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      Cuomo’s Approval Rating Has Fallen. He Could Still Win Re-Election.

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      Allegations of sexual harassment have hurt Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s favorability rating. But 57 percent of Democrats say he is doing a good job, a new poll shows, enough support to give him a decent chance at a fourth term.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has not had much good news over the past few months. His poll numbers have not been much of an exception.A new Siena College poll this week found that Mr. Cuomo’s ratings had fallen to the lowest level of his tenure, with allegations of sexual harassment continuing to erode his support.But for Mr. Cuomo, the worst poll numbers of his time as governor may still be enough to win re-election. His ratings are worse than they were in early 2014 or 2018, when he went on to win easily, but not by so much that it would make him an obvious underdog in pursuit of a fourth term.The governor’s favorability rating among Democrats in the Siena poll was 56 percent, while 37 percent had an unfavorable view of him. The poll found that registered Democrats were divided on whether they would vote to re-elect Mr. Cuomo. By these measures, Mr. Cuomo is more vulnerable than he was four years ago, but he has not lost so much ground as to close off his path to renomination, either.And by another measure, Mr. Cuomo’s position is also stronger now than it was in 2018: 57 percent of Democrats say he is doing a good or excellent job as governor.That Mr. Cuomo could still win is not an indication of any great political resilience. Nor does it imply he is an overwhelming favorite, even without considering whether his standing may diminish further with new revelations.Much will depend on the conclusions of several investigations that are underway, including one by the F.B.I. on whether his administration provided false data on deaths from Covid-19 in nursing homes, and another by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, into the sexual harassment allegations. Findings by Ms. James that lead to an embarrassing impeachment trial could prompt more voters to shun him.Yet so far, Mr. Cuomo maintains enough support to have a good chance to prevail. If he does in the final account, he will have overcome allegations of impropriety — and a pummeling from progressive activists on social media — with persistent support from the rank-and-file of the Democratic Party.In some ways, Mr. Cuomo’s popularity at the peak of the pandemic — when he was earning raves for his daily updates — was an exception to the general rule of his tenure. He has often had fairly weak ratings, at least for the governor of a blue state. In April 2018, as Mr. Cuomo was vying for re-election, a Siena College poll found that just 62 percent of registered Democrats in New York had a favorable view of the governor, while 32 percent had an unfavorable view of him. Only 57 percent of Democrats said they would vote to re-elect him, while 32 percent said they would prefer someone else. Just 53 percent thought he was doing a good or excellent job.In the end, Mr. Cuomo won renomination with 64 percent of the vote. His 34 point margin of victory over Cynthia Nixon was slightly larger than his plus-30 favorability rating or the 24 point margin by which Democrats said they would prefer to re-elect him over someone else. It would be a mistake to assume on this basis that Mr. Cuomo is a clear favorite to win the primary so long as his ratings stay above water among Democrats. Indeed, Democrats are divided on whether they want to re-elect Mr. Cuomo, with only 46 percent saying they prefer to vote to re-elect him and 43 percent saying they would prefer someone else.Why is Mr. Cuomo still competitive for renomination? One factor is that New York Democrats remain equivocal about the severity or veracity of the allegations against him.Democrats continue to believe Mr. Cuomo has done a good job handling the pandemic in New York, despite the revelation that his administration has hid data about the death toll in nursing homes. While 59 percent in the Siena poll say he has done either a poor or “fair” job of making public all data about such deaths, a sizable 34 percent of registered Democrats believe that he has done a good or excellent job of making such data available. And a 64 percent majority of Democrats continue to say that Mr. Cuomo has, in general, done a good or excellent job of providing information during the pandemic.Democrats are even more divided on the multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Cuomo, which he has denied. Just 39 percent believe he has committed sexual harassment, the Siena poll showed, while 30 percent disagree and another 30 percent are not sure. The precipitous decline in his favorability ratings since the allegations became public suggest that many Democrats take the charges seriously and have re-evaluated him on that basis, but a larger number of Democrats are not ready to go so far. Most Democrats say they are satisfied with how he has addressed the allegations and do not support his immediate resignation.Perhaps the hesitancy of some New York Democrats to believe the allegations against Mr. Cuomo simply reflects their dispassionate read of the evidence. It might also be a reflection of the loyalty of the state’s rank-and-file Democratic voters to Mr. Cuomo.After all, many more registered Republicans believe the allegations against Mr. Cuomo than registered Democrats, a powerful reminder of the role of partisanship in shaping public opinion. Liberals, who generally argue that women should be believed when they allege sexual harassment, are the likeliest ideological group to say they do not believe Mr. Cuomo has committed sexual harassment. A majority of conservatives and Republicans, in contrast, believe the allegations.Mr. Cuomo’s resilience is also a reminder that New York Democrats are fairly moderate, despite counting some of the nation’s most famous progressive politicians, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a thriving Democratic Socialist left among their ranks. In recent Democratic primaries, New Yorkers backed Hillary Clinton and Mr. Cuomo over idealistic, reformist, good-government progressive challengers.Mr. Cuomo and other establishment-backed Democrats have often won with considerable support from nonwhite voters, especially those who are Black, in New York City, who often hold relatively moderate views on cultural and ideological issues compared with those of white progressives. And of all of the demographic groups surveyed in the Siena poll, Black voters, regardless of party registration, were the likeliest to have a favorable view of Mr. Cuomo or say he has not committed sexual harassment.Mr. Cuomo’s path to winning the general election is straightforward: capitalize on New York’s Democratic lean. The Siena College poll found that registered voters in the state said they preferred a Democrat for governor over a Republican by a 20 percentage point margin, presumably making it quite difficult for any Republican to win the general election.Difficult does not mean impossible. It is not wholly uncommon for Democratic states to elect Republican governors, or vice versa. The three states where President Biden’s performed the strongest — Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland — all have Republican governors, albeit moderate ones; the Democratic governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana offer examples on the other side of the political spectrum.Mr. Cuomo’s ratings are weak enough statewide that he could be vulnerable against a strong and moderate Republican challenger, who would probably need to accede to the state’s prevailing cultural views, perhaps even on abortion and Donald Trump’s presidency. Most of the Republican contenders so far do not fit into that category. Many have strong ties to national Republican politics, including several House Republicans and even Andrew Giuliani.There’s still time for a stronger challenger to emerge, but for now it is not easy to identify someone comparable to the three anti-Trump Republicans who currently govern blue states.In the final account, the most powerful force to help Mr. Cuomo overcome allegations of sexual harassment may be the partisan loyalty of Democratic voters in a blue state. More

