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      Don’t Believe Lee Zeldin When He Says He Can’t Touch Abortion Access in New York

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      I called Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, on Monday morning to see how worried he was about New York’s governor’s race. Levine, a Democrat who’d just come from campaigning with Gov. Kathy Hochul, was pretty worried. Yes, polls have shown Hochul consistently ahead of the Trumpist Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, but Levine thought the race could go either way.“I don’t think we know how accurate polls are in New York State,” Levine told me, noting how long it’s been since New York has had a competitive statewide general election. “And there’s no doubt that Zeldin has used the crime issue to whip up energy on his side.”There are many reasons to be aghast at the idea of a gun-loving election denier taking power in a state that’s been as reliably liberal as New York. One of them is what Zeldin might do to New York’s status as a haven for abortion access.Though Zeldin is a co-sponsor in the House of the Life at Conception Act, which would bestow full personhood rights on embryos, he’s tried to neutralize abortion as a campaign issue by insisting that he couldn’t change New York’s abortion law even if he wanted to.There’s something bizarre about this argument: As Assemblywoman Deborah Glick pointed out to me, Zeldin is telling pro-choice New Yorkers that we can rely on the Legislature to protect us from him. And while it’s true that Zeldin wouldn’t be able to ban abortion anytime soon, there are many things, short of making abortions illegal, that a governor can do to make them harder to get.Zeldin’s strategy is similar to the one that Christine Drazan, the anti-abortion Republican with a decent chance of becoming governor of Oregon, is employing in her race. Both are trying to use Democrats’ success in passing state-level abortion protections against them, by arguing that these laws make their personal opposition to abortion moot.“I will not change and could not change New York’s abortion law,” Zeldin said in one ad, while Drazan told Oregon Public Broadcasting that “Roe is codified into Oregon law. Regardless of my personal opinions on abortion, as governor, I will follow the law.” But when it comes to reproductive rights, the letter of the law isn’t the only thing that matters.New York, for example, recently passed a statute that, among other things, prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state prosecutors on most abortion cases. But whether a Governor Zeldin would be totally constrained by the law is unclear. He has promised to remove Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, from office, even though Bragg was elected last year with 84 percent of the vote, suggesting a willingness to push the limit of his authority. Oregon, meanwhile, has no such law, only a written commitment from the governor, the Democrat Kate Brown, to resist out-of-state legal actions over abortion.In both Oregon and New York, there are lots of administrative levers governors could pull to stymie reproductive health care. Zeldin has said it would be a “great idea” to appoint an anti-abortion health commissioner, a position with a lot of power in the state. Shortly after the draft of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe was leaked in May, Hochul created the $25 million Abortion Provider Support Fund to help New York providers care for an expected influx of out-of-state patients, and allocated $10 million more to help clinics beef up their security. Zeldin would almost certainly do away with grants like these. Drazan has criticized a similar grant program in Oregon, referring derisively to the funding of “abortion tourism.”New York’s governor “controls the purse strings, because he controls the division of the budget,” said Glick, who led the fight to pass the 2019 Reproductive Health Act, which codified Roe and expanded the number of health professionals who can legally perform abortions in the state. As governor, she said, Zeldin could withhold money from Planned Parenthood and restrict Medicaid funding for abortion. “You can slowly starve some programs by simply not providing resources in a timely fashion.”Of course, the people who care deeply about the nuances of reproductive health policy are probably already voting for Democrats, which is why pointing out all the ways right-wing governors could erode abortion access feels so dispiriting. Politically, the anti-abortion movement has often been at its strongest when it’s fighting for regulations that strangle providers with red tape or cut off public funding, because most people aren’t going to get far enough into the weeds to get outraged.While Roe still stood, the anti-abortion movement used a strategy of regulatory siege to chip away at abortion rights in red states. With anti-abortion governors, a similar strategy could be deployed in blue ones. Speaking to New York Right to Life in April, Zeldin promised an open-door policy. “Come on in to the second floor of the New York State Capitol,” he said. “It’s been a while, but you come right on in.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      At 11th-Hour Rally, Biden Pushes for Hochul in Crucial N.Y. Election

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      The campaign visits by President Biden and Bill Clinton show that the governor’s race, once a worry-free contest for Democrats, may be up for grabs.Leaning on presidents past and present, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York barnstormed around the New York City area this weekend, furiously trying to stave off a major upset by focusing on areas where high Democratic voter turnout will be crucial for her chances.In a 11th-hour rally on Sunday at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, N.Y., President Biden appeared with Ms. Hochul, calling her a governor who can “get things done” and characterizing Election Day as “a choice between two fundamentally different visions of America.”“Democracy is literally on the ballot,” Mr. Biden said.Speaking for a half-hour in front of crowd of college students and other supporters, Mr. Biden repeatedly criticized Ms. Hochul’s Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, for his stances on gun control and abortion and ridiculed his focus on crime as empty rhetoric.