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(Trends Wide) — Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul will win a first full term in office, Trends Wide projects, defeating Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and making history as New York’s first elected female governor.
Hochul’s victory keeps New York Democrats on track to maintain their nearly two-decade winning streak in statewide elections.
Hochul, who is a native of Buffalo, New York, assumed the top job in August 2021 following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo, the three-term governor who faced impeachment amid a sexual harassment scandal. Despite being her lieutenant governor, Hochul and Cuomo were never closely aligned and she moved quickly upon taking office to clear the office of her allies.
Already the first woman to serve as governor in New York, Hochul will now become the first to be elected to the office in an election.
Zeldin, a conservative acolyte of former President Donald Trump, ran a “law and order” campaign focused almost entirely on fears about rising crime and a 2019 criminal justice reform law that made it harder for judges to hold suspects in pretrial detention. But he also tapped into frustration over the state of the economy, which has been slow to recover in and around New York City after the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and working-class concerns about environmental initiatives like a plan to increase rates for cars entering heavily trafficked parts of the city.
Hochul, who in the latter part of the campaign stepped up his political outreach in New York City, where Democrats typically need about 70% of the vote to secure victory statewide, criticized Zeldin throughout the race for his positions against abortion and his vote in Congress against certifying the election of President Joe Biden.
Like other blue state Republicans, Zeldin repeatedly insisted that he had no plans to change the abortion law in New York, where Democrats, both before and after the leak of the Supreme Court opinion that overturned the ruling Roe v. Wade, passed a set of comprehensive protections for abortion patients and providers.
But Zeldin undermined his promise with comments to an anti-abortion group that suggested he would appoint a like-minded state health commissioner, who would have significant power to shape policy. He returned them, but in his only debate with Hochul he also sidestepped whether he would support Planned Parenthood’s funding.
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