The on again, off again lone debate between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin is officially on. Hochul and her Republican opponent will face off tonight at 7 in a debate hosted by Spectrum. It comes with some polls showing a tightening race as Hochul runs for a full term and Zeldin looks to break a 20-year Republican losing streak and statewide races.
For analysis, WAMC's Ian Pickus spoke with WNYC capitol reporter Jon Campbell.
It looked for a while as if this debate might not happen. What changed in the last few days?
Yeah, there's been a lot of debate about debates in this governor's race and initially Governor Kathy Hochul had agreed to this debate on Spectrum News stations across the state and this is the loan debate that she has agreed to. It's an hour long, it's based in New York City and those are things that Lee Zeldin, her Republican opponent objected to and why did he object to that? He wanted more debates. He wanted debates upstate. And, of course you want to do that when you're the challenger, you're lesser known and you want to get your face out there, you want to get your message out there. So, there's been a quarrel between Lee Zeldin and Kathy Hochul. Kathy Hochul has stuck to only one debate, only this Spectrum News debate. Lee Zeldin held off as long as he could before he committed to that debate because he was trying to use any leverage he had to kind of pressure her into other debates. It ultimately wasn't successful on his end and now this is tonight is the only debate that we have scheduled for the gubernatorial race.
What is the state of the race heading into this lone debate?
The state of the race is it's tightening. There's been a number of polls that have been out in recent days in the last week that have shown Kathy Hochul’s winning margins right now is less than it was even three weeks ago. I mean, this is clearly a race that is getting tighter. Now, most polls, almost all polls, show Kathy Hochul still with a lead anywhere from say, 4-15 points, which is a pretty big range. But it is definitely less than it was three weeks ago, a month ago, two months ago. So, we have a race that is tightening and that is really significant in New York where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-1, and even the prospect of a Republican coming close in a race is really significant on a statewide level. But these polls, some of these polls show Lee Zeldin within striking distance and with just a few weeks to go and the issue of crime really coming out as a potent issue in this campaign, it has some Republicans maybe thinking that he can pull off the upset.
Is it likely that a debate or a moment from a debate could change the trajectory of the race?
Well, I like what you said there in terms of moment from a debate because in today's landscape, a moment from a debate can go very, very viral and that can be more potent than an entire debate itself. I mean, this isn't a presidential debate where you have the entire country watching, seemingly, I mean, this is a gubernatorial debate. It's not going to garner as much attention. However, it is an opportunity for both sides to make themselves known to New York voters. I mean, Kathy Hochul, has not been elected before. She's trying to become elected for the first time. Obviously, she's been a governor for more than a year at this point. So, she is better known, but she still has some work to do to introduce herself to some corners of the state that have not cast the ballot for her before. Lee Zeldin, it's his opportunity to make his policy known and he is certainly going to go very, very heavy on issues of crime and inflation, which polls show are on the minds of voters right now. And it's really what he's based his entire campaign on.
Hochul’s predecessor Andrew Cuomo was not a great fan of doing debates. People will remember in 2014, he took part in one with a number of other candidates also on the stage in addition to the Republican, but that won't be the case this time, right?
Yeah, absolutely. And there's only two candidates on the ballot this year, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but the requirements for getting on the ballot became tougher in this race. So, you're not going to have a Green Party candidate on the ballot. You're not going to have a Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot. So, they are not part of this debate today. Now, those candidates are running write-in campaigns, but you're not going to have the kind of crowded stage that you had in 2014 and 2010, when it was Governor Cuomo and a number of third-party candidates and the Republican candidate and that served to have the major party candidates speak less, quite frankly, during the debate. So, this is just a one-on-one debate and the race in November is just a one-on-one race aside from the write-in candidates, Howie Hawkins on the Green Party and Larry Sharp on the on the Libertarian Party.
Now, you mentioned crime and the economy, which are targets for Zeldin to talk about. What is Kathy Hochul likely to focus on as she goes after Zeldin?
Well, at this point, I think Governor Hochul has to focus a little bit more on crime and you've seen that in recent days. You've seen her have an event in New York City where she announced more cops would be in the subway stations and yesterday, she had an event in Albany on the Red Flag Law, which allows judges to temporarily rescind guns from somebody who's a danger to themselves or others. So, you're certainly going to see her tout her efforts on crime as it relates to tougher gun laws, which are generally pretty popular in New York's electorate, and you'll also see her talk about Lee Zeldin’s record on abortion. Lee Zeldin is generally pro-life. He has made comments during the campaign about maybe having a pro-life health commissioner and you'll see her also bring up repeatedly, Lee Zeldin’s record on January 6. He voted against certifying the election in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He is a member of Congress from Long Island, and in his record on democracy issues in that that lens is going to be a major part of Kathy Hochul’s debate strategy, because it's been a major part of her campaign message this far.
I think it's fair to say Hochul’s not known as a great orator. What do we know about her debating style from previous runs for LG and Congress?
Well, we did see her debate in the primary. She did debate twice in the in the Democratic primary against Tom Suozzi and Jumaane Williams, and she did try to, kind of, she mostly tried to stay above the fray, right? She was an incumbent and when you're the incumbent, you don't want to, unless you're say, worried about your polling numbers, you don't want to get in the muck and fight so to speak. And generally speaking, she did try to stay above the fray, but she did. She got her shots in when she could, you know, I mean, she was critical of Tom Suozzi during those debates and did become aggressive with him on certain things but it was it was a targeted approach. So, I mean her major thing going into this debate tonight is she can't let Lee Zeldin get under her skin. And that is generally what challengers tried to do with incumbents, they try to needle and poke and prod and it's up to the incumbent to try to stay above it all. So, I think we'll see some of that but at this point with the trends that we've seen in the polling, I mean, she will likely mix it up at some point because she has to quite frankly. So, I think you'll see I think you'll see a combative debate. I think both sides want to be a little combative here and highlight the differences, the many differences in their platforms.