“Governor Hochul’s opponent talks a good game,” the president said. “But it’s all talk.”The president’s visit underlined that the governor’s race in New York, once thought to be a worry-free contest for Democrats, has grown tighter, reflecting the party’s troubles across the nation.His appearance came on the heels of an event in Brooklyn on Saturday with Bill Clinton, the former president, who urged party faithful to reject what he characterized as fearmongering and macho bravado voiced by Mr. Zeldin.Democrats are girding for loss of the House and possibly the Senate, where races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin are all considered close to impossible to predict.In New York, the governor’s race has become one of the more competitive in the nation, a shock in a liberal state that hasn’t elected a Republican to the governor’s mansion since George Pataki won a third term in 2002. Numerous polls have shown Ms. Hochul, a first-term Democrat who rose to power in August 2021 after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, leading Mr. Zeldin by single digits even though her party has millions more registered voters in the state.During the closing days of the campaign, Mr. Zeldin’s rhetoric on public safety and inflation seemed to be galvanizing and invigorating his supporters, like Tony Donato, 60, a retired 911 dispatcher from Warwick, N.Y., who said that a 2019 law that eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies “has got to go.”Mr. Zeldin has held several news conferences at the site of recent crimes, including one last week at Pier 45 in Manhattan.Dave Sanders for The New York Times“Criminal justice reform is killing cops,” said Mr. Donato, a registered Republican. “It’s making our prisons more unsafe for the corrections officers.”While Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in New York, there are also millions of independents like Barrett Braithwaite, 42, who was shopping in Downtown Brooklyn with her daughter on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Braithwaite said she would probably vote Democrat but wasn’t especially excited about the election.“I think everybody is tired, after the last few years, in politics and the pandemic,” she said. “Overall, everyone is just fatigued. But I’m trying.”At the Brooklyn rally, Mr. Clinton suggested that Mr. Zeldin was preying on fears of crime, saying that he “makes it sound like Kathy Hochul gets up every morning, goes to the nearest subway stop and hands out billy clubs and baseball bats to everybody who gets on the subway.” He added that the congressman “looks like he’s auditioning to replace Dwayne Johnson in all those movies.”At the same time, Mr. Zeldin held a series of rallies in the Hudson Valley and its environs, where three competitive congressional races may well determine control of the House of Representatives.Democrats have sought to channel outrage over the overturning of Roe v. Wade, threats to democracy and the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, as well as the specter of former President Donald J. Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in a state he once called home.But Mr. Zeldin’s supporters seem to have little interest in such issues.Supporters holding signs boosting Mr. Zeldin and his running mate, Alison Esposito.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesAttendees at a Brooklyn rally grasp signs for Ms. Hochul and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.Anna Watts for The New York Times“Nobody cares about January 6. Nobody cares about Trump,” James DiGraziano, 55, of Massapequa Park, said at a Zeldin rally last weekend featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “Crime is at the top of the ticket.”At rallies, many of Mr. Zeldin’s supporters said they planned to vote on Tuesday, saying they didn’t trust the early voting system, a reflection of Mr. Trump’s and some other Republicans’ repeated, and unfounded, assertions of nefarious meddling in the 2020 election. Sunday was the last day for early voting, with hundreds of thousands of votes already cast in New York City, though that rate still lagged far behind 2020.Jack Lanthan, a registered Republican and retired New York City police officer from Chester, where Mr. Zeldin held a lively rally on Saturday night, said he’d vote on Tuesday and was “amazed” that the Republican was seemingly running so close in “this dark blue state.”“I hope the polls are right and he wins,” Mr. Lanthan said, noting high prices for gas and other things. “We need a change in Albany.”Not everyone, however, was willing to blame Democrats for rising prices and other woes. At a Halloween rally in Queens, Andy Liu said the economy is one of his big concerns, but that he still feels “good with the Democratic Party.”“They try to make everybody better,” said Mr. Liu, a 40-year-old cashier. “They care about everyone.”Such were the arguments made by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, who spoke alongside Mayor Eric Adams, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, and Attorney General Letitia James, all from Brooklyn, a vote-rich borough which has long been critical to Democratic success in state elections.Mr. Jeffries, whose Eighth Congressional District includes a chunk of Brooklyn and a slice of Queens, urged the assembled crowd — many of whom were union members, another critical constituency in the Democratic calculus — to vote against what he called a virulent new brand of Republicanism, saying that his party fought for “the least, the lost and the left behind.”As for Republicans, Mr. Jeffries said, “These people are out of control, they are off the chain.” In his speech, Mr. Biden said Mr. Zeldin — who voted against certifying the 2020 election — and other “election deniers” were dangerously out of step with most New Yorkers — and Americans.“These deniers not only are trying to deny your right to vote, they’re trying to deny your right to have your vote counted,” Mr. Biden said, adding, “With these election deniers, there are only two outcomes for any election. Either they win or they were cheated.”He added, “You can’t only love the country when you win.”Some voters seemed inclined to give Ms. Hochul the benefit of the doubt. Nia Howard, 30, said she felt the governor had been blamed for things beyond her control. “I don’t know how much she could’ve done better,” said Ms. Howard, who works in office administration. But she added: “The way the economy is, people are desperate.”Mr. Clinton told rally attendees that Mr. Zeldin’s positions were too extreme for New York.Anna Watts for The New York TimesOn Saturday in Chester, Mr. Zeldin was promising his fans a concession speech this week from “soon-to-be-former governor Kathy Hochul,” while mocking Ms. Hochul’s use of President Clinton and President Biden as surrogates.“You know that you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel when that is your message as your final pitch,” said Mr. Zeldin, a conservative congressman who has voiced support for Mr. Trump and his agenda for much of the last six years.He added that the very presence of such prominent Democrats — including earlier appearances by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris — spoke to Ms. Hochul’s concerns about the race.“Why are you bringing all these people to New York if this race isn’t as close as we know it actually is?” Mr. Zeldin said.Mr. Zeldin appeared alongside his wife and two daughters and later reminded the crowd of a shooting that took place near his Long Island home last month. It was a message that reflected the candidate’s relentless focus on crime during his campaign, including attacks on the 2019 bail law and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, a Democrat whom Mr. Zeldin has painted as soft on crime.Nancy Tomesheski, 62, a retired nurse and registered Republican from Howells, N.Y., wasn’t initially certain whether she would vote for Mr. Zeldin, but said she had been convinced, in part, by a recent incident in which a friend of her daughter’s was a victim of a crime.“It’s just out of control,” Ms. Tomesheski said. “We need to take back New York.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Can Lee Zeldin Reinvent His Way to the NY Governor’s Mansion?