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      Caitlyn Jenner Announces Run for California Governor

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      Ms. Jenner, a Republican former Olympian and transgender activist, said on Friday that she was running to challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat facing an all but certain recall election.Caitlyn Jenner, the Republican former Olympian and prominent transgender activist, announced on Friday that she would challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in this year’s recall election.Ms. Jenner, whose candidacy represents one of the most prominent bids for public office by an openly transgender person in the United States, said she had filed initial paperwork to run.A recall election is all but certain in California, where Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, has come under attack for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans and backers of the recall effort have focused in particular on his leadership of the state’s economy.Officially, it is still uncertain if and when a recall vote will happen, but organizers have said for months that they have exceeded the 1.5 million signatures needed to trigger such an election. It would most likely be held this fall.In many ways, the effort is the work of Republicans struggling to maintain relevance in the overwhelmingly Democratic state. And Ms. Jenner faces a steep uphill battle: A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found that just 40 percent of voters in the state supported a recall and more than half approved of Mr. Newsom’s performance.“For the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people,” Ms. Jenner wrote in her announcement, calling herself a “compassionate disrupter.” “This will be a campaign of solutions, providing a roadmap back to prosperity to turn this state around and finally clean up the damage Newsom has done to this state.”Celebrities running for office is nothing new in California, where voters elected Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the latter in a special recall election in 2003 that ousted Gov. Gray Davis. But Ms. Jenner is a political unknown in the state, where it is notoriously expensive to campaign for statewide office.Despite criticism of Mr. Newsom’s handling of the pandemic and other controversies, a recent poll found that just 40 percent of the state’s voters would support a recall of the governor. No other Democrat has entered the race, and elected Democrats have repeatedly pledged to stick by Mr. Newsom, helping to shore up his support among Latino, Asian and Black voters in particular.The race would come at a time of steep challenges for California. In addition to the pandemic, the state is likely to face another drought for the second time in less than a decade.Ms. Jenner, whose candidacy was earlier reported by Axios, chose to run after meeting with several advisers who also worked for former President Donald J. Trump, which could complicate her chances in California. Democrats have repeatedly painted the recall effort as a plan supported largely by far-right extremists. Ms. Jenner supported Mr. Trump early on when he ran for president, but withdrew her support in 2018 after his administration repeatedly attacked transgender rights. More

