Good morning. It's Wednesday. We'll look at how Gov. Kathy Hochul fared in her race and how other races around the state were playing out after an unpredictable Election Day. |
 | | Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times |
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There will be election post-mortems and second-guessing, but the big question is how Gov. Kathy Hochul will appeal to a divided electorate. |
She won a full four-year term, according to The Associated Press, becoming the first woman to be elected governor in New York. The victory was her second footnote in history: She became the state's first female governor when Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace last year and Hochul, who had been his lieutenant governor since 2015, moved up. |
But what had once looked like an easy race for Hochul was no runaway. |
Her Republican challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin, a Long Island congressman who had aligned himself with former President Donald Trump, built his campaign around an almost single-minded focus on crime. And just as Hochul had her eye on footnotes in history, Zeldin hoped to rack up one of his own, as the first Republican to win statewide in decades. |
Hochul's campaign will be analyzed for weeks if not months to come. Could she have run more of a ground game, doing more to campaign in person as the race tightened? Mayor Eric Adams defended her after he voted for her, saying that "she's done an excellent job of reaching out to folks." |
Could she have done more to rebut Zeldin on crime? Adams also defended her on that point. "I think she has really hammered out that message that we are going to create a safe state," he said. But Adams has bucked many fellow Democrats in calling for Albany to revamp the bail law that Zeldin made a centerpiece of his attacks on Hochul. |
Hochul, claiming victory on Tuesday night, acknowledged that voters wanted to feel safer. But she said the results showed that Zeldin's approach was extreme. She said she would "lead with strength and compassion, not with fear and anger." |
She also said that New York would remain "a place where fundamental rights are protected and women can make their own decisions about their bodies" — a reference to Zeldin's opposition to abortion, although he said he would not attempt to limit abortion access in New York despite his personal views. For much of the campaign, Hochul's ads emphasized fears of how Zeldin would erode women's rights and weaken gun safety laws. |
Hochul had 53 percent of the vote, compared with Zeldin's 47 percent, with 90 percent counted, as the suburbs of Long Island and even portions of New York City swung toward Republicans. She was saved by strong turnout in New York City and margins in her hometown, Buffalo. |
As my colleague Nicholas Fandos noted, that trend was apparent across the state, with Republicans poised to end the Democrats' supermajority in the State Senate. One possible consequence could be increased tension in Albany between Hochul and left-leaning Democrats who will still control the Legislature. |
Democrats in other statewide races had an easier time than Hochul did. |
Letitia James, the state attorney general who has won national attention for investigations of former President Donald Trump and Cuomo, won a second term. Thomas DiNapoli breezed to a fifth term as state comptroller. |
Senator Chuck Schumer won a fifth term against the conservative commentator Joe Pinion, according to The Associated Press. Schumer, who was at Hochul's election night event, said that abortion rights, marriage equality and protecting democracy and the right to vote would be his top priorities for the next session of Congress. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand expressed confidence that Schumer could work on a "bipartisan basis" if the Democrats were no longer in the majority. |
Several prominent Democratic incumbents — among them Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens, Representative Jerrold Nadler and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is widely seen as a potential candidate to lead the Democratic caucus, perhaps as soon as next year — breezed to re-election. In a district in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, the Democratic candidate, Dan Goldman, will go to Washington after defeating the Republican Benine Hardman, according to The A.P. |
In the race for Zeldin's House seat on Long Island, Nicholas LaLota, the Republican candidate, led Bridget Fleming, the Democrat in the race. In an adjacent district, the only Long Island incumbent seeking another term, Representative Andrew Garbarino, a Republican, defeated Jackie Gordon, the Democratic candidate, according to The Associated Press. |
The one Republican in the city's House delegation won re-election, according to The A.P. Representative Nicole Malliotakis again defeated Max Rose, the Democrat whom she unseated two years ago. She had largely followed the national Republican playbook, blaming Democrats and, by extension, Rose for inflation and crime. |
She said she had received an "amazing, amazing mandate." Rose said that "one election alone does not define the trajectory of our borough, our city, our state or our country." |
"Let's not kid ourselves," he said. "Democracy is totally messy." |
Voters also approved a $4.2 billion environmental bond issue. It is the largest allocation for environmental protection in the state's history and will let the state invest in modernizing infrastructure to fight the effects of climate change and reduce the risks of flooding. |
Enjoy another sunny day near the mid-50s. At night it's mostly clear, with temps in the mid-40s. |
In effect until Friday (Veterans Day). |
 | | Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times |
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As the door of the subway car I was on started to close, I looked up and saw a cherry blossom tree rushing toward the train. Other people saw it too and held the door. Everyone was rooting for the tree. |
"Come on," said a tall man in an elegant sweater and thin-legged pants. |
"You can do it!" said a woman with a baby. |
Carrying the tree was a 20-something man with Buddy Holly glasses and zippy red sneakers. He charged into the car at the last second. Everyone cheered. |
Good job! some people said. You made it! said others. |
For a minute, the car lit up with energy like a dance party — everyone united in one goal. |
Then things quieted down. The doors opened at the next stop, and half the passengers filed out. |
The tree got off too, with the man in the zippy red sneakers. But left behind on the floor was a carpet of pink petals shimmering in the car's lights. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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