3 battleground areas that may prove key in race between Hochul, Blakeman

Upstate, metro suburbs and New York City. Running for governor has always been a three-piece puzzle for New York candidates, who need to secure certain chunks of the vote from each region to win.

Within those three regions, there are counties that serve as good barometers for the eventual outcome of the race.

Here’s what to know, as Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, move into the homestretch of the 2026 campaign:

New York City — Queens

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that a Republican must secure 30% of the vote of the five boroughs to have a chance at winning the governor’s race. But four of those five boroughs are fairly one-sided.

Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Staten Island, Republican.

Queens is Democratic, too, but maybe less so than the other party strongholds.

When Lee Zeldin, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2022, garnered 30% of the NYC vote, part of the reason was he tallied 37% in Queens. That was double the percentage earned by Marc Molinaro, the GOP’s 2018 candidate for governor.

The borough offers a demographic mix, with no single group in the majority, as well as a mix of religions. Also, some Jewish voters and East Asian voters have increased their support of Republicans in recent elections over crime concerns, said Jerry Skurnik, a Democratic strategist.

"Republicans have improved in Queens for the last few years," said Skurnik, of Engage Voters U.S., a consulting firm, and a member of the state Gaming Commission.

Blakeman has made numerous stops in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island as part of his push to better Zeldin's numbers in the city. He campaigned in Flushing Saturday and has hit rallies in Rockaway Park, Whitestone, Cambria Heights and other locales in the borough.

One Republican analyst cautioned it might be difficult to increase the GOP's gains.

"It isn’t the old Queens. Where are those Republican pockets where George Pataki got votes?" said Tom Doherty, the chief operating officer at Mercury Public Affairs and a former top aide to Pataki, the last Republican governor of New York.

Hochul, too, has campaigned in Queens, hitting Maspeth earlier this month, though she probably has made more stops in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Pataki, when he won his first term in 1994, garnered more than 35% of the Queens vote. In 2002, his final run, he earned 45%.

Suburbs — Westchester

Long Island has been voting more Republican in recent years, supporting President Donald Trump, electing two GOP county executives and returning its State Senate delegation to a Republican majority.

Westchester County has been going the other way — more and more Democratic. That means it has served to offset the Island trend and keep the metro suburbs (also including Rockland and perhaps Putnam counties) up for grabs.

A Republican needs to win the metro suburbs by about 10 points, Skurnik and other analysts have said. In 2022, Zeldin fell short of that mark, winning suburbia by 6 points and losing the overall race to Hochul by 6 points.

Hochul won Westchester, 60% to 40%, which helped counter Zeldin’s wins in Nassau (55-45) and Suffolk (58-42) counties.

"If I were going to pick one county out of the suburbs, it would be Westchester," Skurnik said. "Blakeman, being from Nassau, will have home-court advantage on Long Island. The question is if Westchester is trending to the left, can Blakeman counter that?"

Upstate — Onondaga

The three biggest upstate counties, Erie (Buffalo), Monroe (Rochester) and Onondaga (Syracuse), backed Hochul in 2022 — which is why Zeldin’s upstate margin was 10 points rather than the 15-to-20-point bulge a Republican needs, analysts said.

Erie, with nearly 1 million people, is so much bigger than other upstate counties that the "rule always was, ‘You gotta have Erie’ to have a chance," said David Catalfamo, also a former top Pataki aide. Hochul’s status as a Buffalo native changes the dynamics in Erie from a generation ago.

These days, Onondaga "might be the closest you have upstate to being a swing county," Skurnik said. The county has a city, but it's not so large as to negate the suburbs and the rural areas outside. Historically, its congressional district has flipped parties multiple times, though this time, Cook Political Report and others call it a safe Democratic seat.

Last election, Hochul won Onondaga, 54% to 46%.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of the county's importance is Trump traveled to Syracuse for a Blakeman rally on Oct. 10 — the lone upstate stop he has made for his GOP friend and ally.

Coincidentally, the Syracuse area "was often used as a test market for groceries and other products" because it had a mix of city-suburb-rural constituencies, said Grant Reeher, a Syracuse University political scientist. It was often used to help determine what would appeal to a market with different, but not extremely different, household economic ranges.

Maybe that could apply to politics, in that the county could be a barometer of the perceptions of Hochul and Blakeman this time, he said.

"What Onondaga could tell you about this election: How well has Hochul done at straddling the middle and left of the Democratic Party," he said. "For Blakeman, it could answer whether his message about affordability is really landing."