Democrats kick off statewide rebuke of Bruce Blakeman, launching fight in Mineola

A cheering crowd of Gov. Kathy Hochul supporters rallied outside Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s office on Wednesday morning, kicking off a statewide tour attacking his run for governor dubbed "The Cost of Bruce Blakeman."

Hochul’s running mate, former New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, joined several Nassau Democratic legislators and state Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs at the Mineola event.

Meanwhile, Blakeman held a news conference right after the Democratic event to criticize Hochul for the fact that New York has among the highest electricity costs in the nation.

"We are the most overtaxed, overregulated state in the United States ... New York State utility costs are 70% higher than the national average," he said.

While Republicans have been successful in recent years in appealing to voters on pocketbook issues, rising living costs have presented a political opportunity for Democrats to flip the script.

"Bruce Blakeman isn’t just backing [President Donald] Trump. He is his biggest cheerleader, even as he’s sent prices skyrocketing on everything from gas to groceries," Adams said. "He’s backing Trump tariffs that are hitting New Yorkers very, very hard."

As U.S. gas prices hit their highest point on Tuesday since the war in Iran began — averaging $4.25 per gallon in New York City and $4.12 per gallon on Long Island, according to AAA — Democrats blame Trump.

In a news conference inside the legislative building an hour later, asked by Newsday whether Blakeman supports the president’s foreign policy decisions that have spiked gas prices, he said he backed any efforts to thwart Iran’s military.

"What happens in international affairs concerning whether or not Iran should get a nuclear weapon or not, as we’ve seen on 9/11, I lost my nephew on that day," he said. "If they’re willing to take out 3,000 New Yorkers in a terrorist attack, if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d want to take out 3 million. They have no respect for human life and they hate America."

Neither Iran, nor any Iranians, were involved in the 9/11 terror attacks.

Blakeman slammed Adams as a "far-left candidate" who once supported legislation giving noncitizens the right to vote in New York City elections.

The state’s highest court ruled last year that allowing lawful permanent residents and other non-U.S. citizens to vote violated the state constitution.

Asked by Newsday about the issue, Adams said, "Things evolve, things change ... The vote itself and the aftermath of the vote, the courts took care of that. So my perspective at this point doesn’t even matter."

Jacobs went a step further, telling Newsday, "The governor’s been very clear about that ... We believe that United States citizens are the only ones that have voted, and they’re the only ones that should be voting."

The Nassau GOP won big last November, flipping longtime Democratic strongholds such as Long Beach. Blakeman won by a margin of tens of thousands of Nassau voters.

But unlike November’s local race, Democrats have a fundraising advantage in this year’s statewide election, Jacobs said.

"This is going to be a very different election," he told Newsday. There was a "pervasive, political environment that was against us here in Nassau ... And as it’s turned out ... the city’s running pretty safely and pretty well, and up to this point [Mamdani] has done a good job. That takes the wind and the sails of Republicans who want to use him to attack us."

For his part, Blakeman is counting on the fact  Nassau voters are burdened by high state taxes. County taxpayers send billions more to Albany than they get back, he said on Wednesday.

"We are basically financing New York State operations ... Kathy Hochul talks about affordability. She has made it less affordable," Blakeman said.