New York Governor's Race

February 13, 2026·28 min·2 clips

Criminal justice researchers found that first-time nonviolent offenders released without bail generally do not reoffend — but repeat offenders released on the same basis do.

1. Newsday Albany Bureau Chief Yancey Roy joins host Bill McIntyre on WHPC 90.3 FM to analyze the New York governor's race following the Republican state convention in Garden City. 2. Roy covers New York state politics for Newsday and Newsday.com and has tracked both Blakeman's entry into the race and Hochul's incumbency strategy. 3. The central question of the episode is whether Bruce Blakeman, the 70-year-old Nassau County Executive, can close a 20-plus-point polling gap against incumbent Kathy Hochul in the nine months before Election Day. 4. At the Republican convention in Garden City, Blakeman hit standard talking points — cutting spending, reducing taxes, opposing migrant expenditures, and opposing trans male athletes competing in female sports — while the convention played a video from President Trump. 5. Former Governor George Pataki, who won three straight terms from 1995 to 2006, spoke at the convention and urged Republicans to make an emotional appeal about the future direction of New York, describing his own approach as just right of center and pro-environment. 6. Blakeman's early campaign emphasis on immigration spending has been complicated by violence in Minnesota involving federal ICE officials, where two civilians have died and polling shows a majority of voters believe the federal response went too far. 7. Both parties are competing on affordability: Democrats blame Trump tariffs and trade policy, while Blakeman's side cites rising utility and grocery bills without assigning that to federal policy. 8. Blakeman struggled to name a lieutenant governor candidate after the Fulton County Sheriff, Richard G. Giardino, withdrew citing health concerns following online backlash from Trump allies over a 2024 independent presidential registration in New Hampshire that Giardino described as a lark. 9. Blakeman ultimately selected Todd Hood, the sheriff of rural Madison County between Utica and Syracuse, who brings law enforcement credentials but was met with grumbling from rank-and-file Republicans who wanted a higher-profile upstate figure to drive turnout. 10. New York's basic electoral math works against Blakeman: roughly two Democrats for every Republican in the state, and the number of independent voters now exceeds Republican enrollment. 11. Roy notes that the midterm structural pattern in New York strongly favors Democrats when a Republican is in the White House, reversing the conditions that allowed Lee Zeldin to come within six points of Hochul in 2022. 12. Hochul has reported $20 million in her own campaign account and an additional $6 million in the State Democratic Committee, which can also be used to support competitive congressional candidates on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. 13. Blakeman has approximately $1 million on hand, most of it carryover from his Nassau County Executive campaign, and Roy says major Republican donors are unlikely to invest heavily until polls show significant movement. 14. Roy explains that bail reform, initially passed under Governor Cuomo and tweaked twice since, generally eliminates cash bail for most misdemeanors with carve-outs for prior violence and domestic violence. 15. State criminal justice researchers have found that first-time nonviolent offenders released without bail generally do not reoffend, while repeat offenders released on low-level charges reoffend at higher rates — a distinction Roy says gets lost in the political debate. 16. New York changed state law to move all elections to even-numbered years beginning in 2026, meaning every level of office from school boards to Congress will appear on the same ballot, and the petition period for this cycle starts February 24th. 17. Democrats Antonio Delgado, the current lieutenant governor, received only 15 percent of delegate votes in Syracuse and withdrew his primary challenge days later, freeing Hochul to focus entirely on Blakeman. 18. The episode's tone is analytical and data-driven — Roy supplies specific enrollment numbers, poll figures, fundraising totals, and historical precedents throughout, while McIntyre asks follow-up questions that move the conversation forward. 19. New York voters, Long Island residents following the governor's race, and anyone tracking state political dynamics through the 2026 cycle will find concrete context in this episode. 20. Listeners wanting policy depth on individual issues, investigative reporting, or national political analysis beyond New York State will find the scope too narrow.

As heard by us

A Long Island look at Blakeman's challenge to Hochul and its possible effect on congressional races.

Bruce Blakeman has won two terms in Nassau County. Can that record carry him across New York in a race against Governor Kathy Hochul? Bill McIntyre puts the question to Newsday's Yancey Roy, who looks back at Lee Zeldin's close loss to Hochul in 2022.

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Wondering whether Bruce Blakeman's two Nassau wins tell you anything about November's governor's race?

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