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      Matthew McConaughey, Texas Governor? Voters Seem to Like the Idea.

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      A new poll may put some wind in the actor Matthew McConaughey’s sails as he considers whether to run for governor of Texas.Forty-five percent of the state’s voters said that they would vote for Mr. McConaughey if he were to challenge Gov. Greg Abbott next year, according to the poll, conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas, Tyler.An additional 33 percent of voters said they would support the incumbent, while 22 percent said that at this early stage, they would prefer to choose someone else.But such highly theoretical questions can sometimes produce wonky results, especially this far in advance of any actual campaigning. That’s doubly true when the hypothetical involves a figure with name recognition as high as Mr. McConaughey’s, particularly in his home state.The actor has repeatedly flirted with running for governor, though he has not said whether he would run as a Republican or a Democrat. Last month he said he was seriously considering a bid.“I’m looking into now again, what is my leadership role?” he said on a podcast. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?”His fortunes in the new poll were particularly good among independents, 44 percent of whom said they’d support him and only 18 percent of whom said they would back the governor, a Republican.Yet Mr. Abbott’s job approval rating was healthy, with 50 percent of voters giving him positive marks and 36 percent negative. Fifty-four percent said he had responded well to the state’s power failure crisis, driven by strong support from Republicans; independents tilted away from him here, with 50 percent saying he had handled it badly and 43 percent saying he responded well, the poll found.The survey was conducted from April 6-13 among 1,126 registered Texas voters, using a mixed-mode approach that included live phone interviews as well as online polling through the Dynata database. More

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      Vernon Jones, a Pro-Trump Republican, Will Challenge Kemp in Georgia