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      SHIRLEY, N.Y. — As a young U.S. Army lawyer of unmistakable ambition, Lee Zeldin could almost see his future unfurling before him. It was his first stint in Iraq, and he was already imagining the kind of distinguished career in uniform that would have laid the groundwork for one in politics.Then a Red Cross message arrived on the base where Mr. Zeldin was embedded as a captain with the 82nd Airborne Division. His girlfriend had gone into dangerously premature labor with twin girls. Doctors were not optimistic about the babies’ survival. His commanding officer sent him home to mourn.“This I vividly remember the emotion of,” Mr. Zeldin, now a conservative congressman, recalled in a recent interview. “My priorities became all about my daughters.”The girls survived after months in the hospital. But rather than returning to Iraq, Mr. Zeldin took a desk job back at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, got married and then was discharged. At just 27, he found that the life he had imagined had veered off course.It was not the first time, nor the last. As a high school senior here on the South Shore of Long Island, Mr. Zeldin sought a prestigious appointment to West Point, only to fall short. After leaving the Army in 2007, he almost immediately entered a race for Congress, hoping to jump-start his political career. He lost in a blowout.But in every case, Mr. Zeldin has shown aptitude for finding a quick path to reinvention that has helped fuel his political ascent. Now, at age 42, it has put him closer than any Republican since George E. Pataki two decades ago to one of the nation’s most influential political posts, the governorship of New York.A few hundred Zeldin supporters attended a rally on Monday in Westchester County, traditionally an area controlled by Democrats. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesThough Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, remains the front-runner, Mr. Zeldin’s late surge in the polls has shocked even political strategists and sent Democrats scrambling to prop up their candidate. With Ms. Hochul’s huge war chest and a vast Democratic registration advantage, few expected Mr. Zeldin to come close to winning, and perhaps with good reason: He does not easily fit the profile of a New York power player.In a state shaped by wealthy business interests and often governed by larger-than-life personalities and family dynasties, Mr. Zeldin is an outlier. He grew up in law enforcement households of modest means. He can be introverted and awkward with voters. And in a state dominated by the political left, he is probably the most conservative serious contender for the governorship in modern memory — even voting to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.Yet a careful review of his public and private life, including two dozen interviews with family, friends, colleagues and critics, shows that Mr. Zeldin’s emergence as a political force stems from decades of meticulous planning, comfort with taking risks, well-timed alliances with more powerful Republicans and, above all, a knack honed from a young age for what allies call adaptation but his critics view as a more cynical political shape-shifting.Those qualities have been on full display in this fall’s campaign, as Mr. Zeldin moved swiftly to tap into two powerful currents of discontent that Democrats appear to have misjudged and that threaten to scramble the state’s usual political order: painful inflation eroding New Yorkers’ sense of financial well-being and fears about rising crime.“He’s grabbed the right issues and hasn’t let go,” said Rob Astorino, who lost to Mr. Zeldin in this year’s Republican primary.Mr. Zeldin, center, has heavily courted the Hasidic vote during his campaign stops in New York City, including a recent visit to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesBut his instincts have also been evident as he tries to execute another on-the-fly transformation, playing down hard-line positions that served him well while he climbed the Republican ranks in Albany and Washington but are now politically inconvenient, while offering scant details on some of his latest policy proposals.Who Is Lee Zeldin Up Against?Card 1 of 5Gov. Kathy Hochul’s rise to power. More

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      Schumer Can Take the Insults, if It Helps Keep Democrats in Power

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      For an hour on Sunday night, Senator Chuck Schumer endured insult after insult. He was called a liar and a failure. He was blamed for inflation, the decline of the shipbuilding industry, and death threats to Supreme Court justices. He was referred to as a modern-day Goliath, a “blind biblical giant,” a surprising description of a senator famed for both his spectacles and his slouch.Mr. Schumer took it all, seemingly treating the excoriation from his Republican opponent, Joseph Pinion, as an extended opportunity to remind voters of a series of Democratic accomplishments over the last two years during his tenure as Senate majority leader, a role he is clinging to even as his party faces serious headwinds in midterm elections next week.Democrats across New York and the nation are playing defense in the closing week of the campaign cycle as they try to protect their party’s control of the Senate and especially the House of Representatives, where Republicans are feeling bullish. That includes in New York, where the map includes competitive congressional races from Long Island to central New York, and where Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying fend off a challenge from Representative Lee Zeldin, a conservative Republican with deep ties to former president Donald J. Trump.Mr. Schumer does not seem in any danger: He is heavily favored to win a fifth term in the Senate, with a recent Quinnipiac poll showing him holding a 12-point lead. But it is a measure of where things stand for Democrats that Mr. Schumer was willing to trade time on Sunday night to trumpet his party in exchange for absorbing Mr. Pinion’s brickbats, which included a near-constant assertion that the senator has been in office too long.“Chuck Schumer has spent 42 years making promises about what he will do tomorrow,” said Mr. Pinion, 39, a former host and conservative commentator on the Newsmax network. “It’s always a day away. And you never trust a man who promises to do tomorrow what he had power to do yesterday.”For Mr. Pinion, the debate at Union College in Schenectady, hosted by Spectrum News, was perhaps his best chance at introducing himself to voters, a challenge considering the Quinnipiac poll found nearly 60 percent of those polled didn’t know enough about Mr. Pinion to form an opinion. (That cohort seemingly included Mr. Schumer himself, who opened the debate by saying, “Hi, Joe. Very nice to meet you.”)Mr. Schumer has long prided himself on an aggressive media strategy — reporters can set their watches by his 11:30 a.m. news conferences — and his frequent trips around the state, including visiting all of the state’s 62 counties every year, a pace he has continued even as Democrats seek to shore up support for Ms. Hochul and other candidates.That included a visit last week to Onondaga County, alongside President Biden, to bring attention to a $100 billion plan by Micron to build new computer chip manufacturing facilities near Syracuse.“This guy gets things done,” the president said of Mr. Schumer, during the event.Such was the argument the senator himself made on Sunday night, returning again and again to legislation passed by Democrats while he has served as majority leader, including measures to reduce the price of prescription drugs, tighten gun control laws, and pour money into manufacturing like that in Onondaga County.“Under my leadership, the Senate has had the most productive session in decades,” he said.Mr. Pinion has also stumped for months, roaming from motorcycle-and-morning coffee events in Western New York to rooftop fund-raisers in Manhattan to help fuel an underfunded campaign: Mr. Pinion’s latest filing, for example, with the Federal Election Commission shows his campaign committee with a little less than $12,000 cash on hand..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Pinion has seemingly tried to augment that lack of resources with a surfeit of fiery rhetoric and CGI-heavy broadsides: One of Mr. Pinion’s online ads shows him in an apocalyptic landscape, amid the burning ruins of skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty.“America is burning,” Mr. Pinion says, criticizing the federal outlay of dollars to Ukraine, high inflation and the baby-formula crisis. “And the politicians that started the fire want to blame someone else.”In another ad, he likened Mr. Schumer to a dinosaur presiding over “the Jurassic States of America,” a visual conceit complete with Mr. Pinion flanked by a pair of raptors. “Like my friends here, the American dream is about to go extinct,” he says, before turning to his prehistoric friends. “Sorry, guys, it’s true. You’re dead!”But his most recurring campaign theme has been that Mr. Schumer has been in Washington too long — nearly 42 years, between nearly two decades in the House of Representatives and his four terms in the U.S. Senate — with too little to show for it. A recent email blast noted that Mr. Schumer “has been in office longer than I have been alive.”“He says the job’s not done,” Mr. Pinion told a crowd in Amsterdam, N.Y., in September, alongside Representative Elise Stefanik and Michael Henry, the party’s candidate for attorney general. “If you haven’t got the job done in 42 years, perhaps its time to step aside and let some one else take a crack at it.”Mr. Schumer’s ads have showcased working-class supporters, as well as mailers linking Mr. Pinion to anti-abortion efforts by Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader.Like Mr. Pinion and his dinosaurs, Mr. Schumer has also shown a sense of humor, with an ad billed as “Yiddish Lessons with the Majority Leader.” In it, Mr. Schumer, who is Jewish, identifies Mr. McConnell, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Mr. Trump as “schmos”; the riots of Jan. 6, 2021 as a “shande,” or shame; and mentions the words “kvell” and “naches” for his pride and joy at his legislative accomplishments.“Because fighting for New York is no schtick for me,” he concludes.On Sunday, Mr. Pinion was on the attack from the very beginning, calling out “the legend of Charles Ellis Schumer” before saying he wanted to do “some myth busting.”“He is, in fact, an exceptional politician, one of the best that has ever lived,” Mr. Pinion said. “But he’s a failed senator. He has failed the people of this state on multiple occasions.”Mr. Schumer rarely returned fire, sticking to promoting the raft of accomplishments that he hopes voters remember next week. But toward the end of the debate, he scolded Mr. Pinion, saying the race wasn’t about how long he had served, but whether he had delivered for New York.“I produce results, I am productive,” he said. “I’m not just shooting verbiage, and calling names.” More

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      With Allies Nearby, Hochul and Zeldin Try to Spur Voters to Polls

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      With eight days until Election Day, the candidates in New York’s governors race are hoping popular politicians can help them drum up support from their bases.With the race for governor of New York closer than expected, the two candidates on Monday put their strategies and proxies front and center: Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican, held a campaign rally with Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, and Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared with a pair of Black and Latino Democratic lawmakers.For Mr. Zeldin, the rally in Westchester County served to remind voters of Mr. Youngkin’s victory last year, seen by some Republicans as a kind of how-to for conservatives in left-leaning states.For Ms. Hochul, the appearance underscored her need to stir up enthusiasm among Black and Latino populations she is eager to draw to the polls.Speaking at the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club in Harlem alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Adriano Espaillat, Ms. Hochul focused heavily on gun control and public safety, as she sought to address Mr. Zeldin’s campaign emphasis on crime, which has helped him gain traction with voters.Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin with Lee Zeldin at a Get Out the Vote Rally in Thornwood Monday. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesAs anti-violence activists and parents who have lost children to gun violence stood nearby, the governor spoke about legislation she championed to help stop the flow of illegal firearms into New York. She accused Mr. Zeldin of failing to back up his rhetoric on public safety with a clear plan.She asserted that Mr. Zeldin supported plans that would help more guns come into the state, including arming school safety officers and possibly teachers with weapons, ideas she denounced as “absurd” and “insanity.”“Don’t come here today and tell us that you’ve got a tough on crime plan that’s just soft and squishy on guns,” Ms. Hochul said.Some 20 miles to the north, Mr. Zeldin accused Ms. Hochul of ignoring a “crime emergency” in the state and urged voters in liberal New York to place their personal views above party identity.“This isn’t about Republicans verse Democrats, this is about all of us together,” Mr. Zeldin said. “Republicans, Democrats and independents uniting as New Yorkers to save our state.”Recent polls have suggested Ms. Hochul, seeking her first full term as governor, is leading in the race. But support for Mr. Zeldin has grown, particularly as public safety has become a top concern for voters.The governor’s campaign has shifted in response. Though Ms. Hochul had earlier focused her pitch to voters on abortion rights, and tying Mr. Zeldin to his party’s extremist flank, she has since broadened her message.As part of this change, Ms. Hochul’s campaign released a new television ad on Monday that focused on public safety. The ad emphasized gun control laws that she signed in June, and her successful effort to tighten New York’s bail laws.Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist, said Ms. Hochul’s focus on guns as the cause of crime made sense.