New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman will square off in their lone debate Tuesday night, marking the only chance voters will get to hear from both on the same stage before heading to the polls.
The hourlong debate, moderated by political anchors Erroll Louis and Susan Arbetter, will begin at 7 p.m. and air on NY1 and other Spectrum News channels across the state, as well as their YouTube pages.
The event comes three weeks before the Nov. 3 election. It marks a chance for Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, to make her case for reelection directly to New Yorkers as public polls show her with a comfortable — but far from insurmountable — lead.
For Blakeman, it’s the Nassau County executive’s best opportunity to sell his competing vision for the state and try to score a viral moment that could give his candidacy a last-minute boost. It comes as his campaign deals with a cash shortage that could make it difficult to keep his ads in rotation in the final stretch before Election Day.
The debate comes as polls show most voters have already made up their minds.
A Marist University poll found Hochul with a 53%-42% lead last week, with just 5% of voters saying they were undecided. Of those supporting Hochul or Blakeman, only 2% said they would be open to switching their vote before Election Day.
”There's not that many persuadable voters out there, not that many undecided voters,” said Marist pollster Lee Miringoff. “But what [a debate] does is it gets to the heart of the motivation factor. So if you're each candidate, you want to tell your voters, your base, how important this election is because electing the other party is just a prescription for disaster.”
The governor is hoping to perform better than she did in 2022, when she defeated Republican Lee Zeldin by 5.5 percentage points. That relatively narrow margin in a deep blue state helped Republican candidates win a handful of key congressional seats in New York and take control of the House of Representatives.
Hochul and Blakeman have both leaned on stars of their respective parties in hopes of boosting turnout among their partisan supporters this time around.
Hochul appeared at a Fishkill farm with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last week, where they touted the governor’s one-year moratorium on new data center construction — an issue where the moderate governor and progressive lawmaker share common ground. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has also said he has offered to hit the campaign trail for Hochul in the closing weeks.
Blakeman, on the other hand, held a rally Friday with President Donald Trump in Syracuse, a move designed to motivate the Republican base in much of upstate New York.
Both could be considered risky maneuvers.
Hochul’s campaign has repeatedly reminded New York voters of Blakeman’s friendship with Trump, who had a job approval rating of just 39% in the Empire State in the Marist poll last week. That includes blanketing the airwaves with ads showing Trump and Blakeman together, with the latter saying he will never be “disloyal” to the Republican president.
Blakeman has tried a similar tactic with Hochul and socialist politicians including Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, both of whom are supporting the Democratic governor. He’s banking on voters in the suburbs and upstate — many of whom are wary of socialism, polls show — being turned off by the association.
“ Governor Hochul, if she’s well-briefed, will say the word Trump and Blakeman as if they were running mates,” Miringoff said. “And for Blakeman, it's just the opposite. He's got to be talking about AOC and Mamdani as of New York state and New York City Democratic politics.”
Both gubernatorial candidates, meanwhile, have tried to position themselves as champions of making New York more affordable, all while pointing the finger at each other for driving up costs in the first place.
Blakeman has centered his campaign on a vow to dramatically cut income taxes and utility rates, blaming Hochul for escalating electric bills that have put a squeeze on New York voters.
Hochul, in turn, has touted her administration’s efforts to expand childcare subsidies and send energy rebate checks directly to New Yorkers, all while criticizing Blakeman for failing to fight Trump’s tariffs on international trade.
The 10-day early voting period begins Oct. 24 across the state.