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      Vernon Jones, a Democrat-turned-Republican and former state representative who has called Georgia’s presidential election “fixed,” will oppose Gov. Brian Kemp, one of Donald Trump’s top targets.ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp, the Georgia Republican who ranks high on former President Donald J. Trump’s list of enemies, will face a high-profile pro-Trump challenger in next year’s Republican primary: Vernon Jones, a former Democrat who, echoing the false claims of Mr. Trump, has called Georgia’s November presidential election “fixed” and “tainted.”Mr. Jones, a former state representative and head of government in DeKalb County, tweeted on Thursday that he would formally introduce his candidacy at a news conference the next day, saying that “we need a fighter for Georgia.”Mr. Trump has not endorsed a primary challenger to Mr. Kemp, who is seeking a second term in office. But the former president has vowed to return to Georgia to campaign against the governor, a former ally, to punish him for rebuffing Mr. Trump’s entreaties late last year that he work to overturn Georgia’s election results.Mr. Trump lost the Georgia race by roughly 12,000 votes, a result that was certified by Republican state election officials after two recounts. But he remains popular among members of the party’s base, and their willingness to punish his Republican enemies in 2022 may be an important early sign of his sway over the party heading into the next presidential cycle.Mr. Jones, 60, has a complex and controversial history in Georgia politics, and it is unclear if his entry into the race will turn out to be a serious threat to Mr. Kemp. But his candidacy guarantees that Georgia Republican voters will be forced to reckon with the ugly fight between Mr. Kemp and Mr. Trump as they choose a standard-bearer for the November 2022 general election.Mr. Jones seems eager to emphasize the feud. “If it weren’t for Brian Kemp, Donald Trump would still be President of these United States,” he tweeted in March, saying he was “looking closely” at a primary challenge. “We need courageous conservatives leading our state, not those afraid to stand up to the Radical Left.”Gov. Brian Kemp at a news conference in Marietta, Ga. He has emerged as one of Mr. Trump’s top political targets.Megan Varner/Getty ImagesIf Mr. Jones can earn an endorsement from Mr. Trump, his campaign will most likely force Mr. Kemp to expend precious money and energy in the G.O.P. primary. And that could benefit Democrats, many of whom are expecting another run by Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader who narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in 2018. Ms. Abrams’s stature has only grown since then; as a leading voting rights advocate in Georgia and nationwide, she helped engineer upset victories for Democrats in the presidential election and Georgia’s two Senate races early this year.Mr. Jones is a native of North Carolina who formerly worked as a telecommunications executive. He served for eight years, starting in 2001, as chief executive of DeKalb County, a populous suburb of Atlanta, where he oversaw significant economic development initiatives and capital improvements, and often commanded the local political spotlight with a mix of folksy charisma and domineering style.He was also trailed by controversies, some of which were detailed in an article last summer in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that recapped his career. These included an accusation of rape (which Mr. Jones denied, and was never charged with); an allegation in a lawsuit that he had tried to replace white managers of the county parks department with Black ones; and claims of lavish spending on his security detail.The newspaper reported that a special grand jury looking into corruption in DeKalb County government had found “incompetence, patronage, fraud and cronyism,” and recommended investigations of Mr. Jones and other county officials. But prosecutors eventually said they found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Jones.Mr. Jones’s time as the powerful leader of DeKalb County was book-ended by stints in the state legislature. He also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House and Senate, and for DeKalb County sheriff.Mr. Jones, a longtime Democrat, announced he was joining the Republican Party in a Jan. 6 tweet. But he has exhibited a streak of political heterodoxy throughout much of his career. At various times, Mr. Jones supported both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has kept a picture of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee in his office, and has also sought to remove the Confederate battle flag symbol that once adorned the Georgia state flag.Mr. Jones spoke in November at a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Georgia State Capitol, where Trump supporters protested the results of the presidential election. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty ImagesHe has championed the “flat tax” concept championed by many conservatives — but as a state representative, he also voted against a Republican-backed abortion bill in 2019 that effectively banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.The so-called fetal heartbeat law was struck down by a federal district court and is currently on appeal. But Mr. Jones’s opposition to it could prove to be a dealbreaker for evangelical Christians who are a key component of the Georgia Republican base.On Monday, Mr. Jones, apparently anticipating attacks on the vote, staked out an unequivocal anti-abortion position, tweeting: “Life begins at conception – period. And it should be protected from that point and that point forward.”Mr. Kemp has also been working to improve his standing among conservatives. Last month, he signed a major bill restricting voting in the state. Democrats said the law would adversely affect many Black voters, calling it “Jim Crow 2.0,” an assertion Mr. Kemp has denied. A recent Morning Consult tracking poll showed that Mr. Kemp’s approval among Georgia Republicans had increased from 62 percent on March 25 — the day he signed the voting bill — to 74 percent on April 6.For his part, Mr. Trump has endorsed another loyalist for statewide office in Georgia, Representative Jody Hice, who is challenging Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in the Republican primary. Like Mr. Kemp, Mr. Raffensperger is a Republican who infuriated the former president when he declined to bend to Mr. Trump’s pressure to overturn the state’s election results. More

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      Two Georgia Republicans Censure Gov. Kemp and Raffensperger