“The gun safety issue is a major issue that unites suburban women and inner-city women,” Mr. Gyory said. “I think that’s a strong hook to hang your hat on, so to speak, for her.”Ms. Hochul’s event on Monday is one of several that she is expected to hold in the city in the next eight days as she seeks to boost turnout, particularly from Black and Latino voters whom New York Democrats have long relied on.Monday Mr. Bowman, who represents the northern Bronx and southern Westchester, accused Mr. Zeldin of “fear mongering.” He criticized the Republican for not voting in Congress to support legislation addressing gun violence and gun safety.Mayor Eric Adams alongside Governor Kathy Hochul in Queens Sunday. Johnny Milano for The New York TimesMr. Espaillat, whose district includes parts of Upper Manhattan and Harlem, criticized Mr. Zeldin for not being present in the communities most affected by the surge in violence that has been at the center of his campaign.“Where is Lee when two young men confront each other with handguns on a weekend night?” Mr. Espaillat said.Hours later, Mr. Zeldin was with Mr. Youngkin, addressing a cheering crowd of hundreds outside the American Legion in Thornwood, N.Y. His focus was on his anti-crime platform, and he repeated promises to roll back New York’s bail laws, and fire Manhattan’s district attorney.Mr. Youngkin, a rising figure in the Republican Party, commended Mr. Zeldin for putting Democrats on edge in a state whose electoral fealty they had largely taken for granted.“The momentum is building like they can’t believe. You can see them all of a sudden go from cocky to scared, it happens just like that,” Mr. Youngkin said, comparing Mr. Zeldin’s campaign to the one that saw him become governor last year in Virginia, a state that President Biden won handily in 2020 and where Democrats had built increasing support.Mr. Youngkin also carefully courted suburban voters who turned away from the Republican Party under former President Donald J. Trump, keeping the former president at a distance during his campaign yet being careful not to criticize him. Mr. Youngkin also downplayed his opposition to abortion, focusing instead on inflation, safety, and how race and equity are discussed in schools.Mr. Zeldin has tried to manage the same balance in his campaign, particularly as he tries to pick off moderate voters in the suburbs.Rosemary Eshghi, 68, of Chappaqua, N.Y., said that she used to be a Democrat but was now part of a group called Republican Women of Westchester. She came to the rally because she appreciated Mr. Youngkin’s views on schools, which she believed Mr. Zeldin was aligned with.Her vote, she said, would go to the Republican ticket, in part because Ms. Hochul “does not represent those ideals that I believed in 30 years ago. I left the party, and she’s totally inviting chaos.”But Andrew Lynch, 64, of New Rochelle, who said that he used to be a registered Republican but was no longer affiliated with the party, would not be voting for Mr. Zeldin, in part because the Jan. 6 Capitol riot convinced him that Republicans were trampling on the rule of law.He was at the rally, he said, to see Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Youngkin up close and to “see if it’s as horrible as I think it is when you’re actually live and in person.” More

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      Why Lee Zeldin Might Win the New York Governor’s Race

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      The voters of San Francisco recalled their district attorney over crime in June, and now the big question in next week’s election is whether the voters of New York will turn out their Democratic governor over the same issue. Several recent polls say that Gov. Kathy Hochul is holding on by just single digits in a state that Joe Biden won by 23 points in 2020.New York hasn’t had a hotly competitive governor’s race since 1994, a year like this one when many voters were frustrated with one-party Democratic rule in Washington, and crime and economic issues were top concerns for the electorate. Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress that year, and in New York, Republican George Pataki toppled Gov. Mario Cuomo. The headwinds now facing Ms. Hochul and Democratic incumbents nationwide are in some ways worse, with high inflation hurting voters and an overwhelmed immigration system that is now making life more chaotic in American cities.But crime is the issue particularly bedeviling Ms. Hochul and some other Democrats, and in the end could lead New York voters — including independents, Bloomberg Democrats and others — to elect Representative Lee Zeldin as the first Republican governor since Mr. Pataki. Mr. Zeldin faces a tough climb in a strongly Democratic state, but why a Zeldin victory is even conceivable is instructive about the mood of the electorate and the state of the Democratic Party in New York and nationally.Rather than change course over the last year in the face of troubling trends on crime, inflation and immigration, Democrats nationwide, including Ms. Hochul, have paid lip service to voter anxiety and offered a mix of empathy and multi-point plans instead of bold solutions. Virtually every New Yorker knows that Democrats run the show in Albany and New York City, with large majorities, and have the power to confront problems in the state and are accountable for failing to do so. Voters want fiscal responsibility, violent criminals taken off the streets, and a working immigration system. Ms. Hochul has given them a $220 billion budget, stalled on meaningful fixes to the bail system and sidestepped confronting the immigration system. Mr. Zeldin has had an open field on all of these issues.In New York, these national trends play out particularly with a focus on crime, which is up in New York City by 30 percent this year. That includes a 33 percent increase in robberies and an 11 percent increase in rapes (although homicides are down 14 percent). Subway ridership remains depressed, with regular stories of people being pushed onto the tracks, random muggings, and most horrifically, a mass shooting on a Brooklyn train earlier this year.The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, declared a state of emergency this month as the number of people in shelters approached an all-time high — exacerbated by the influx of migrants, including thousands bused in from Texas. The city shelter system is struggling to accommodate these men, women and children.More important than the actual statistics, at least when it comes to politics and elections, is that public concern about crime has increased. It is the most important issue in the governor’s race, dominating this election just as it did last year’s election for New York City mayor. When asked the most important issue in New York State, 28 percent of likely voters picked crime, while 20 percent said inflation and 14 percent chose protecting democracy, according to a Quinnipiac poll conducted in mid-October.In particular, New York City’s anxiety over crime could make the difference in this election. Thirty-six percent of New York City residents said crime was their greatest concern — three times as much as those that picked inflation, the second most popular choice. Mr. Zeldin most likely needs at least 30 percent of the New York City vote in order to win, and that doesn’t seem as unlikely as it did earlier this fall. The Quinnipiac poll has Mr. Zeldin getting 37 percent.Voters’ greatest concerns vary by party, but Mr. Zeldin could win because independents are siding with Republicans on crime and inflation rather than with Democrats, whose concerns over protecting democracy take precedence. The story of the 2022 election could be that Democrats