Governor's Race Final Push: Blakeman Ends an Eight-City Sweep in Manhattan as Hochul Stumps in Queens

The race for governor has entered its last 48 hours, and the two campaigns are spending them in opposite directions. Republican Bruce Blakeman kicked off an eight-city closing sweep on Sunday morning on Long Island, his home turf, with stops in Oswego, Albany and Rensselaer County later in the day — and a Monday route that runs Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton before his final pitch lands in Manhattan on election eve.

Gov. Kathy Hochul spent her Sunday inside the five boroughs. She campaigned in Astoria, Queens, alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a Buffalo Bills watch party, and told reporters on her way out that she is taking the final days seriously because, as she put it, what New York does in this election will have an effect on the future of the country. The closing argument from her side has been steadiness; the closing argument from Blakeman's side, repeated on the trail this weekend, is that the polls showing him down double digits are wrong and the race is a dead heat heading into an Election Day his party expects to vote in person, in numbers.

The verified arithmetic sits between those two claims. The final Siena and Marist surveys put Hochul ahead by 14 and 11 points, and unofficial early-vote data showed registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans in the early vote statewide, including on Long Island. What neither number settles is Tuesday itself: early voting is over, there is no voting on Monday, and the last ballots of this race will be cast between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on November 3 — the hours both closing tours are built to move.