LARRY KUDLOW: If Blakeman takes down Hochul, that means knocking out Mamdani too

The reason the Bruce Blakeman-Kathy Hochul race for governor is so important, is because a Blakeman victory will not only knock out a far-left blue state governor, it will also knock down New York’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

In other words, if you take down Mrs. Hochul, you basically call a halt to all of the damage, be it antisemitism, woke culture, insane tax increases, of course the pied-à-terre tax, and all of the other crazy stuff Mr. Mamdani and his merry band of Democratic Socialists of America are trying to inflict on what should be the greatest city in America and the world. That’s why it’s a crucial race. And from my perspective, having watched last night’s Blakeman-Hochul debate, I thought the Nassau County executive, Mr. Blakeman clocked Governor Hochul time and again.

She was running against President Trump. Mr. Blakeman was running against Mrs. Hochul and Mr. Mamdani. As Mr. Blakeman put it: "when you talk about Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, that’s all you can talk about because you have a record of failure and misery for the people who live in this state." Mrs. Hochul replied:  "I do not wrap myself in the shroud of Donald Trump the way you did." Mr. Blakeman’s riposte: "No, you wrap it in Zohran Mamdani."

Mr. Blakeman hammered away on high taxes, big utility bills, and Mrs. Hochul’s attempt to stop AI data centers, which by the way would hand the AI race to Communist China. She prevaricated a number of times on huge increases on state taxes and spending and state corruption.

And I want to give a shout out to Mr. Blakeman who several times said, let’s drill and pipeline natural gas sitting on top of the Marcellus Shale as the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania has done, which has lowered utility costs over there and made them high here. He wouldn’t relent on that. 

And at one point, Mrs. Hochul just said, oh, you want to build oil wells everywhere, you want build oil wells everywhere, which I thought was pathetic. Mr. Blakeman, too, hammered away on New York’s sanctuary state and city policies, causing more criminal violence from Mrs. Hochul’s soft-on-crime policies, and her soft-on-immigration policies.

And Mr. Blakeman threw two haymakers at the governor. First, the Cornell sexual misconduct allegations where the governor did nothing, though she was a trustee of Cornell. 

As he put it: "what I have to say to you, Kathy, is as follows. Where were you? What did you do? You were the trustee of Cornell University. You were the governor of the state. You fund Cornell University to the tune of $150 million a year." He added that "they’re a partner of the state of New York and as a trustee and as governor, you didn’t call for an independent investigation when you found out that the district attorney was dropping the case."

The second was right near the end of the debate. Mr. Blakeman absolutely put the wood to Mrs. Hochul’s friend, Mr. Mamdani, and his rampant antisemitism by saying this: "Zohran Mamdani is an antisemite. The first thing he did as mayor, with all the issues that face New York City, the first thing he did was sign an executive order to water down the definition of anti-Semitism. Shame on you, mayor. You are campaigning around the state with a guy who doesn’t believe in American values. "

Mr. Blakeman averred that "I think Zohran Mamdani is an antisemite. I believe he’s anti-Christian. And I don’t think he has American values." We’ll see what the next round of polls bring. That’s still important, but right now I actually think it would advantage Blakeman.