overestimated how much voters cared about the events of Jan. 6 and the ties to Donald Trump of Republicans like Mr. Zeldin. In fact, by constructing a campaign around those concerns — and not the threats posed by crime, inflation and immigration — Ms. Hochul and other Democrats nationwide are at real risk of not facing up to the mood of the electorate at a time of pressure and fear. They are clearly counting on enough moderates and independents to conclude that supporting a Trump-loving Republican and abortion opponent on Nov. 8 is beyond the pale. Mr. Zeldin, in turn, says that abortion laws in New York State are safe and implies that the election-denying attacks on him are overblown.In the Quinnipiac poll of likely New York voters, independents said they care most about crime (31 percent) and inflation (21 percent), while protecting democracy was a distant third (11 percent). Protecting democracy was the most common choice for Democrats, but even 30 percent of Democratic voters chose crime and inflation in the number two and three spots, respectively.Mr. Zeldin was attacked while onstage at a campaign stop this summer by an assailant with a knifelike weapon; the attacker was released from custody soon after his arrest, only to be rearrested and held after intervention by a U.S. attorney. Mr. Zeldin’s daughters recently called 911 when a shooting erupted outside their suburban home. These incidents underscore the prevalence and salience of the crime issue this year. In the 1990s, when crime rates were high and the issue was of enormous concern to voters, President Clinton’s ads featured a major police union endorsement, and then-Senator Joe Biden spearheaded the crime bill; as a result, Democrats largely neutralized the issue.Voters across America may want to switch things up because they are fundamentally unhappy with the direction of the country and their states as we come out of the pandemic. In New York, 52 percent of likely voters think the state is on the wrong track, up eight points from 2018. Not only are crime and inflation voters’ top concerns, but Mr. Zeldin’s messaging on these issues is working: voters believe he will perform better than Ms. Hochul on reining in crime, taxes, and spending, according to a New York Post report on a recent Schoen Cooperman Research poll. Mr. Zeldin also wants to bring energy costs down with renewed fracking, while Ms. Hochul called it “dead on arrival.”In last week’s New York governor’s debate, Ms. Hochul hit abortion and Mr. Zeldin’s ties to Mr. Trump while Mr. Zeldin tried repeatedly to focus on crime, vowing to declare a “crime emergency.” Ms. Hochul, who was endorsed by the N.R.A. when she ran for Congress, focused on new gun control measures. They each got their messages out, offering clear contrasts of their campaigns. Mr. Zeldin put fighting crime first. The question is whether New Yorkers will do the same in high enough numbers to elect (or even nearly elect) the first Republican governor in decades and send a bracing message to the Democratic Party about what matters most urgently to them.Mark Penn was a pollster and adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton from 1995 to 2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and chief executive of Stagwell Inc.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      N.Y. Democrats in Tough Fight to Capture an Open G.O.P. House Seat

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      Although the district in central New York leans Democratic, it has been safely held by a moderate Republican, Representative John Katko, who is retiring.SYRACUSE, N.Y. — For years, Democrats have avidly eyed a congressional district in central New York as ripe for the flipping.The numbers were in their favor: The party enjoyed a voter registration edge over Republicans; in 2016, district voters favored Hillary Clinton by about four percentage points over Donald J. Trump; four years later, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the district by nine points.Yet every two years, Representative John Katko, a local Republican with moderate views, outperformed his party to defend his seat. This year, Mr. Katko is no longer a factor: He has chosen not to seek re-election.Mr. Katko’s open seat in the 22nd District represents a rare chance for Democrats — who are all-in on trying to protect their majority in Congress — to win a Republican-held seat.It is not expected to be easy: With Republicans riding a national wave of anger over inflation and fear of crime, recent polls show a tight race between the Republican candidate, Brandon Williams, and his Democratic opponent, Francis Conole, a Naval intelligence officer with deep ties to the district.“This is a very volatile year,” said Stephanie Miner, the former Democratic mayor of Syracuse. “And that’s going to be reflected in what happens in this race.”Voters will have a clear contrast in choosing between the candidates; Mr. Williams seems most unlikely to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Katko, who was recently listed as the third most bipartisan member of Congress.A conservative businessman who lives outside the district, Mr. Williams embraces Donald Trump and ran without his party’s backing in the primary.He has characterized Mr. Katko as a RINO, or Republican in name only, and criticized his lack of loyalty to Mr. Trump. And in a recent debate against Mr. Conole, Mr. Williams made clear that, if elected, he had little intention of working with Democrats.“I want to translate bipartisan, which really means politics as usual,” Mr. Williams said in Wednesday’s debate. “We can’t afford politics as usual. We really need a fresh perspective.”Representative John Katko, who is retiring, has not endorsed Mr. Williams, his party’s candidate.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Conole has attacked his opponent’s hard right stances on issues including his support for tax and spending cuts and his opposition to abortion rights. He has also raised $2.6 million for his campaign, ending the last filing period with more than half a million cash on hand, to his opponent’s $236,000.But Mr. Williams has the support of a vast Republican campaign apparatus. Last week, he was joined on the campaign trail by a handful of House Republicans, including the House minority whip, Steve Scalise, and Representative Lee Zeldin, the party’s candidate for governor of New York.Republican interests have also spent nearly $6.5 million on television and radio ads to bolster Mr. Williams in the last six weeks, according to the advertising firm AdImpact — the vast majority from the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund.In a media call on Thursday, the state Republican chairman, Nick Langworthy, expressed confidence about Mr. Williams’s chances, predicting inflation would be a driving factor for voters.“Voters cannot and will not trust the people who made this economic mess to fix it. And that’s why we have the momentum in this race with 12 days to go,” he said.The momentum is also being seen elsewhere. Gov. Kathy Hochul is leading the Republican nominee, Mr. Zeldin, in some polls by single digits — an unusually tight race for left-leaning New York. Nationally, pundits ask not whether Republicans will retake the House of Representatives, but by how much..