ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's latest ad ends with her looking directly into the camera: "You deserve to feel safe, and as your governor, I won’t stop working until you do."
It's a message that Hochul has been taking to the streets of New York City in the final days of the gubernatorial campaign as she looks to boost turnout in the heavily Democratic city and beat back Republican opponent Lee Zeldin's claim she is soft on crime.
Lawlessness has become the top issue in the last week of the campaign in what polls show is an unexpectedly close race for governor. Hochul is trying to become the state's first woman elected governor as Zeldin looks to be the first Republican elected statewide in 20 years.
"We have been on this issue from the very beginning. And if people think it doesn’t happen unless they see it in a television ad, we’ve had television ads on this back in May and June. So I think there needs to be some clarity," Hochul said of her closing message to voters.
Republicans across the nation contend that Democrats haven't done enough to fight rising crime, and in New York, the debate is heightened by almost daily high-profile incidents in the city. Republicans have centered their attacks on the 2019 decision of New York lawmakers and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to end cash bail for most cases, which opponents said led to a revolving door of criminals headed back on the street.
While state data has shown a low level of recidivism of those released, Zeldin has pointed to a number of cases where a person was released and then accused of committing new crimes. He’s vowed, if elected, to declare a crime emergency and suspend cashless bail.
"There is a crime emergency going on right now in this state, even though Kathy Hochul says there is nothing to see here, look away," Zeldin said Monday in Westchester at a rally with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Public polls have shown the race with Hochul in the lead by as little as 4 percentage points, according to Quinnipiac University, or by 11 points, according to Siena College — which had Hochul's lead at 17 points more than a month ago.
Crime is at the top or near the top of issues that voters are focused on, the polls showed, and Hochul indicated in recent days that she needs to impress upon voters that she's been working on solutions since she took office when Cuomo resigned in August 2021.
She fought to include tougher bail laws in the state budget in April, despite reluctance from the Democratic-led Legislature, and she called lawmakers back to Albany to toughen gun laws after a mass shooting in her hometown of Buffalo and after the Supreme Court tossed New York's century-old concealed carry laws.
"Unfortunately, through billionaire friends of Donald Trump, there has been millions and millions of dollars in dark money spent on independent expenditures to prop up the lie that somehow Lee Zeldin’s crime plan will be the solution. That is false," Hochul said Monday, referring to the $12 million that's come into two Zeldin super PACs largely funded by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder.
Hochul has battled back with her own ads and is more recently getting an infusion of money from unions and other Democratic groups to boost her candidacy in the days before Election Day, Nov. 8.
It's been a multi-pronged message from Democrats: Zeldin opposes abortion rights, has been an ardent Donald Trump supporter and doesn't back gun control that has been at the heart of Hochul's crime-fighting agenda. She's also criticizing Zeldin for saying in a CBS New York interview Sunday that he would support arming teachers in schools.
"What was the most appalling news to come out of this weekend was that Lee Zeldin not only support guns on subways and in places of worships and in our parks and in places like Times Square," Hochul said. "He also now believes that the way to make your kids safer is to make sure that every classroom has a gun in it. Let that sink in."
Amid concerns her campaign didn't make deep enough inroads with city Democrats, she stumped with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie in the Bronx on Tuesday, and was attending a Democratic gala with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Mayor Eric Adams later in the day.
Zeldin on Tuesday will take his campaign to evening rallies in his hometown in Suffolk County and on Staten Island — two moderate areas that he would need to carry to pull an upset. In the city, Hochul is hoping for strong turnout that can overcome any close results in other parts of the state; Zeldin has talked about exceeding 30 percent of the vote in the city as a key to victory.
"Kathy Hochul says she doesn’t understand why it’s so important to me that we lock up criminals," Zeldin contended Monday, referring to Hochul's comments at last week's debate. "And when she says that she doesn’t understand why this is so important to me, she’s saying she doesn’t understand why this is so important to you."
