Can Blakeman break the county executive 'curse'?

Daily Point

County execs have run for governor and lost

As Nassau’s Bruce Blakeman runs for governor, he’s trying to become the first county executive in modern times to win the state’s top office. Others tried from time to time, but to no avail. One can only speculate in each case as to why.

"It’s very hard to make the leap from a county to statewide job," said Professor Mitchell Moss of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. "In fact, it may be easier to move from a legislative position to a statewide one because you become involved in issues on a state and federal level," he said.

One possible example: Blakeman’s rival for the GOP nomination next year, Rep. Elise Stefanik, is preferred by the state party organization and better known and better funded. She represents the 21st Congressional District, which runs north and west of Albany to the Canada border to the north and Vermont to the east. She’s in her sixth term, having first been elected in 2014, the same year Blakeman ran for Congress in CD4 and lost to Democrat Kathleen Rice.

In recent decades, county executives who pursued the top state office but lost their party’s primary include Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi from Nassau in 2006 and Democrat-turned-Republican Steve Levy from Suffolk in 2010. In 2014, Republican Rob Astorino of Westchester won the nomination but lost to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the general election. In 2018, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro was the Republican standard-bearer, losing to incumbent Cuomo.

Back in 1984, a previous GOP Westchester executive, Andy O’Rourke, lost the general election to Gov. Mario Cuomo.

The former Democratic House members who served as governor included the late Hugh Carey, first elected in 1974, while incumbent Kathy Hochul, also a former House member who served as lieutenant governor, succeeded Andrew Cuomo when he resigned in 2021, and was elected governor in 2022. She faces reelection next year.

It might mean little given its way early timing, but a Siena Poll of New York State registered voters showed Hochul ahead of Stefanik, by 49% to 30%, and ahead of Blakeman by 50% to 25%. The pollsters noted in releasing their numbers that for Blakeman, "the need to become more known to voters becomes a pressing issue." His name recognition, however, is high in his home county where last month he won reelection to a second term with 56% of the vote against challenger Seth Koslow’s 44%.

Suffolk Republicans, for whom Stefanik headlined a big event over the summer, haven’t exactly been lining up to support Blakeman since he announced for governor. On Nov. 10, Stefanik announced support from nine GOP county executives — including those from Dutchess, Onondaga, Oneida, Orange and Putnam counties. Blakeman is not reported to be active in the New York State Association of Counties.

In Washington, the age of top elected officials has become a topic of discussion given the back-to-back presidencies of Joe Biden, who’s now 83, and Donald Trump, who turns 80 in June. Blakeman is 70, Hochul 67, and Stefanik 41.

But Moss of NYU noted the perception of age has changed in politics. Current candidates for governor, he said, "seem like adolescents" compared to the longest-term incumbents still serving in Washington. As of now, there are 10 members of Congress who are 83 and over. The oldest, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, is 92.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Be well

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Reference Point

Long Island’s wish list of the past

Amid the holiday season decades ago, Long Island twice awaited some hefty gifts — to become the home of the United Nations headquarters and a 200-billion electron-volt proton accelerator.

In 1945, what was then called the United Nations Organization was "having landlord trouble," operating out of a temporary headquarters in London. It was searching for a permanent site, and Long Island was lobbying to be its home. "Long Island may become the capital of the world," the editorial board wrote on Dec. 18, 1945. "If the UNO decides to settle on Long Island, we can expect to be dunked by a wave of prosperity."

The editorial board mulled the odds and decided an East Coast city close to Europe would most likely get the honor of hosting the HQ, and the economic boom of employment, tourism and recreational spending that came with it.

"No other spot in America will quite do. Placing it on Long Island gives the UNO all the advantages of being in the city and the country at the same time. Let’s hope we get it," the board said, adding that New York City was too jammed to be picked.

That wasn’t the case. An $8.5 million donation from John D. Rockefeller Jr. swayed the UNO board to select Manhattan’s East Side and by 1949 headquarters construction began.

Fast forward to 1966, when Long Island was in a "long, hard and smart battle" to be selected by the Atomic Energy Commission to house a 200-billion electron-volt proton accelerator near Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Nationwide, more than 200 communities were under consideration, and Long Island made it to the top six. But on Dec. 17, the region was again let down.

"The fight has been lost," the board wrote, noting that the accelerator would go to a site in Illinois. "Sad as it is to lose the accelerator, we still stand high in consideration when other such devices may be needed."

And that was true. BNL went on to operate the Synchrotron Light Source that contributed to two Nobel Prize projects and heavy ion colliders. Then in 2020, BNL was selected from a national pool to host the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a 2.4-mile-circumference accelerator complex that puts the region at the forefront of nuclear physics research.

More than 60 years later, Long Island’s holiday wish will become reality when the collider is expected to be completed by 2030.

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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