Long Island Republicans Rally Behind Blakeman at Convention, Still Chasing Albany’s Attention

As New York Republicans convene to select their statewide ticket, their quest for unity confronts demographic realities and a daunting Democratic lead—testing whether law-and-order messaging and promises of fiscal restraint can resonate in a deep-blue state.

From the grand ballroom of a hotel perched above the relentless traffic of the Long Island Expressway, the air hung heavy with purpose—and not a little anxiety. On February 10th, New York’s Republicans gathered on Long Island for their convention, attempting to forge consensus and relevancy in a state that has not elected a GOP governor since George Pataki in 2002. The delegates’ task seemed Sisyphean: to nominate a statewide ticket capable of overcoming a 22-year losing streak, in an electoral environment dominated by Democrats and soured on the national party’s most recognizable brand—Donald J. Trump.

The convention offered Republicans a rare moment in the limelight—a “chance to frame the agenda,” as local pollster Mike Dawidziak put it. Long Island’s own Bruce Blakeman, currently Nassau County Executive, was widely expected to secure the gubernatorial nomination after Congresswoman Elise Stefanik withdrew from contention in December. Yet the race has already had its hiccups. On the convention’s opening day, Blakeman’s intended running mate, Fulton County Sheriff Richard Giardino, bowed out; within hours, Madison County’s Todd Hood was tapped as a replacement, completing what Blakeman’s team called a “proven law-and-order partnership.”

The campaign’s platform is an archipelago of Republican chestnuts: reductions in property taxes, efforts to empower local law enforcement alongside federal immigration officers, and a rollback of environmental regulations seen as driving up energy prices. Blakeman, channelling echoes of another Queens-born leader, declared he wanted to “make people happy again in this state,” lamenting that New York’s glory days were behind it but not lost for good.

These refrains, however, face daunting headwinds. The numbers are stark: New York’s Democratic enrollment sits at 49%, compared to a meagre share for Republicans. The latest Siena Research poll pegs Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s approval rating at 49%—her personal best—and places her 26 points ahead of Blakeman in a hypothetical matchup. Three in five New Yorkers, tellingly, had not heard enough about Blakeman to form an opinion at all.

More concerning for the GOP, the national climate provides little shelter. Donald Trump’s immigration policies, a rallying point for many Republicans, are unpopular even among a majority of the state’s own conservatives, and his overall approval languishes near historic lows in New York. To the extent Blakeman and his running mate seek to make public safety and immigration centrepieces of their pitch—promising to restore order and rein in the “chaos” allegedly spawned by Democratic criminal justice reforms—they risk overplaying a hand that has not aged gracefully in recent Empire State elections.

Nor have Republicans been able to leverage rocketing costs of living, a subject that commands real ire in both Manhattan and upstate hamlets. While blame for pricier energy and eggs is heaped on regulatory overreach in GOP talking points, most New Yorkers equate recent inflation with national, pandemic-era supply cycles, not Albany policymaking. Voters have also shown a tepid appetite for undoing progressive criminal justice measures, despite sporadic headlines about retail theft and subway crime.

Yet the path for a credible opposition is not wholly illusory. As Siena’s Steve Greenberg notes, no party—however dominant—can afford complacency in a state as restive and multidimensional as New York. “It is truly amazing to me,” Greenberg observed, “that in a state where 49% of the enrolled voters are Democrats, in five and a half of the last six presidential elections, the Republican candidate has managed to secure at least 40% of the vote.” Downballot, especially in Nassau and Suffolk counties, GOP gains have perturbed Democrats and supplied the mythos for Blakeman’s campaign.

Can law-and-order talk close the gap?

In this context, Republicans are hoping that a focus on law enforcement—personified by the pairing of two county sheriffs atop their ticket—will resonate with exurban and suburban voters. Nassau, Suffolk, and parts of the lower Hudson Valley have seen Republican inroads in recent cycles, attributed to anxiety over bail reform and perceived urban unrest. Still, these pockets are contour, not core. New York City’s dense, diverse electorate remains overwhelmingly Democratic, and turnout among its voters routinely buries GOP margins from the suburbs.

Elsewhere, the party’s complaints of “runaway spending” and regulatory strangulation have not landed with quite the same force as in the more business-friendly Sunbelt or Rustbelt states. New Yorkers are accustomed to their taxes—if not resigned— and often expect government to play a more active role in daily life, particularly after the pandemic exposed frailties in the city’s social contracts. Calls to roll back environmental rules as a means of lowering utility bills may play well on talk radio, but find only a niche constituency among climate-minded urbanites and millennials who have powered the city’s gradual greening.

Broadly, the state’s Republican predicament mirrors that of party organizations in California or Massachusetts: energy and ambition occasionally, but never enough to tip the electoral mathematics. Nationally, Democrats relish New York as a fundraising and electoral ATM, while Republicans rely mostly on local victories to demonstrate plaque in their arteries. Each gubernatorial cycle, consultants declaim for renewal and realignment—and each time the outcome is much as before, with a broad blue wave washing away even the boldest talk of red resurgence.

That said, the utility of even a faltering opposition should not be underestimated. Single-party governance breeds its own ossification. A competitive challenger, even one facing gaping odds, can force ideological clarity on the governing majority, surface new policy arguments, and—once in a while—snap awake a complacent electorate. The path forward for the Republicans, then, may not be measured in immediate electoral bounty but in carving out durable issues that can outlast lopsided cycles.

Ultimately, the Long Island convention was less an augury of Republican resurgence than a reaffirmation of New York’s political geometry. The party enters the 2026 campaign with some local muscle, a fresh slate, and the perpetual hope that the pendulum—some day—might swing again. For now, patrician optimism and calls to “make New York great again” will test not just Democratic resolve but the laws of arithmetic. The ballot, as ever, remains the state’s final arbiter. ■