About 128,000 New York City voters cast ballots in the first three days of early voting for the Nov. 8 election, the city Board of Elections reported Monday, as the governor’s race kicked into high gear.
Though New York City lacks congressional battlegrounds — only the race to represent Staten Island and a sliver of Brooklyn appears competitive — the fight for city voters has become central in the governor’s race atop the ticket.
Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island, the Trump-allied Republican attempting to unseat Gov. Hochul, has spent weeks blitzing the five boroughs with a pledge to toughen the criminal justice system. Hochul, meanwhile, has raced in recent days to activate city voters after opinion polls showed her lead slipping to single digits.
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In the first thre days of early voting, 127,756 New Yorkers voted at polling sites in the city, according to the Board of Elections.
Zeldin is working to drive turnout in conservative-leaning Staten Island, while Hochul is hoping to run up the score in Manhattan, to activate Democrat-dominated outer-borough neighborhoods and to hold on to swing voters in pockets of Brooklyn and Queens.
So far, 41,946 voters cast ballots in Manhattan, 35,611 voted in Brooklyn, 26,345 in Queens, 12,063 in the Bronx and 11,791 on Staten Island, according to the Elections Board.
Statewide, about 176,000 absentee ballots have been returned, with about three Democrats voting by mail for every one Republican, according to the state Democratic Party.
Statewide, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1, but the city’s margin jumps to 6 to 1.
The city’s three-day turnout fell far short of the start of early balloting in the 2020 general election, which saw historic engagement driven by the slugfest between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. In 2020, about 314,723 New Yorkers cast ballots on the first three days of early voting, according to the city Board of Elections.
Outside the city, some 165,000 New Yorkers voted in the first two days of early voting, according to the state Board of Elections, meaning that the city accounted for roughly 37% of the statewide total over the weekend.
On Monday, Zeldin joined the Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, at a rally in suburban Westchester County. Zeldin told hundreds of supporters waving campaign signs that they have a chance to “change the trajectory of the state — to restore balance and common sense back to Albany.”
Hochul, a moderate Democrat who took office 14 months ago, has highlighted her work to safeguard New Yorkers’ abortion rights and to crack down on guns. After campaigning lightly in the early weeks of the fall, she has turned up the tempo in the past week, and had three Manhattan stops scheduled for Monday.
“Lee Zeldin is extreme,” Hochul said at a Monday news conference in Harlem. “There is so much at stake.”
For the first time in the general election race, the governor stumped Sunday with Mayor Adams, joining him for a rally at a shopping mall in Queens.
“We have a governor that is a partner, that is going to ensure we’re not leaving folks behind,” Adams told about 150 people in Rochdale Village, about a mile from his childhood home. “We’ve come too far.”
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Zeldin has sought to align himself with Adams, a tough-on-crime Democrat, by emphasizing overlap in their views on the controversial issue of bail reform.
But Adams has rejected Zeldin’s appeals and has portrayed the congressman as a threat to New Yorkers’ rights. After the rally Sunday, he said his work boosting Hochul was just beginning.
“This is the best part now,” he told the Daily News. “This is the sprint. People are paying attention. And we are going to be there to get her over the finish line.”
“She’s going to get tired of seeing me,” Adams laughed.