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      The actions were driven by anger over the governor’s refusal to overturn the state’s 2020 primary results in favor of Trump.Republican Party officials in two deeply conservative counties voted to censure Gov. Brian Kemp and two other top party leaders in recent days, a sign that the Georgia governor continues to face grass-roots opposition from loyalists to former President Donald J. Trump, and the possibility of a primary challenge next year.In Whitfield county, in the northwest corner of the state, Republican officials unanimously voted to condemn Mr. Kemp, saying he “did nothing” to help Mr. Trump after the November election.“Because of Kemp’s betrayal of President Trump and his high unpopularity with the Trump GOP base, Kemp could end up costing the GOP the governor’s mansion because many Trump supporters have pledged not to vote for Kemp under any circumstances,” reads the resolution, which was adopted by acclimation.A similar resolution was adopted in Murray County, also in northern Georgia, by a nearly unanimous vote. It was opposed by only three of the dozens of members in attendance. Both counties also voted to censure Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.The resolutions hold no binding power over elected officials. Rather, party officials say their resolutions were intended to send a message to Mr. Kemp and other Republican lawmakers that their jobs may be in jeopardy.“I’d vote for Mickey Mouse before I would Kemp,” said Tony Abernathy, chairman of the Murray County Republican Party. “I know what I’ve got with Mickey Mouse. A RINO is useless.” RINO is the dismissive acronym for Republican in Name Only.After infuriating Mr. Trump by resisting his demands to overturn the state’s election results, Mr. Kemp has faced months of attacks, protests and opposition from his party’s base. Mr. Trump encouraged Republicans to retaliate by sending a hard-right loyalist to oppose Mr. Kemp in the primary next year.Mr. Kemp and his aides saw a path to redemption within the party in the controversial election bill that the legislature passed last month, which the governor has forcefully defended in dozens of public appearances even as the new law adds new limits to the right to vote in Georgia.Other resolutions adopted by the counties supported a bill passed in the Republican-controlled Statehouse stripping Delta of a $35 million jet fuel tax break and urged Georgians to boycott Major League Baseball and “woke companies” that criticized the election law.“The Republican grassroots are angry,” said Debbie Dooley, a conservative activist, who helped distribute drafts of the resolutions and encouraged Trump supporters to attend the local meetings. “These resolutions will let Gov. Kemp, Lt. Gov. Duncan and Secretary of State Raffensperger know we’re going to work against them in the Republican primary next year.” More

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      In the Virginia Governor’s Race, Can Anyone Take On Terry McAuliffe?

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      Once again, the state is shaping up to be a case study in the complexities around the politics of race and power.Two years ago, when a racist blackface picture emerged from the 1980s that appeared to include Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, the blowback was swift and severe. There were mounting calls for his resignation.But in the end, polls showed that most voters said he shouldn’t step down — and some of his most unwavering support came from Virginia’s Black voters. He weathered the scandal, and he’s still on the job.There are now exactly two months until the Democratic primary election that will most likely determine Northam’s successor, as the state has become decidedly blue (the Democratic candidate has won all 13 statewide elections there since 2012). And once again, Virginia is shaping up to be a case study in the complexities around the politics of race and power.Northam, who continues to enjoy widespread approval, particularly from Black voters, on Thursday endorsed Terry McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor and one of the two white candidates in a five-person Democratic field. McAuliffe directly preceded Northam in the governor’s mansion and now wants to succeed him, too.In a statement, Northam portrayed McAuliffe as a strong steward of the economy during his four years in charge. “It’s critical that our next governor has the plans and experience to continue the fight to rebuild Virginia into a stronger, more equitable future,” he said. “That’s why I am so proud to support Terry McAuliffe to be our next governor.”A former banking executive, prolific Democratic fund-raiser and onetime chair of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe was prevented from running for re-election in 2017 because Virginia does not allow its governor to serve consecutive terms.There’s been scant polling in this race, but McAuliffe is regarded as a clear front-runner, partly because of his formidable connections and résumé, and partly because his challengers have similarities — albeit some superficial — that could split their support. Aside from Lee Carter, a 33-year-old Marine veteran and member of the House of Delegates, the three other candidates — Jennifer McClellan, Jennifer Carroll Foy and Justin Fairfax — are Black, younger than McAuliffe and generally to his left.Like Northam four years ago on the crooked road of the Virginia campaign trail, and Joe Biden last year in the presidential race, McAuliffe has been deliberate about outflanking his less-established Black opponents. He has emphasized his ties to the Black elite in Virginia politics, and from the day he announced his candidacy he has ensconced himself in endorsements from Black officials.But on Tuesday, in a televised debate, McAuliffe faced attacks from a unified team of rivals, and things boiled over when Fairfax, the state’s lieutenant governor, criticized him for calling in 2019 for Fairfax’s resignation. As Northam was engulfed in his own scandal, two women publicly accused Fairfax of sexual assault. Fairfax denied the allegations and, like the governor, managed to remain in office, mostly by just moving on.At the debate Fairfax went all the way after McAuliffe, reminding voters of the long and disgraceful history in America of false accusations and violence by white people toward Black men. “He treated me like George Floyd, he treated me like Emmett Till — no due process, immediately assumed my guilt,” Fairfax said. “I have a son and I have a daughter, and I don’t want my daughter to be assaulted; I don’t want my son to be falsely accused. And this is the real world that we live in. And so we need to speak truth to power, and we need to be very clear about how that impacts people’s lives.”But even before that, Fairfax had partly undercut his own argument by pointing out that it wasn’t just McAuliffe: All of his Democratic rivals onstage had called for him to resign in 2019.Besides, as the Times reporter Astead Herndon observed on Twitter, “‘what happened to me is like what happened to George Floyd and Emmett Till’ is not a thing a living person can say.”McClellan, a state senator, picked up on the theme of racial justice but went after McAuliffe on substantive policy grounds. She said he had underfunded the state’s parole system as governor, and called him a latecomer to the movement for justice reform.McAuliffe pushed back by pointing to his order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 felons in 2016, and said he supported equipping all police officers in the state with body cameras — two major goals of civil rights advocates.For now, Fairfax has been unable to define his candidacy aside from the allegations against him, leading some close observers to anticipate that the next few weeks will be a face-off between McClellan and Carroll Foy, a former state delegate. If one emerges as the clear alternative to McAuliffe, it would most likely be because she persuaded enough major funders to come out of the woodwork to back her campaign and provide much-needed advertising dollars.As one Democratic insider in Virginia put it to me in a phone chat on Thursday: “McClellan has a track record to sell. Carroll Foy has a track record and an approach to sell. But if they’re only selling it on Twitter, then Terry McAuliffe will be the nominee.”On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Staunch Conservative, Will Run for N.Y. Governor

