Bruce Blakeman, now the 2026 GOP candidate for governor, offers New York a refreshingly commonsense agenda with real hope to reverse the state’s long decline.
The Nassau County exec is a perfect contrast to Gov. Kathy Hochul: a straight-shooting, practical leader who puts truth and principle ahead of political convenience.
That’s Hochul’s central failing, of course: Even when she knows better, she gives in to progressives’ pro-crime, anti-family, pro-tax, anti-business agenda.
Her hapless “climate” agenda alone is a bane on affordability for residents and businesses alike; her big idea for growing the economy is corporate-welfare deals that require billions in subsidies and still may never pay off.
The exodus from New York is accelerating on her watch; the state will likely lose two House seats in 2030 unless new leadership puts an end to the far-left policies she only tries to ameliorate.
Blakeman is a staunch advocate for law and order; under his stewardship Nassau County was named the safest county in America by US News and World Report.
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He added 600 new law-enforcement officers to patrol the county’s neighborhoods and has enthusiastically partnered with ICE to remove criminal illegal aliens.
Less than a decade ago, MS-13 was running wild in Nassau, waging a gang war and murdering teenagers who wouldn’t join up.
Yet Hochul is attacking Nassau’s successful work with ICE with her proposed “Local Cops, Local Crimes Act,” which would ban local cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
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Despite state-level misrule, Nassau County is growing on Blakeman’s watch; he has passed responsible budgets without hiking property or sales taxes and canceled $150 million in scheduled property-tax increases.
Hochul, by contrast, has extended taxes that were set to expire, not to mention the “congestion” tolls she’s so proudly imposed in the city — and more tax hikes and new fees are ahead now that she’s bowing to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda, even if she’s likely to put off the worst until she’s won re-election and no longer has to worry what the voters think.
Blakeman is a tested politician who leads a large, diverse and majority-Democrat county, where he won twice, most recently last November, when he significantly improved his margin of victory.
He has the depth of experience and downstate political sophistication needed to govern New York, and the common-sense principles to lead it in the right direction.
The alternative — another four years of Kathy Hochul’s split-the-difference declinism — is a guarantee of ever-growing misery.