BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) The race for New York governor was closer than most gubernatorial contests in the past twenty years, as Lee Zeldin's campaign surged in recent months on the issues of crime and the economy.
Zeldin had one of the strongest showings for the GOP since New York last elected Republican George Pataki as governor in 2002.
As far as Zeldin coming up short, UB Political Science professor Shawn Donahue is scratching his head. "He (Zeldin) ran up the numbers in upstate including some of the bigger democratic counties such as Erie (Hochul won Erie County 53% to 47%), Monroe and Onondaga, and came closer than most Republicans. There was a lower turnout in New York City and he did
well on Long Island. It may just be that there's such a democratic advantage baked-in across the state. It makes me wonder, if not now, when, for a Republican to win statewide in New York?"
Albany insider Jack O'Donnell of O'Donnell and Associates, thinks the problem is that Zeldin approached this as a more conservative Trump Republican.
"It may be, when you look at the state as a whole, that there's a ceiling for that. Look at Long Island where we expected Zeldin to do extremely well. He won Suffolk County by about 13%, but he won Nassau County by only 3%. He had to do a lot better there with conservative leaning independents and he wasn't able to do it." Maybe, O'Donnell suggested, "he focused too much on crime or not enough on anything else."
Former State Senator George Maziarz, who was in office during the Pataki administration, said it is going to be very difficult for a Republican to win a statewide office. "Zeldin did an excellent job," he said. The big problem that Republicans have today is that when Pataki won, there were one million more Democrats than Republicans. Today, there's almost 4 million more Democrats than Republicans. There are more registered blanks (no party affiliation) than registered Republicans. "The numbers are the numbers," said Maziarz. "The job Republicans have to do is to win over voters and make a bigger tent."
What does the governor's race say about the polls in the weeks and months before the election? "We need to take a closer look at which polls we're taking seriously," said O'Donnell. "There were a number of polls that showed Zeldin neck and neck, or even showed him ahead. Most reputable public polling in the state, such as Siena and Quinnipiac, who have been around for a while and don't have a partisan spin, they were pretty good on this. It's just a lesson to be careful which polls we're watching," he said.