NEW YORK — Gov. Hochul accused Republican challenger Lee Zeldin of “hyperventilating” over crime Monday as the pair of gubernatorial candidates offered up closing arguments in a tighter-than-anticipated gubernatorial race.
The incumbent Democrat crisscrossed the city on the eve of Election Day, greeting commuters and shaking hands with seniors and shoppers as she implored New Yorkers to head to the polls and vote blue on Tuesday.
During a campaign stop on the Upper West Side, Hochul fired back at Zeldin’s criticism of her handling of public safety issues and accused the conservative congressman of playing on people’s fears as polls show crime is New Yorkers’ biggest concern.
“He has been hyperventilating, trying to scare people for months and New Yorkers are onto it,” the governor said. “All the legitimate media organizations have called him out for what he is doing, fear-mongering.”
Hochul is fighting for her political life as she seeks a full term in office after replacing former governor Andrew Cuomo last year following his resignation in the wake of sexual harassment allegations.
Hoping to become the first woman elected to lead the Empire State, the Buffalo native is facing an unexpectedly tight race after Zeldin surged in the polls in recent weeks.
Zeldin has made crime the central theme of his campaign, accusing the governor of dismissing concerns about high profile attacks on the subway and blaming Dem-backed reforms like cashless bail for emboldening criminals.
The Long Island lawmaker continued to hammer Hochul over the issue on Monday during a Bronx press conference near where a man was stabbed on a subway platform a day earlier.
“The issue that I hear about a lot from New Yorkers is that they care about wanting to be able to feel safer on the streets and on the subway,” he said. “Kathy Hochul has made a strategic calculation, she wanted to just get people to look away, just stop focusing on this issue.”
In recent weeks, Zeldin has regularly held campaign stops at sites across the city where violent incidents took place. On Friday he was met by hecklers as he addressed the press from Manhattan’s Pier 45 on the Hudson River, one day after a reported rape there.
Hochul, meanwhile, made her way across the five boroughs joined by fellow Dems on Monday following a flurry of campaign stops with top ranking party officials, including President Joe Biden, over the weekend.
As she greeted voters, Hochul pushed back on Zeldin’s claims she hasn’t done enough to address crime during her 14-month tenure.
“I’m working on a real solution,” she said. “The solution is the state for the first time is deploying state officers into the subways. We have cameras on the trains, we are helping people with severe mental health problems.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., state Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, and others joined the governor as she chatted with voters and noshed at an uptown diner before heading to a senior center and up to the Bronx.
Actor Mark Ruffalo also accompanied the governor as she made her final push to get out the vote, echoing her comments about Zeldin.
“I think we have a lot more to be hopeful for than not at this point,” “The Avengers” star said, adding that he is optimistic Hochul will emerge victorious over her opponent. “Lee Zeldin’s scary. And his policies are scary.
“And it’s funny that he’s trying to use fear to motivate people when he’s the one who is really the scary person,” he added.
Zeldin, despite his singular focus and positive polling, doesn’t have an easy path to becoming New York’s first Republican governor in nearly two decades. Democrats outnumber GOP voters by a two-to-one margin in the state and he would have to win over a significant number of New York City voters to topple Hochul.
The governor and her surrogates have campaigned hard on Zeldin’s ties to former president Donald Trump, his vote to overturn the 2020 election and his anti-abortion stance in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Still, Zeldin’s bid has been buoyed by big spending from conservative groups looking to oust Hochul, even though the governor has far outraised her opponent in donations.
On Monday, Zeldin argued that his message has resonated with voters of all persuasions and sought to again align himself with Mayor Eric Adams, who despite endorsing Hochul, a fellow Dem, has taken a similar hardline stance on criminal justice issues.
“New Yorkers are not monolithic,” he said. “You can’t just paint somebody who is a registered Democrat and say because they are a registered Democrat that means that they are just going to vote one particular way, that they don’t think for themselves, that they don’t have their ideas, their own vision.”
“What they really want is to see action,” Zeldin added.
More than one million New Yorkers have already cast their ballots during the state’s early voting period, which ended on Sunday, according to election officials. Polls open at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.
