{"id":280578,"date":"2026-06-28T18:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/280578\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:29:18","slug":"gops-bruce-blakeman-blasts-dangerous-mamdani-hochul-in-pitch-to-moderates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/280578\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP’s Bruce Blakeman blasts ‘dangerous’ Mamdani, Hochul in pitch to moderates"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman <\/a>blasted Gov. Kathy Hochul for enabling Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u2014 calling the pair \u201cdangerous\u201d as he said New Yorkers should vote for him to restore sanity to the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to save this state is to support my campaign this year, because left-wing lunatics \u2026 the Zohran Mamdani wing of the Democratic Party \u2014 these people hate America,\u201d Blakeman said during an interview <\/a>that aired Sunday on 77 WABC radio\u2019s the \u201cCats Roundtable\u201d program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are danger to our state,\u201d said Blakeman, who is currently serving his second term as the Nassau County executive. \u201cThey are danger to our country. And they\u2019ve got to be stopped,\u201d <\/p>\n

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman accused his Gov. Kathy Hochul of enabling Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda. Stefano Giovannini for NY Post<\/p>\n

He lumped Hochul in with Mamdani, a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whom she cozied up to during his 2025 campaign in what critics have blasted as a cynical political ploy to avoid facing a primary challenge during her reelection campaign<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Winston Churchill said: \u2018Communism. Socialism. It\u2019s nothing more than shared misery\u2019\u201d Blakeman told radio host John Catsimatidis. \u201cThat\u2019s what we have now under Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamani.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to make everybody miserable so they don\u2019t know the difference between being happy and being miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blakeman\u2019s red alert came after Mamdani\u2019s slate of democratic socialist and leftist candidates swept <\/a>key Democratic primary House house races in New York last week. The results of the primary could have longstanding ramifications and may shift and reshape the Democratic power structure and policy priorities for years to come.<\/p>\n

Democratic Socialist of America candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat <\/a>in the 13th District in northern Manhattan and the Bronx while former DSA member and city Comptroller Brad Lander took out two-term incumbent Dan Goldman in the 10th District covering lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s cover on the DSA calling out Hochul after candidates backed by Mamdani swept their primary elections.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, DSA member Claire Valdez won a vacant seat in the Brooklyn-Queens 7th District to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez by trouncing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.<\/p>\n

DSA candidates in state legislature races swept but one race to nearly double the movement\u2019s representation in Albany.<\/p>\n

Blakeman blasted New York\u2019s sky high taxes, congestion pricing and electric bills<\/a>, which are 70% higher than the national average, and billions in spending on undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can do for New York state what I did for my county. We need policies that protect New Yorkers \u2026 not giving $8 billion to illegal migrants who haven\u2019t earned a thing. That\u2019s our taxpayer dollars that should be spent on New Yorkers. It\u2019s a disgrace. I will end it on Day One,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Blakeman called Hochul and Mamdani a \u201cdanger to our state.\u201d Matt Roberts\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Blakeman also slammed the city\u2019s just-announced rent freeze on one- and two-year leases<\/a> for 1 million government-regulated apartments. The freeze will discourage maintenance upkeep of apartments and some landlords will walk away from the the properties, which would be converted into public housing run by the \u201cslumlord\u201d new York City Housing Authority, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cZohran Mamdani and Kathy Hochul just imposed a rent freeze. On the surface, if you\u2019re living in an apartment, that sounds like a good thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bad thing about it is that nobody is investing in affordable housing anymore in New York,\u201d Blakeman warned. \u201cThose who have units that are vacant, they\u2019re keeping them vacant because they can\u2019t afford to make capital improvements and repairs. We now have 80,000 vacant units in the City of New York. Landlords, they\u2019re going to give up. They\u2019re going to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blakeman called out the Rent Guidelines Board for approving Mamdani\u2019s plans to freeze the rent on certain rent-controlled apartments. Kevin C. Downs for NY Post<\/p>\n

Blakeman claimed Mamdani and Hochul would \u201ctake everything under the umbrella of the New York City Housing Authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to be living under the New York City Housing Authority, which is the biggest slumlord in the United States of America,\u201d Blakeman said. \u201cThat\u2019s what they want. They want to control your home, your housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republican is still the clear underdog in the campaign. A Siena College poll released last week had Hochul leading Blakeman by 20 points, 52% to 32%, with less than five months until November\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

The Hochul campaign had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman blasted Gov. Kathy Hochul for enabling Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u2014 calling the pair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1626,12246,748,1091,2907,426,57,46937,9,24,55,54,56,13895,87,1211,2780,58,82],"class_list":["post-280578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-communism","tag-congestion-pricing","tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","tag-housing","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-ny-governor-election-2026","tag-politics","tag-socialism","tag-taxes","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}