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The sea change in New York, of all places, is the latest sign that Democrats are struggling to assure voters they have a plan to tackle rising inflation and other economic woes. Their ability to do so could hold the key to determining swing districts across the nation, analysts say.“I see this race as a talisman race for the House, not just here in New York State, but throughout the Northeast and Midwest,” veteran Democratic political strategist Bruce Gyory said. “I would not bet on the outcome.”This Syracuse-area district was Democrat-leaning even before the current redistricting cycle. Spanning Oneida, Onondaga and Madison Counties, it is one of state’s rare purple districts, a place that repeatedly sent Mr. Katko to Washington at the same time as it chose Ms. Clinton and President Biden over Mr. Trump.Mr. Conole, who was born and raised in the 22nd District, was recognized recently by one of his schoolteachers, who greeted him from her car.Benjamin Cleeton for The New York TimesMr. Katko has stayed pointedly neutral during this campaign, refusing to endorse Mr. Williams, though he has been supported by the rest of the Republican establishment.This silence has allowed the Democratic candidate, Mr. Conole, to claim his legacy as a bipartisan deal maker.“Central New Yorkers and Americans are exhausted with the extremes. They’re not going to move this country forward,” Mr. Conole said in a recent debate hosted by Syracuse.com.Mr. Conole was born and raised in the district, the grandson of the former Onondaga County sheriff, Patrick Corbett, the first Democrat elected to the post. He served in Iraq before joining the Pentagon, staying through both the Obama and Trump administrations. He ran for Congress in 2020, losing in the Democratic primary to Dana Balter.“I made the decision to run because of the multitude of crises we face,” Mr. Conole explained in an interview, listing gun violence, the climate, economic distress and abortion rights. “We now have fundamental freedoms at risk. Before that we had elections denied, Jan. 6 — the very guardrails of our democracy on the line.”Mr. Williams came to the area over a decade ago, when he and his wife purchased a homestead outside Skaneateles, N.Y., where they farm hazelnut trees and truffles. The son of a wealthy Dallas Democrat, Mr. Williams has attended top schools, served on a nuclear submarine, worked on Wall Street and founded a venture capital firm and software company. This is his first time running for office.In an interview, Mr. Williams described what drew him to postindustrial central New York, which has seen a sharp economic decline with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs.“The more prosperous a community has been, you know, a lot of times it’s becomes transactional and transitional,” he said. “You just have this fabric of families here that you don’t find really in a lot of other communities.”Democrats, including President Biden, have sought credit for the legislative package of incentives that helped lure Micron to build a semiconductor factory near Syracuse.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesReviving the area’s economy has been a focus of local leaders, especially Democrats who hope the announcement of a new Micron semiconductor factory, which is projected to create 50,000 jobs in the region, will help to temper some of those concerns.On Thursday, President Biden, whose low approval ratings have made him a rare sight on the campaign trail, appeared in Syracuse to deliver a message of economic hope, referring to the Micron factory — billed as the largest private investment in the country’s history — as one of the “bright spots where America is reasserting itself.”He specifically cheered Representative Katko for supporting the CHIPS and Science Act that provided the subsidies credited for sealing the deal, saying, “John is Republican. I like him a lot.”Mr. Williams has criticized the CHIPS Act, but he has also said that he would have voted for the semiconductor subsidy.Republicans have strongly supported Mr. Williams, with a handful of House Republicans, including Lee Zeldin, the state G.O.P. candidate for governor, appearing with him on the campaign trail.Benjamin Cleeton for The New York TimesVoters like Randy Watson are hopeful that Mr. Williams will bring them some relief. A town supervisor in Vernon, about an hour east of Syracuse, he showed up for a breakfast town hall hoping to hear from Mr. Williams and introduce himself.His biggest concern, he said, was inflation, which was “just killing everyone.” Mr. Watson, a Republican, said he blames Democrats in Washington for financial policies that have overstimulated the economy.“I really hope they stop giving away our tax money,” Mr. Watson said. “Everyone had so much because of Covid, and they just spent and spent and spent.”Others see more complex causes of economic distress, including global pressures.“If you think the Democratic Party is responsible for inflation, you aren’t paying attention,” said Kathy Kelly, of Syracuse. Ms. Kelly believes that Democratic policies have set the country on the right direction, but that there is still much work to do. She worried that voters concerned with their own immediate economic situation could miss the bigger picture.“We want our elderly to be taken care of, and we want job security,” she said, adding: “The bottom line is, people want the same thing.” More

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      Clinton, Obama and DeSantis Lend Star Power to Tight N.Y. Races

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      A high-profile display of Republican and Democratic efforts illustrates how many of the state’s races have become unexpectedly close, including the governor’s race.HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — New York’s status as a battleground state was cemented over the weekend as a star-studded lineup of the country’s top Democrats and Republicans descended on the state.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida visited Long Island on Saturday night; hours earlier, former President Bill Clinton was the star attraction at a rally in Rockland County. And on the airwaves, former President Barack Obama lent his voice in support of Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat facing an unexpectedly stiff challenge from Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican.In a sign of how close the governor’s race has gotten, the Democratic Governors Association filed paperwork in recent days to form a super PAC in New York that will prop up Ms. Hochul on TV and try to stave off losses further down the ballot. After watching from the sidelines for months, the group will now join prominent labor groups in rushing to start spending on behalf of Ms. Hochul in the race’s final days, as concerned Democrats scramble to ensure that their base turns out to vote.The high-profile display of Democratic force amounted to the type of last-minute intervention that traditionally plays out in swing states, not a liberal state like New York, underscoring just how vulnerable Democrats believe they have become in this election cycle.Indeed, Ms. Hochul and Mr. Zeldin are each entering the final stretch with about $6 million in their war chests, the campaigns said on Friday, a surprisingly leveled playing field given that the governor significantly outpaced Mr. Zeldin in fund-raising during much of the race. Ms. Hochul, who has raised nearly $50 million since she entered the race, and spent much of it, said she raised $3.37 million in the last three-week filing period. Mr. Zeldin reported raising slightly more — $3.6 million.Mr. DeSantis’s hastily organized appearance in Suffolk County — the rally for Mr. Zeldin, which drew thousands of people, was planned one day in advance — was a reflection of the party’s renewed bullishness in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican governor in 20 years.