We're going to win this race because turnout is on our side.' He has predicted a Republican surge in in-person voting on Election Day itself, when his party's voters have historically been more likely to cast ballots — and called the race a dead heat, a description the published polling does not support but which Tuesday's turnout will either vindicate or retire.

Polls open at 6 a.m. Tuesday and close at 9 p.m. By then the tour miles and the rally lights will be beside the point: the race turns on whether Republican turnout upstate and on Long Island can overcome Democratic strength in New York City, and on how the state's independents — the one group the late polls disagreed about — finally break.