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      Mr. Zeldin, an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump who voted to overturn the results of November’s election, said that to “save New York, Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go.”Representative Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican and avid supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, declared on Thursday that he was entering the 2022 race for governor of New York, hoping to emerge as his party’s challenger to embattled Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.“The bottom line is this: To save New York, Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go,” Mr. Zeldin, a staunch conservative who represents parts of Long Island, said in a news release.Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, is in the midst of the greatest crisis of his political life, facing investigations and accusations of sexual harassment. Many of the state’s Democratic leaders have asked Mr. Cuomo to resign, and whether he will ultimately run for re-election next year is an open question.But any Republican, especially one closely tied to Mr. Trump, would face an extraordinarily uphill battle running statewide in New York. And there is no doubt about how deeply Mr. Zeldin has embraced Mr. Trump and his politics, including by voting to overturn the results of the November election, a record that would instantly disqualify him in the eyes of many voters should he make it to a general election.Republicans haven’t won a statewide election since 2002, and Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one.But Mr. Zeldin’s candidacy also speaks to Mr. Cuomo’s perceived vulnerability: Republican candidates for governor in New York tend to have less political stature, given the challenges of competing statewide. The congressman has something of a national profile and national donor base in Republican circles. He previewed on Thursday how he would seek to position himself in a heavily Democratic state.“With one-party Democrat rule in New York City and Albany, the light that once shone as a beacon of what America can be has gone dark,” he said.“The New York that was once a magnet for the world’s best and brightest is now forcing its own to leave under the crushing weight of skyrocketing taxes, lost jobs, suffocating regulations, and rising crime resulting from dangerously liberal policies.”In his campaign announcement video, Mr. Zeldin made no mention of Mr. Trump, instead seeking to keep his message focused on quality-of-life concerns and economic matters and lacing into Mr. Cuomo. . It’s a political background that may be important in a Republican primary, but one that would be instantly disqualifying in the eyes of many New Yorkers in a general election, should he reach that point.“He’s a congressman, soldier and family man, fighting to protect our wallets, our safety and our freedoms,” the video says.Mr. Zeldin will be one of at least three declared or potential Republican candidates interested in running for governor who will appear in Albany, N.Y., on April 19 to meet with Republican county chairs to lobby for their support.Others include Rob Astorino, the party’s 2014 nominee for governor, and Andrew Giuliani, the son of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.Mr. Zeldin made his initial announcement on Fox News. More