Hochul leads Republican opponent Lee Zeldin by 6 points in N.Y. governor’s race, poll says

Gov. Hochul led her Republican rival, Rep. Lee Zeldin, by 6 points in a SurveyUSA poll released Thursday, the latest signal that a governor’s race once seen as an afterthought in deep-blue New York has turned competitive in the final weeks.

The poll mirrored an average of recent surveys and marked a wide swing from SurveyUSA’s last poll of the governor’s race, which was released in August and showed Hochul leading Zeldin by 24 points. The new survey, conducted online between last Friday and Tuesday, showed a large gender gap: Hochul led by 25 points among women, but trailed by 13 points among men.

The new data points arrived on the heels of a pair of polls released Tuesday that showed Hochul up by 11 points and 4 points respectively. Democrats have won every New York governor’s race since 2006 by double-digit point margins.

But Zeldin, a 42-year-old Long Island lawmaker who is running on a public-safety focused platform, appears to be tapping into an anxious electorate frustrated by raging inflation and crime rates that continue to climb.

In a statement, Zeldin said the SurveyUSA poll showed the “enormous momentum and energy that has built to fire Kathy Hochul, secure our streets, and Save New York.”

“New Yorkers are sick and tired of Hochul’s abysmal record on the issues most important to them — crime, the economy, corruption and more,” Zeldin said in the statement. “Unfortunately for Hochul, we’re not slowing down.”

Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one statewide, and Zeldin has struggled to keep up with Hochul’s cash reserves, even joining former President Donald Trump — who is deeply unpopular in New York — for a September fund-raiser in New Jersey.

Trump endorsed Zeldin on Sunday. But Zeldin, who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, hardly seemed to relish Trump’s imprimatur, telling reporters that the endorsement “shouldn’t have been news.”

If some New York voters are off-put by Zeldin’s links to Trump, it has not stopped the congressman from picking up steam ahead of Election Day, which falls Nov. 8.

A Real Clear Politics aggregation of recent surveys shows Hochul leading Zeldin by an average of 6 points. Democrats have cast doubt on the quality of recent polling data, questioning survey samples and emphasizing the challenges of forecasting in a partisan age.

“It’s a grumpy electorate in an unsettled mood,” Bruce Gyory, a Democratic political consultant, said Wednesday. “It’s fraught with danger to be certain of predictions.”

Across the nation, prospects for Republicans have brightened this fall, according to polls, as the conservative Supreme Court’s earthquake ruling ending the right to abortion fades further into the past. Inflation appears to be boosting Republicans, who have blamed President Biden and Democrats in Congress for the state of the economy.

Hochul, a 64-year-old Democrat, took office when former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned 14 months ago, and she dominated in the Democratic primary. She is seeking to become the first woman elected governor of New York.

She has touted her efforts to make New York a magnet for business and a sanctuary for reproductive rights. And she has highlighted Zeldin’s anti-abortion positions, opposition to gun control measures and fealty to Trump.

But Zeldin has appeared to connect with swing voters and has downplayed his ability to influence abortion policy in New York, where the state Legislature has enacted robust reproductive protections.

“I will not change and could not change New York’s abortion law,” Zeldin says in one campaign advertisement.

In recent days, Hochul has sharpened her criticism of Zeldin. At a news conference on Tuesday, she suggested that Zeldin might be planning to “subvert the will of the people” by questioning the outcome of the governor’s race.

“This person cannot be trusted,” she said, “on democracy, on abortion, on guns.”