Internal GOP poll shows Blakeman just 9 points behind Hochul

After winning the race for governor by single digits in 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul acknowledged the need for her to overperform this year to assist down-ballot candidates as Democrats attempt to win back the House. But new internal polling from Republican Bruce Blakeman’s campaign shows a tightening race for governor, continuing a trend also seen in public polling.

Blakeman’s campaign circulated a polling memo showing he trails Hochul by just 9 points among likely voters, 52%-43%. Politico New York first reported the memo, which was later shared with City & State. The findings put Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and likely GOP nominee for governor, within spitting distance of the margin of victory Hochul won by in 2022 with half a year before Election Day.

“It’s obvious: people are being crushed by affordability and they’re unhappy about it,” Republican strategist David Catalfamo told City & State. “That’s why Hochul’s been historically vulnerable and remains vulnerable.” 

Catalfamo said Hochul’s focus on lowering the state’s high costs in the upcoming budget is coming too late for voters, who likely won’t feel a fiscal impact from any policy that lawmakers adopt this session.

The poll also found that Blakeman had relatively low name recognition, with only 6 in 10 likely voters surveyed having heard of both candidates. Among those voters, though, Blakeman led Hochul by 9 points, 53%-44%. “These are ominous results for the Democratic incumbent governor,” the polling memo from Blakeman’s campaign reads. “More important, the results provide a path to victory for Bruce Blakeman. With enough resources Bruce Blakeman can define himself to the electorate and defeat Kathy Hochul in November.” 

Catalfamo said Republicans in the state remain encouraged by their chances to take back the Executive Mansion for the first time in over two decades. Blakeman is pro-choice and open to gun control – making him more attractive to independent or undecided voters than former Rep. Lee Zeldin was in 2022. “I don’t expect this great love affair with Bruce Blakeman, to be honest,” Catalfamo said. “I expect voters to say there’s no other way to judge it. What we have is not working, it’s not sustainable, let’s try this. That’s not a knock on Bruce or his campaign, that’s how elections are.”

The poll from McLaughlin & Associates shows a much closer race than public polling from Siena University, but that doesn’t mean it’s an outlier. The two most recent polls from Siena in February and March polled registered voters rather than likely voters, and far more people surveyed were undecided. In Siena’s February poll, Hochul led Blakeman 54%-28%, with a significant portion of undecided voters contributing to the 26-point cushion. Earlier this month, that lead shrunk slightly to 20 points, even as Blakeman remained largely unknown to the wider electorate. Hochul’s 51% support in the most recent Siena poll aligns with the internal Blakeman numbers for her.

The biggest hurdles for Blakeman currently are name recognition and combatting Hochul’s tens of millions of dollars in campaign cash. Marc Molinaro, the former head of the Federal Transit Administration who’s running for an upstate Assembly seat, challenged and lost to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2018. He told City & State he’s confident Blakeman has a path to victory. 

“To win, Bruce must be the answer to the question every New York family is asking: Why are we still here?” Molinaro said. “And he can win.”

National headwinds will also play a role in the race for governor. Speaking to a gathering of Democrats in Albany for a Women’s History Month event hosted by the Young Democrats’ Women’s Caucus on Tuesday night, Hochul expressed confidence about her party’s chances to flip and protect seats in Congress, before shifting gears to her own reelection. “By the way, I’d appreciate your support too,” she quipped. “As the top of the ticket, I know I need to really overperform to help people that are down-ballot from me.”

Hochul bested Zeldin four years ago by a measly 6 points – the closest gubernatorial race in almost three decades – and many political observers, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blamed her underperformance for dragging down Democratic congressional candidates. New York Democrats’ lackluster showing contributed significantly to the margin of victory for Republicans to flip the House. Since then, Hochul has worked hard to build up the state’s Democratic Party apparatus to ensure she won’t get the blame again for Democrats’ House losses.

With Hochul at the helm, Democrats in the Empire State had a much better 2024 compared to the rest of the country, a measure of vindication for the governor. But she once again leads the ticket this year, and polling suggests that she still has ground to make up if she wants a stronger victory than four years ago. 

“While Gov. Hochul keeps putting money back in New Yorkers’ pockets, Bruce Blakeman’s MAGA brainrot campaign is somehow going worse than anyone expected as he defends Trump’s ICE, champions Trump’s expensive, illegal tariffs and doubles down on Trump’s fight to gut Medicaid,” Hochul’s campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the New York GOP: We wouldn’t want to be stuck with him either.”