The confetti still fell at her Democratic primary victory celebration Tuesday night when Gov. Kathy Hochul has rolled out a general election warning: If her Republican opponent wins in November, he could follow the example of the Supreme Court and curtail New Yorkers’ abortion rights.
But in his own victory speech, that Republican opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, didn’t have a single word to say about the Roe v. Waden decision. Just days after praising the ruling, Mr Zeldin instead continued to criticize Ms Hochul’s handling of crime, inflation and the pandemic.
With New York entering what may be the most competitive general election the Empire State has seen in two decades, their divergent approaches were no accident.
To win in New York, a state where Democrats are two-to-one bigger than Republicans, Mr. Zeldin must reach far beyond his conservative base and present himself as a common-sense alternative in an effort to appeal to political independents. and Democrats concerned about public safety and rising costs of living.
To stop him, Ms. Hochul is determined to convince those same voters that Mr. Zeldin’s views are far more extreme than he shows — especially when it comes to a woman’s right to an abortion.
“This is no ordinary Republican,” Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, said Wednesday morning on NY1 shortly before rolling out a new website that called Mr. Zeldin a figure from the “extreme fringe.”
“He also supports taking away women’s right to choose,” she said. “This is New York.”
Indeed, the problem has the potential to be extraordinarily powerful in a state like New York, which in 1970 became only the second in the nation to broadly legalize abortion. Since then, New Yorkers have never elected a governor who opposes legalized abortion, and they continue to overwhelmingly support abortion rights.
An average of recent polls, calculated by The New York Times before the Dobbs decision, showed that about 63 percent of adult New Yorkers think abortion should be legal, compared with 32 percent who don’t. Only seven states, and the District of Columbia, were more supportive.
Mr. Zeldin, a conservative four-year congressman from Long Island, has been a trusted voice to limit access to abortion and to ban federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood. I contributed to legislation that, with few exceptions, would federally ban abortions after 20 weeks and criminalize doctors who violate them. Those positions have earned him the highest marks among anti-abortion groups.
Just days before a draft of the Dobbs decision leaked out this spring, Mr. Zeldin told New York’s Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, that he was in favor of appointing a state public health commissioner who “respects life unlike what we’re used to,” according to a recording of the event obtained by NY1.
Key Results in New York’s 2022 Primary Elections
On June 28, New York held several primaries for statewide office, including governor and lieutenant governor. Some districts of the State Assembly also had primaries.
“If a Republican wants to win in New York, you have to have the straight flush, a perfect campaign,” said Thomas Doherty, a top aid to the former administration. George E. Pataki, a Republican, who suggested that Mr. Zeldin may have made costly missteps by putting forward his anti-abortion views.
“I don’t know what Zeldin was thinking, except maybe he had a problem in the primaries,” Mr. Doherty said.
Mr. Zeldin’s allies argue that Democrats are vastly overestimating how much daily voters will care about the abortion issue in November, especially at a time when many New Yorkers fear public safety and struggle to make ends meet amid rising rent, gas and message.
Those issues helped drive Republicans to victory on the Democrat-friendly turf in Virginia, New Jersey, and parts of New York last year. In New York, polls consistently show voters believe the state — and the country — is headed in the wrong direction, views that Mr Zeldin, a lawyer and military veteran, hopes can help lead him to victory.
“The Democrats are pushing this abortion debate because they’ve failed so miserably in the other areas that they don’t want to talk about it,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County Republican director who upset a sitting Democratic leader last November. In addition, I have argued that many voters agree with Mr Zeldin’s abortion stance.
“The fact that he may be stricter than others regarding abortion is his personal choice,” Blakeman added.
Mr Zeldin himself you have repeatedly tried to emphasize That the governor has limited power to change New York’s abortion laws, especially given Democrats’ strong hold on the Albany legislature and a 2019 law codifying federal protections in case Roe were ever overturned.
“New York has already codified a lot more than what Roe has provided, so the law in New York State is exactly the same the day after the Supreme Court decision is released,” said Mr. Zeldin in a recent interview with The New York Times. (His spokeswoman has not returned a request for comment on this story.)
But, as Ms. Hochul showed by launching an advertising campaign to clarify New Yorkers’ abortion rights and spending $35 million in state funds to promote abortion access, the governor has wide discretion to determine the state’s status as an abortionist. interpret, enforce and reinforce. Safe haven.
Now if Mr. Zeldin may be trying to sidestep the abortion issue while he finds himself in a general election battle, he has made no secret of his views in recent months.
When the Supreme Court made its decision last week, breaking nearly 50 years of precedent, the congressman celebrated as “a victory for life, for the family, for the constitution and for federalism” and shared his own experience as a parent of twin daughters who were born more than 14 weeks prematurely.
“In a state that has legalized late partial birth abortion and non-physician abortionists, in a state that refuses informed consent and parental consent, and where not enough is being done to promote adoption and support mothers, is still a reminder today that New York clearly needs to do a much better job of promoting, respecting and defending life,” he said in a statement.
The issue is undoubtedly difficult for Republicans to navigate in New York, where primary voters prefer more socially conservative candidates, but the general electorate leans more to the left. However, the views of Mr. Zeldin differs from other members of his own party who have successfully won state office in New York in recent decades, such as Mr. Pataki, who was last elected in 2002.
While Mr. Pataki was still in office, his political staff conducted a poll asking voters for their views on abortion. The results showed that about a third of voters believed Mr. Pataki was for abortion rights, about a third were against, and the rest said they had no idea.
The governor and his aides were pleased.
Mr. Pataki was in fact an advocate of a woman’s right to choose. But the poll suggested he had managed to pull a sticky needle for a Republican in a state where its major voters were against abortion, but the vast majority of residents believe women have the right to terminate a pregnancy. The model helped Mr. Pataki win three terms.
Awash with millions of dollars to spend on campaign ads, Ms. Hochul and her Democratic allies make no attempt to hide their strategy. They are willing to go after Mr. Zeldin not only for abortion, but also for his views on gun restrictions and support for former President Donald J. Trump, including a vote to reverse the 2020 election results in key states.
“You have an extremist view of Lee Zeldin, and we’re not going to keep that a secret,” said Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party. “Voters need to know what they’re buying.”
Diana Rubinstein and Jesse McKinley reporting contributed.