Politics newsletter: Upcoming Hochul, Blakeman campaign finance numbers may say a lot

We’re about to get a big dose of political fund-raising numbers and they can tell you a lot about the upcoming campaign homestretch.

This Friday, every candidate in New York, from Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican rival Bruce Blakeman on down the ballot, must submit campaign-fundraising reports with the State Board of Elections.

These documents reveal granular details about donations and gifts, commercials, mailers, lawn signs and such and money sitting in the bank.

In the governor’s race, it will tell you how much each candidate has been able to spend on television, who are their biggest donors and how much each has to spend on the all-important homestretch.

We’ll also likely find out if big-pocketed opponents of Hochul have raised a ton of money to help Blakeman through so-called Super PACs or political-action committees, which have few restrictions on the use of money.

Blakeman isn’t expected to come close to matching Hochul’s fund-raising prowess but his allies could help close the gap. In the July filings, Hochul had reported having $21 million in her campaign account and the Democratic State Committee reported it held $16 million, far beyond the $6 million Blakeman and the state GOP had.

In the State Senate and Assembly, the parties will shine a light on which contests they think are the most competitive.

It can sound like so much accounting class: Transfers in, Transfers out, In-kind contributions (which are non-monetary gifts like free use of a private airplane) and the dry sounding “Schedule R,” which is the piece of paper that tells you on which districts the parties are spending their money.

But it does matter. And that’s why Newsday will be reporting frequently about it in the coming days.

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy