Hochul-Blakeman debate: The takeaways

Say this for the debate between Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican rival, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman: It didn’t descend into name-calling, bullying or accusations of corruption that seemed to have marked many past New York gubernatorial debates.

Aggressive, sure, but at moments polite.

But that doesn’t mean the one-hour forum didn’t provide New York voters with sharp contrasts heading into Election Day.

Here are some takeaways from the lone gubernatorial debate of 2026.

Contrasting pictures of New York

It's ICE agents running rampant across New York. Or it's immigrants here illegally running rampant. It's an epidemic of crime. Or the lowest crime rate in a generation. It's the worst taxed state. Or one of the fastest growing economies. It's billions more in spending. Or a middle-class tax cut.

Hochul, the five-year incumbent, and Blakeman, sure presented sharply different views of the Empire State these days. In doing so, each echoed campaign themes.

Blakeman presented a state that’s enduring high crime, but sought to link it primarily to people in the country illegally and blame Hochul for backing a range of protections for migrants, including banning formal 287(g) cooperation agreements between police agencies and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

He also referred to retail theft rings and expressed disgust at visiting a drugstore and having to "unlock a glass door to buy a bottle of shampoo in New York state."

Hochul noted shootings and other major crimes are down in New York City and most of the state.

"That didn’t come easy," she said. "We had to change laws. We had to spend money."

Blakeman correctly noted New York is a high-tax state. Hochul noted New York has the fastest growing economy among states, at least for the second-quarter of 2026.

Blakeman noted state spending has risen under the governor, but Hochul pointed out she hasn’t raised income-tax rates and implemented a middle-class tax cut.

Trump was everywhere; Mamdani less so

From the jump, President Donald Trump was a chief topic of debate, as expected.

Given Trump has low approval ratings in New York, Hochul sought to tie Blakeman to a range of Trump policies, from tariffs on Canada to the war in Iran to a backlog of green energy projects.

At last week’s Blakeman-Trump rally in Syracuse, Hochul noted Tuesday evening: "You were screaming, at the top of your lungs, ‘We love Donald Trump.’ "

"At a rally ... you say things to get a crowd worked up," Blakeman said.

But he pivoted in a couple of ways Tuesday evening. First, Blakeman noted he differs with Trump by supporting abortion rights and a "guest worker" program for migrants who have been in the U.S. for seven years or more and are gainfully employed with no legal issues.

Second, he said Hochul keeps harping on Trump because she can’t defend her record on taxes and high prices.

"Trump. Trump. Trump. That’s all you can say," Blakeman said.

But the other main surrogate of this campaign? New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani? No mention of him until almost 45 minutes in.

Blakeman repeatedly has sought to link Hochul to the mayor, a self-described Democratic socialist, and has sent reams of related campaign literature to voters. But he didn’t mention Mamdani until a debate moderator asked him about a recent New York Times story in which Blakeman told Jewish leaders that, under Mamdani, the NYPD wouldn’t respond if there were riots in their community.

Only then did Blakeman jump on the topic, avoiding the question by calling the mayor antisemitic.

Data centers, upstate land

When it comes to a vision for the future, data centers provided another sharp difference.

Hochul proudly touted her one-year moratorium on the building of new ones, saying the state needed to study the potential impacts on water and energy and devise a set of benefits for host communities. She said towns and counties didn’t have the capacity to handle some of the infrastructure questions and negotiate terms with mega corporations.

The governor also attacked Blakeman for his support of natural gas drilling.

"He wants data centers using our rare farmland," Hochul said. Then, turning to Blakeman, she added: "You want oil and gas rigs all over upstate New York. You want smokestacks everywhere."

Blakeman readily acknowledged he would reverse a ban on drilling, saying neighboring Pennsylvania has reaped benefits from the drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation, which extends from the Pennsylvania border to the Binghampton area.

As for upstate land use, Blakeman said Hochul wants to crowd out dairy and traditional farms with solar-panel farms.

He also said he opposes a statewide data-center moratorium because communities should have the right to decide for themselves, and Hochul was implying upstate residents weren’t sophisticated.

"With respect to upstate people, you took away their right to make decisions. You took that right away with the ban," Blakeman told the governor. "They have something you don’t have — common sense and good judgment."

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy