Tough New York election holds lessons for Republicans and Democrats alike

With a few races still up in the air Wednesday, New Yorkers were parsing returns and finding signs of both Democratic resilience and some surprising Republican gains.
Tuesday’s most consequential result was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory over her Republican opponent, Rep. Lee Zeldin, who ran a spirited campaign but fell short.
“This race was a once-in-a-generation campaign with a very close margin in the bluest of blue states,” Zeldin said in a concession Wednesday afternoon.
Indeed, in a state where they are outnumbered regered Democrats more than 2-1, Republicans posted their strongest statewide performance in decades, using crime and inflation to outrun their party’s performance nationally. With the vast majority of the votes counted, Hochul’s margin looked more like that of a governor of a hotly contested swing state than deep blue New York.
Republicans picked up several congressional seats, including a shocking upset of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democrats’ House campaign arm, as postelection analysis had already begun.
The Democratic streak continues, despite Republicans’ wishful thinking — and heavy spending.
Republicans haven’t won a statewide race since 2002, but had visions that Zeldin — a conservative and friend of Donald Trump who focused on crime and inflation — would break that streak. But Hochul ran up the score in New York City — the mother lode of Democratic votes. She rode out Zeldin’s stronger showing on Long Island, his home turf, and in other suburban and upstate areas.
Republicans also had hopes for down-ballot candidates such as Joseph Pinion, a television commentator challenging Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Michael Henry, a Queens attorney facing Attorney General Letitia James. Neither Pinion nor Henry managed to make either race close. Schumer’s race was called right after polls closed in Brooklyn — his and James’ home borough.
Hochul’s win came after a deep-pocketed campaign and despite millions in outside spending on Zeldin’s behalf. The contest proved yet again that the biggest winners in statewide races may well be the consultants and other political professionals who work on campaigns.
 
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), right, celebrates with her family at an Election Night watch party in New York. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)
No wave, but surf was up for many Republican congressional campaigns.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the self-styled “Ultra MAGA” upstate member of Congress who is the third-ranking Republican in the House, had confidently predicted a “red tsunami,” saying her party could take 15 of the state’s 26 congressional seats in the next Congress. That big wave, however, didn’t swell, as control of the House remained uncertain Wednesday, and a haul of 15 Republican seats in New York seemed mathematically impossible.
Republicans — who currently hold eight seats in New York — did make concrete gains, including a signature win for Assembly member Mike Lawler, who knocked out Maloney in the 17th Congressional Drict, in the suburbs north of New York City.
Republicans also picked up seats on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, where Marc Molinaro, a former Republican candidate for governor, was declared the winner The Associated Press in the 19th Congressional Drict, after losing a special election in August to Democrat Pat Ryan. Thanks to the state’s tortured redricting process, Ryan then ran — and was leading — in the adjacent 18th Congressional Drict, although the race had not been called.
Also still unknown was the winner in the 22nd Congressional Drict, a light-blue area: Brandon Williams, a first-time Republican candidate, had a slim lead over Francis Conole.
Hochul made hory but may have to work with a smaller Democratic majority.
Hochul, who became governor last year after the resignation of Andrew Cuomo, became the first woman to be elected governor of New York, ending a nearly 250-year-long streak of men in the governor’s mansion. (Symbolically, that is: The supposedly haunted house became the home of chief executives only in the 1870s.)
Hochul acknowledged that milestone in her acceptance speech Tuesday night in lower Manhattan.
“I have felt the weight on my shoulders to make sure that every little girl and all the women of the state, who have had to bang up against glass ceilings everywhere they turn, to know that a woman could be elected in her own right,” she said. “And successfully govern a state as rough and tumble as New York.”
Still, Hochul’s coattails did not extend far: While some key races were still too close to call, Democrats were clinging to supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, with Senate Republicans gaining seats on Long Island and the Hudson Valley, and Assembly Republicans scoring wins in southern Brooklyn.
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks to supporters at an Election Night watch party in New York. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)
Victory has a thousand fathers. Underperformance is someone’s fault.
Hochul praised unions for helping her pull out her win, and sure enough, unions like Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union said they had hundreds of members out knocking on doors in the last two days of the race, as well as working the phones.
On Wednesday morning, several other groups were lining up to take credit, including the Working Families Party, a labor-backed organization that some said made up for a weak ground game the governor’s team.
“In a moment of panic, where a $30mil campaign failed to do basic engagement, and the biggest county Dem party had lost legitimacy, WFP had clarity, clout and trust to energize and mobilize boots on the ground,” Sandy Nurse, a left-leaning Democrat who represents Brooklyn on the New York City Council, wrote on Twitter.
Some Democrats were deeply unhappy with the party’s congressional losses and other mediocre showings. They sought culprits, including Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, whom some Republicans, including Zeldin, cited as an ally on the issue of crime. Others criticized state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called — again — for his resignation Wednesday.
Crime may not have helped Zeldin, but it might have propelled Republicans in the suburbs.
Republicans had a big night on Long Island, sweeping four seats, including two in Nassau County vacated retiring Democrats: the 3rd Congressional Drict, where George Santos, a financier who attended the Jan. 6 riot, defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman, and the 4th Congressional Drict, where Anthony D’Esposito was declared the winner over Laura Gillen. Two seats including Suffolk County were also safely in Republican hands, including the one vacated Zeldin.
Those suburbs fall within the television — and tabloid — market of New York City, which has been flooded tales of murder and mayhem in streets and subways, many of which were amplified Republican candidates.
It also seems likely that the 2019 bail reform law, which eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, could remain a potential campaign issue for law-and-order candidates in future election cycles.
Oh, yes, there were also other things on the ballot.
In one of the least stressful races, voters overwhelmingly approved the largest environmental bond issue in New York’s hory, authorizing Albany to borrow up to $4.2 billion to clean up the environment, reshape infrastructure for climate change and reduce fossil-fuel emissions.
Voters fill out ballots at a polling location in the Ritchie Coliseum at the University of Maryland, in College Park. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The New York Times)
The measure allows the state to spend up to $1.5 billion to curb greenhouse-gas emissions as well as millions of dollars to reduce flooding, restore wetlands, conserve open space and build resilient infrastructure; 35% must be spent in disadvantaged communities.
Such a vote could have gotten a boost from the unseasonable weather: The week ending Nov. 7 was the hottest on those dates since record-keeping began in 1869, measured averaging the week’s daily high temperatures.
The Associated Press also declared that three New York City measures designed to foster racial and economic equity had passed: one amending the City Charter with a “statement of values” calling for a “just and equitable city for all”; another creating an office to require and monitor “racial equity plans” from every city agency; and a third creating a new “true cost of living” measurement.