Democratic Governors Association to start spending in New York

ALBANY, N.Y. — The Democratic Governors Association has created an independent expenditure committee in New York to boost Gov. Kathy Hochul in the final week of her election bid.

It’s a rare entrance for the national group into New York politics, where recent gubernatorial elections have been all but decided by primary night. It comes as Republican nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin has benefited from an unprecedented surge of outside spending while polls have gradually tightened throughout October.

“Republican super PACs have spent a record amount of nearly $12 million to insert an election denying, abortion banning, MAGA Republican who would make New York less safe by rolling back laws to take illegal guns off the street,” DGA Communications Director David Turner said. “The DGA is taking nothing for granted and won’t sit idly by.”

The DGA previously gave Hochul the maximum allowable amount of $69,700 soon after she took office last year. It has also given the state Democratic Committee $219,800 since then, its largest investment in the state since Republican Gov. George Pataki’s last year in office in 2006.

The Republican Governors Association has similarly been a minor player in recent New York elections. Then-Chair Chris Christie defended the absence in 2014 by saying the RGA doesn’t “invest in lost causes.”

RGA has given $1.2 million of contributions in recent weeks to Save Our State, one of the independent expenditure committees boosting Zeldin’s efforts. It gave $750,000 to another such group, Safe Together New York, last Thursday.

An exact dollar amount for the DGA’s spending was not yet available. But it is promising that the figure will be enough to counter the Republican messaging.

Both Hochul and Zeldin submitted their final pre-election campaign finance disclosure reports on Friday.

Hochul has raised $3.5 million in the past few weeks. That brings her contribution total to $49.8 million over the course of the campaign, enough to surpass the previous record of $46.9 million raised for a gubernatorial race by Andrew Cuomo in 2014.

She spent $8.4 million and had nearly $6 million remaining.

Zeldin raised $3.5 million, bringing his total for the campaign to $21.4 million. He spent $2.2 million and had $5.8 million in the bank.

Additionally, outside money has continued to pour into the race.

Madison Square Garden spent $560,000 on ad buys helping Hochul in recent days. That came a week after three members of arena owner James Dolan’s family gave the governor direct contributions of $47,100 apiece.

MSG sits on top of Penn Station in a neighborhood where Hochul has championed a massive redevelopment project.

Cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder gave $1 million to one of the pro-Zeldin super PACs on Friday. That brings the total he has donated to these groups since the start of September to $10.2 million.