{"id":377387,"date":"2026-10-19T23:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377387\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T23:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:38:08","slug":"despite-opponent-bruce-blakemans-constant-attacks-gov-kathy-hochul-opts-not-to-directly-engage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377387\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite opponent Bruce Blakeman’s constant attacks, Gov. Kathy Hochul opts not to directly engage"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the election just about two weeks away, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is continuing her strategy of not directly engaging with opponent Bruce Blakeman.<\/p>\n

The Nassau County executive is taking a different tactic, criticizing the governor whenever he can<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"kramer-6p-pkg-ny-gov-de-wcbsjbmy-hi-res-still.jpg<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul, left, and Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman<\/p>\n

CBS News New York<\/p>\n

Hochul took the stage Monday at an event to herald an expansion of a free 2-K program in New York City<\/a> made possible by her largess and hugged Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n

However, with the election countdown clock ticking away and her ahead in seemingly every poll<\/a>, she never uttered Blakeman’s name. She came as the governor to talk about her free universal childcare program and decided not take off-topic questions.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been laser-focused on making sure that our children have every advantage possible to them and that we finally take a heavy burden off our parents,” Hochul said.<\/p>\n

Blakeman slammed the program as a giveaway.<\/p>\n

“To just give everybody money, I think that’s the wrong thing. We shoudn’t give people money who stay home and don’t take care of their kids,” he said.<\/p>\n

Hochul’s policy of ignoring Blakemen left Mamdani to act as her attack dog.<\/p>\n

“[Blakeman] looks at a program like universal childcare and says that it’s a reward for lazy parents who are going to sit at home and watch the view. That’s the idea, that parents are lazy. I do not even know how you can come to justify that,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

Blakeman rode the subway on Monday, and, following the weekend fatal shooting inside a station in Manhattan<\/a>, took Hochul to task on subway crime.<\/p>\n

“I think that there are a lot of material things we can do to make it safer here in New York and make public transportation safer. Kathy Hochul doesn’t care. She hasn’t tried. She’s pro-criminal,” Blakeman said.<\/p>\n

CBS News New York’s Marcia Kramer asked the governor about the hot-button topic of tax hikes, saying City Council Speaker Julie Menin has said she would support one to pay for future years of universal free childcare expansion.<\/p>\n

“I get opinions on our state budget from 20 million people. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion,” Hochul said. “I know what I have to do as the governor, who will be working on my budget through the fall, and will be announcing what we’re planning the next years. But we’ve already spent $12 billion on childcare already without raising taxes. I’m proud of that.”<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the election just about two weeks away, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is continuing her strategy of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1626,426,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-377387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377387","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=377387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}