BALDWIN – Rep. Lee Zeldin, a four-term lawmaker from Suffolk County, scored a convincing victory Tuesday in a hard-fought four-way Republican primary for governor, setting up what promises to be a feisty fight against the incumbent Democrat, Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Trailing in early returns to Andrew Giuliani – son of the former New York mayor – Zeldin pulled into a double-digit lead once returns from Long Island were counted. The two other candidates, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and businessman Harry Wilson, trailed far behind.
In a hard-hitting speech before several hundred jubilant supporters in a banquet hall in this Nassau County suburb, Zeldin vowed to take the fight to Hochul. And then he did just that.
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"This November in the state of New York, one-party rule will end and Kathy Hochul will get fired," said Zeldin, who went on to blame the Democratic governor for crime while mocking her choice of the soon-to-be-indicted Brian Benjamin as her first lieutenant governor.
Zeldin's victory was more convincing than expected, due in part to a huge turnout on his home turf of Long Island. In that vote-rich part of the state, Zeldin was running up more votes than all three of his opponents combined.
Yet Zeldin, who won the party's support at a convention earlier this year, was the favorite from the start. Turnout was light in metro Buffalo and other parts of the state, and light turnout tends to favor the party's endorsed candidate, just because the party machinery often can turn out the requisite votes to pull out a win in races that generate little interest among voters.
A Long Island native with undergraduate and law degrees from the University at Albany, Zeldin started his career in the U.S. Army, where he served as an intelligence officer, prosecutor and military magistrate.
He then opened a law practice on Long Island before winning election to the State Senate in 2010.
His two terms in the State Senate proved to be a bone of contention in the primary, thanks to his praise of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in 2011 – when he even speculated about the benefits of a Cuomo presidency.
Zeldin won election to the House in 2014 and established himself as a conservative voice, despite the moderate leanings of his district on the eastern end of Long Island.
His conservatism never came more clear than on the night of Jan. 6, 2021. Hours after a mob supporting Trump ransacked the Capitol in hopes of stopping Biden’s certification as president, Zeldin voted against certifying the presidential election votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Like most Republicans who did so, Zeldin argued at the time that those states illegally made changes to their election laws without legislative approval – but lawsuits making that argument were thrown out of court.
Hochul is sure to make Zeldin's support for overturning the presidential election an issue in the November election, but the GOP nominee signaled that he's going to hit Hochul hard before she starts punching.
"She's in over her head," Zeldin told his supporters. "She's a walking identity crisis, to be honest. She's been catering to the far left in this state. She was concerned about her primary today, and because of that, when the tax and spend liberals controlling Albany, when the pro criminal liberals controlling Albany were insisting on policies that would take our state in the wrong direction, Kathy Hochul didn't stand up. Instead she got led by the far left. She willingly got rolled by them."
Vowing to eliminate cashless bail – a key Democratic criminal justice reform – Zeldin said fighting crime would be one of his top priorities. So would restoring hope and financial opportunity in a state that, he said, was losing population because of its longstanding Democratic leadership.
Zeldin also took the time to mock his new opponent for her bungled selection of Benjamin. He said his own running mate, former New York police officer Allison Esposito, was well-vetted – although he was surprised when she told an Albany radio station about her favorite cereal: Frankenberries.
"I will tell you that this was the only thing that slipped through the cracks," Zeldin said. "Kathy Hochul? She forgot to ask about the federal investigation. Kathy Hochul picked somebody who was spending his time running from the law, and I proudly asked somebody who has dedicated her life to enforcing the law."
Zeldin enters the fall campaign with one advantage, but some huge disadvantages. With voters increasingly concerned about crime and inflation – and likely to punish incumbents – he may have an easier time than recent GOP nominees in convincing voters that the state needs a change.
Yet he is running in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one. What's more, he is running against a well-funded opponent who, save for the Benjamin blunder, has served a relatively drama-free 10 months as governor since succeeding her scandal-plagued predecessor, Cuomo.
The U.S. Supreme Court made Zeldin's job harder last week, too, when it overturned a century-old New York gun law, as well as the constitutional right to abortion. Both of those issues are expected to energize Democratic voters, to Hochul's benefit.
Asked how Zeldin can respond to New York voters concerned about the high court decision on abortion, New York State Republican Chairman Nicholas A. Langworthy – Zeldin's premier supporter – said the GOP nominee should just stress the abortion issue is settled in New York.
"I think Kathy Hochul tried to create enthusiasm for her campaign over the issue of abortion, but I think New York voters are pretty smart," Langworthy said. "They know that nothing is going to change in the state of New York."
Zeldin is anti-abortion, but he chose to focus on other topics in his victory speech, just as he is likely to do in the general election campaign.
Saying that New Yorkers have been fleeing the state for economic reasons, Zeldin said: "Our campaign is a campaign to try to convince you to stay, to make sure that your family who left will come back."
