Trending
LAKEWOOD--Let's pick up where we left off three weeks ago.
No one needs to explain to New York gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman that he and his team need to run hard through the tape on Election Day. They're doing that.
Hence the Oct. 28 whistle-stop tour across the Southern Tier from Owego to Elmira to Hornell to Olean to Lakewood.
Not every candidate can be passionate without being--or at least coming off as--angry.
Blakeman can do it. He did it in Lakewood.
It would be rare for a red candidate to be the favorite in a statewide election in a dark blue state such as New York, especially when the president is a Republican, no matter who the president is.
Everyone should know Blakeman isn't the favorite. Yet under the circumstances--principally an unpopular incumbent and a state that's in trouble--Blakeman can win.
If.
If those who are with him on issues vote for him in a big turnout.
New York has 62 counties. Blakeman will win more than 50. To prevail statewide, however, he needs to win them overwhelmingly with a big turnout.
Just to pick an extreme example, it won't cut it for him to win Chautauqua County with a low turnout and a percentage of the vote in the low 50s.
It will take much, much more than that here.
* * *
To that end, Blakeman, in what was obviously a well-honed stump speech--which is crucial for a candidate such as Blakeman to have--presented an enthusiastic Lakewood crowd with issue after issue of importance to all of New York. Among them:
● Utility rates are higher in New York, because it doesn't use its natural-gas reserves and because of the "green-energy scam" promoting wind turbines and solar farms. "I'm going to drill, baby, drill."
● Crime is up, because of (1) cashless bail, which leads to gangs recruiting 16-year-olds to commit big-time crimes with no consequences and (2) incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul's not wanting to cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
● New York needs to hire back corrections officers.
● New York is a sanctuary state, a status Blakeman promised to end on his first day in office.
● Hochul has put illegal migrants in luxury hotels.
● He cited national Democrat leaders of decades ago who he said loved America. "Not this crew."
● In official business, the state no longer refers to a mother and a father but to a "gestating parent" and a "non-gestating parent." "The Ten Commandments say, 'Honor thy father and thy mother,' not thy gestating parent and nongestating parent," and
● The one million gun owners who didn't vote in the 2022 gubernatorial election need to vote this time.
* * *
Now it's in voters' hands, where it belongs in a republic.
Yet for a good laugh, please re-read the paragraph about parents and consider this: If you were trying to think of something that you might somehow hope New York's powers-that-be might do and thereby make themselves look silly, would you have even thought of changing "mother and father" to "gestating and non-gestating parent"?
You probably never would have thought of that. As the saying goes, "You can't make this stuff up." Actually, the word isn't "stuff," but this is a family newspaper, so let's keep it that way.
New York's powers-that-be, rather than being silly, are serious about this.
Nevertheless, this is so (fill in the blank) that one really can't help laughing at them.
* * *
Meanwhile, Blakeman needs more than a victory for himself. As low as Republicans' numbers are in the state Senate and Assembly, it would take an electoral earthquake for the GOP to take back either chamber, much less both chambers, in 2026. No such earthquake is in the offing, and nothing analogous to the San Andreas fault runs through New York.
Yet Republicans can make Blakeman's gubernatorial vetoes stick if they have one-third plus one of the seats in either house of the state Legislature.
They're currently below that threshold in the state Assembly, but in the state Senate, they're currently at 22 of 61, which would be just enough to prevent Democrats from overriding any Blakeman veto.
If Republicans win 22 or more state-Senate seats on Election Day, they'll be able to make any Blakeman veto stick. For the next two years, that will change what New York State government does.
Of course, the same is true if Republicans win 51 or more of the 150 state-Assembly seats. Yet with the GOP currently at only 47, that's a taller order.
* * *
Randy Elf explored seeking the Republican and Conservative nominations for New York attorney general in 2018.
COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF