NEW YORK, NY — The New York state Governor’s race will have only two candidates on the ballot this fall — for the first time in at least 80 years — following decisive primary wins by four-term lawmaker Rep. Lee Zeldin and incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul. They will now square off against each other in the mid-term elections this fall.
June 28 was voting day for the primary election that saw the Nassau County Congressman, Zeldin, a popular Republican candidate, win with 41.7 percent of the vote. Hochul comfortably won her race with 65.81 percent of the vote.
Lee’s primary victory
Lee was the front-runner in the Republican race and the number one Republican candidate — among four candidates — who led in both polls and fundraising in more than 50 counties. Many Republicans believe that Lee is the only candidate who has the potential to beat incumbent Democrat Gov. Hochul. Some say he may attract some Democratic voters in the November mid-term because Lee worked well with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his four years as a state legislator. Zeldin supported all of the Cuomo’s budget proposals. This became a point of criticism from his intra-Party opponents, for his campaign, voiced by his three Republican opponents — Andrew Giuliani, Bill O’Reilly, and Harry Wilson.
Republican voters see Lee as a veteran of the political scene who combines traditional Republican conservative ideas with a non-extreme center position, and who is both pro-Trump and yet not as young and willful as Giuliani.
Mr. Huang Youxing, President of the New York Fellowship, and a voter from Queens, said that Lee is the most politically attractive of the four Republican candidates in this year’s race.
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Zeldin graduated from Albany Law School and became a lawyer at the age of 23, becoming New York’s youngest attorney at the time. He later served in the U.S. Army for 4 years. In 2006, he was dispatched to Iraq as a member of the U.S. Airborne Division to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 2010. Four years later, he was elected to the 1st Congressional District and has been re-elected four times. Zeldin has told Fox News that he believes he is the only Republican who can defeat Democratic Gov. Hochul this November.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul easily won her bid to run in November with 65.81 percent of the vote. She defeated both of her opponents, Congressman Tom Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
Hochul was promoted from Lieutenant Governor to Governor of New York after former Governor Cuomo was forced to resign due to sex scandals and his performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two days after Cuomo’s resignation, Hochul confirmed that she would run for governor.
She has the support of pro-abortion and LGBT groups, as well as several media outlets. She also enjoys the support of several Democratic clubs and The New York Times. Hochul has many supporters in the establishment Chinese community, including Peter Du, the chief counsel of the Flushing Chinese Business Association, and is also backed by most of New York’s Democratic elected officials and about 400 faith leaders.
By Ouyang Jun, Vision Times.
