Gov. Kathy Hochul and her challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, came out swinging in their only debate on Oct. 13, the governor repeatedly tying Mr. Blakeman to President Trump and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, her challenger hammering the governor on taxes and the cost of living while mildly suggesting policy differences with the president.
The debate was sponsored and broadcast by Spectrum News 1. Ms. Hochul, the former lieutenant governor who assumed the office upon the resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021, fended off a challenge by former Representative Lee Zeldin in 2022 and leads Mr. Blakeman by 11 and 12 percentage points in polls taken earlier this month.
Mr. Blakeman, who has been the Nassau executive since 2022, is a close ally of the president. Earlier this year
he clashed with the governor over the state’s Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which took effect in August and restricts local police cooperation with ICE. He ultimately complied with the law, but Nassau County joined a lawsuit challenging it.
Mr. Blakeman said in his opening statement that throughout the state, “people are telling me how they’re struggling to pay their bills and they’re worried about safety in their communities.” Under the governor, he said, “we are the highest-taxed state in America,” adding that utility bills are far higher than the national average.
Ms. Hochul, he said, “has spent $8 billion of your money on illegal migrants for free food, free housing, free transportation, and a free cellphone.” He asked that viewers vote for him. “What have you got to lose?”
“We’ve delivered the largest middle-class rate cut in 70 years,” the governor said, and “delivered over $10 billion in energy rebates and inflation rebates.” The state, she said, “now has the lowest crime rate it’s had in modern history.” Mr. Blakeman, she said, “says that he is going to bring Trump-style leadership to Albany. He said he’s going to cut Medicaid in half. . . . And he’s going to let ICE run rampant in our streets. This is your choice, New Yorkers.”
Mr. Blakeman denied having said he would “cut Medicaid in half,” but did say just that on the Fox Business channel earlier this year. Later in the debate, he said that “there are five million people who are eligible for Medicaid and deserve it . . . but eight million people, three million more, are getting benefits. . . . That’s why our costs are out of control.”
Asked if they were comfortable with ICE agents’ Oct. 8 shooting of a Dominican immigrant in a car in which the man’s 5-year-old son was in the back seat, Mr. Blakeman said that the man should not have been in New York in the first place, blaming the governor, who he said “has made us a sanctuary state. . . . I had a cooperation agreement with ICE until Kathy Hochul said we could no longer cooperate with ICE.” More than 2,000 migrants with criminal records were removed from Nassau without ICE agents raiding schools, hospitals, day care centers, or churches, he said, and “Kathy Hochul is taking that ability away from us.”
“In his non-answer, he refused to condemn what ICE did,” the governor said. “He basically says in the State of New York, he’d be fine if ICE agents shoot into cars . . . not knowing who was inside, and could have killed a 5-year-old child. If that doesn’t shock the conscience of everybody, and it should shock his conscience as well, but he says that’s okay.” ICE, she said, is “out of control,” while “we always work with law enforcement to remove people who are committing crimes.”
On energy, the governor said costs are high across the country, and “we don’t have enough supply to meet the demand.” Energy rebates going to New Yorkers this fall are a short-term solution, she said, and she is trying to build infrastructure, but “the real problem is, I’ve got Donald Trump standing in the way of my energy projects,” referring to the administration’s multiple efforts to halt construction of the Empire Wind 1 offshore wind farm, which is to provide electricity to power 500,000 Brooklyn residences. She also seeks to build nuclear power plants, she said, but “the White House, playing politics, won’t sign off.”
“Don’t overlook the fact that the war with Iran is driving up gasoline costs,” the governor added. “And it was so unnecessary, and my opponent supports exactly what Donald Trump did with that war.”
“Donald Trump didn’t increase our utility bills by 50 percent since you became governor,” Mr. Blakeman responded, adding that energy rebates are being disseminated weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
The governor criticized Mr. Blakeman for supporting hyperscale data centers. “Picture what he wants to see upstate. He wants oil and gas rigs everywhere. He wants fossil fuel-generating factories spewing smoke everywhere.”
Mr. Blakeman said he supports natural gas extraction, as Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, does. “They have prosperity on the Pennsylvania side of the border, people are driving around in brand-new Cadillac Escalades, and on the New York side of the border they’re driving around in 25-year-old rusted-out pickup trucks because of your policies.” He referred to wind and solar farms as “science projects,” adding that “we’ll get rid of that green energy scam of Kathy Hochul and I will cut your utility bills in half, just like they did in Pennsylvania.”
“Just like Donald Trump said he would do on day one,” the governor retorted. “It’s absurd, how adoring you are of him. What he has done is raise gasoline prices and energy prices, and the cost of tariffs have driven up everything in the state.”
Trump administration tariffs have hurt the state’s farmers, the candidates were told, and upstate tourist attractions have seen a 21-percent decline in tourism from Canada. But farmers, Mr. Blakeman said, only complain to him about “Kathy Hochul’s overregulation.”
The tariffs, the governor countered, “have made life so impossible” that farmers “are ready to close shop.” Canadians have effectively boycotted American products due to the tariffs, along with the president’s suggestion that Canada become the 51st state, she said. Farmers have lost their marketplace, “and it’s all because of Donald Trump declaring war on one of our most loyal allies. Who does that? And we’re all suffering because of that.”
Given the chance to “cross-examine” each other, the governor reminded Mr. Blakeman that days earlier he had “stood on a stage screaming at the top of your lungs, ‘We love Donald Trump!’ You’ve also said he’s the greatest president of your lifetime.” Was that because of the high cost of utilities, groceries, or gasoline, she asked, or was it “his unfettered use of ICE terrorizing our neighborhoods,” or “throwing millions of New Yorkers off of health care?”
“Yeah, well, at a rally, as you know, it’s a cheering section and you say things to get the crowd worked up,” Mr. Blakeman said of the Oct. 9 campaign rally with the president in Syracuse. But where the president is pro-life, he is pro-choice, he said, and he supports a guest worker permit for immigrants who have been in the country for several years and have not committed a crime.
He later named Dwight Eisenhower the greatest president of his lifetime, “but Donald Trump has two more years, so let’s see where it goes.”
“Heaven help us,” the governor said.