“You need someone to just go and clean house in Albany,” Mr. DeSantis, a presidential hopeful, told thousands of mostly white supporters at a raucous rally at a parking lot on Long Island that was one of the largest campaign events of the governor’s race. He railed against Covid-19 mandates, crime, inflation and illegal immigration, before concluding that Mr. Zeldin’s potential victory would amount to “the 21st century version of the shot heard ’round the world.”Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, suggested that Mr. Zeldin, right, was someone who could “go and clean house in Albany.”Johnny Milano for The New York TimesEarlier in the day, the Hochul campaign sought to show off its own firepower by unveiling Mr. Obama’s radio ad, where he tells listeners that “the stakes could not be higher” in the governor’s race, which polls suggest Ms. Hochul is leading, even as Mr. Zeldin has surged in recent weeks.Mr. Clinton emerged in the Hudson Valley to deliver a nearly half-hour speech attacking the Republican Party while campaigning with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, a top Democrat and longtime friend of Mr. Clinton’s who is locked in an unexpectedly close contest to retain his House seat.And on Sunday, Jill Biden, the first lady, was scheduled to speak at a fund-raiser for Mr. Maloney in Westchester, before traveling to Long Island for a phone banking event with Ms. Hochul.The Democratic Governors Association had not initially planned to spend on the race, but as polls have tightened and the Republican Governors Association began dumping $2 million into a pro-Zeldin super PAC, the Democrats decided to act. A spokesman for the D.G.A., David Turner, did not say how much it planned to spend.“Republican super PACs have spent a record amount of nearly $12 million to insert an election-denying, abortion-banning, MAGA Republican who would make New York less safe by rolling back laws to take illegal guns off the street,” Mr. Turner said. “The D.G.A. is taking nothing for granted, and won’t sit idly by.”Republicans are doubling down on the newfound enthusiasm around Mr. Zeldin: On Monday, he will campaign in Westchester alongside Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican who won in an upset victory last year..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.As early voting kicked off on Saturday, Ms. Hochul has begun to significantly scale up her campaigning: She was expected to make at least 14 campaign appearances this weekend. She cast her ballot in Buffalo, her hometown, on Saturday morning before traveling to Rochester and Syracuse, all Democratic-leaning bastions in upstate.Governor Hochul was stepping up her ground game, with at least 14 campaign events on her weekend schedule, including a stop at Syracuse University.Benjamin Cleeton for The New York TimesOn Sunday morning, she gave brief remarks at four Black churches in Nassau County on Long Island, an increasingly competitive battleground where polls suggest Mr. Zeldin has made significant inroads in recent weeks. Amid concerns that she may be struggling to animate Black voters, one of the most reliable Democratic constituencies, Ms. Hochul was joined by Hazel Dukes, the head of the New York State N.A.A.C.P., who introduced Ms. Hochul to churchgoers at the church stops on Sunday.“She’s comfortable with all of us,” Ms. Dukes told Black congregants at Antioch Baptist Church, highlighting her working-class roots and record on public safety and investments in public education. “In her soul and in her heart, she cares about the least of us.”At Union Baptist Church, the Rev. Dr. Sedgwick Easley told churchgoers that it was “important that in minority communities like ours, our people go out to the polls and vote.”When it was her turn to talk, Ms. Hochul made no mention of her commitment to protecting the state’s strict abortion rights, one of the pillars of her campaign. Instead, she emphasized her initiatives to strengthen gun laws and fight crime, including legislation she passed earlier this year to tighten the state’s contentious bail laws, a constant target of Mr. Zeldin’s attacks.“Having guns is not the answer. We have to stand up to that radical idea that this should become the wild West,” Ms. Hochul said. “We’re not going there. Donald Trump won’t take us there. His surrogate running for governor won’t take us there, because I am the firewall. You are the firewall.”Later, Ms. Hochul joined an array of Democratic elected officials from Long Island for a rally with hundreds of union workers, before traveling to southeast Queens to campaign with Mayor Eric Adams for the first time in the general election.Mr. Adams and the governor spoke to a crowd of several hundred people who gathered inside a shopping mall; some were union workers, but many of them were local residents who said they had received emails and fliers about the rally. Praising Ms. Hochul’s response to the pandemic and warning of the consequences of not voting, Mr. Adams said: “We cannot say on the Wednesday after Election Day, ‘we wish we had voted.’”Several attendees said they had already cast their ballot early for Ms. Hochul, including Robert Manigault, 70 a retired postal clerk who is Black and cited his experience during the civil rights era as one of the reasons for his vote.“I feel that she’s going to take us places,” he said. “I feel the Republicans are going to take us backward. I’ve been there and I don’t like it.”Later in the day, in an unannounced campaign stop, Mr. Zeldin visited Borough Park in Brooklyn, where he was greeted by hundreds of residents from the Orthodox and Hasidic community, a small but powerful voting contingent he has actively courted.Mr. Zeldin received a far larger reception on Saturday night in his hometown, Suffolk County, a Republican stronghold he has represented in Congress since 2015. Standing in front of a red tour bus emblazoned with his campaign’s slogan — “Save Our State” — he spoke to an audience that sported MAGA hats and appeared as familiar with Mr. Zeldin as they were curious about Mr. DeSantis visiting the small hamlet of Hauppauge.Mr. Zeldin said that the state’s conditions were leading New Yorkers to continue to move to Florida, “seeing that their money will go further, they’ll feel safer, they’ll live life freer, and that’s why New York leads the entire nation in population loss.”“For the next 10 days, there is no way that Kathy Hochul will be able to replicate the energy and momentum that we have,” Mr. Zeldin added.In the crowd, Laura Ortiz, 52, said she supported Mr. Zeldin because of his focus on public safety, saying her house in Lindenhurst was one of 13 houses on her street that were recently robbed in a spree that also saw one residence set on fire.“I know what it feels like to be violated,” said Ms. Ortiz, who was wearing a headband with a pair of American flags that bounced on springs each time she moved. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”Nicholas Fandos More