NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — With only eight days left until Election Day, the Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin told 1010 WINS on Monday that the "issues" are now on his "side" in the campaign between him and incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, a race that appears to be closer than expected.
An Emerson College Polling-PIX11-The Hill survey released Friday — conducted before Hochul and Zeldin's debate last Tuesday — showed Hochul receiving 50% of support among very likely voters in the state, compared to the Long Island congressman at 44%.
While Mark Penn, a pollster and advisor to the Clintons, wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times on Monday that "a Zeldin victory is even conceivable" as the governor is "holding on by just single digits" in some recent polls, but that Zeldin "faces a tough climb in a strongly Democratic state."
Zelin, 42, told 1010 WINS' Newsline with Brigitte Quinn that Hochul's criticism of his views on crime, including his suggestion to arm teachers and school safety officers, is a defection to "what has been a total loss of enthusiasm [and] momentum."
"She's trying to go hyperbolic in spinning my positions out of context because she's trying to get [a] deflection off of what has been a very weak record on her own part," he said.
Even though NYPD stats indicate that overall crime increased year-to-year by 15.2% in September, Hochul said in an interview with 1010 WINS anchor Larry Mullins on Friday that while she's "trying to make people feel safe," others, like Zeldin, are "trying to make people scared."
On a variety of positions, including his opposition to "getting illegal guns off the streets," Hochul referred to Zeldin as "extreme" and "dangerous."
Zeldin, on the other hand, criticized Hochul on Monday, adding he "would never want someone to have a firearm in their hands if they're not going to be carrying that firearm properly and securely purely for legal purposes."
"There's a whole lot of crimes are being committed without guns and she just wants to make believe like that's not happening where people are being pushed in front of oncoming subway cars, they're being stabbed, people are being hit, there are people who own small businesses being robbed and there isn't consequences for all these actions," he said.
Zeldin claims that if elected as the state's first Republican governor since George Pataki, he will declare a crime emergency on his first day in office and remove district attorneys like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for "refusing to enforce the law."
"I would suspend cashless bail and the other pro-criminal laws ... to force the state legislature to come to the table. ... I strongly believe that by rolling back these pro-criminal laws that have been passed, firing weak DAs who refused to do their job and supporting our men and women in law enforcement, we absolutely will be taking back our streets and our subways," he said.
Zeldin said that New Yorkers ultimately "want to see action."
Our election in eight days is the will of the New York voter telling Albany that they are sick and tired of watching the soft-on-crime policy," he continued.
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