NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul raised a whopping $11 million in the past three months and has a bulging war chest as her reelection campaign heads into the final month before Election Day.
The incumbent New York governor has about $10.3 million in cash on hand as she fights to turn aside a challenge from Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island.
Hochul, who is running for a first full term after replacing scandal-tarred ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has scooped more than $45 million in all since she started running for reelection last year.
About 60% of the cash has come from small donors who gave less than $200 a piece, Hochul’s campaign said.
Zeldin, by comparison, burned through most of his campaign war chest in a bare-knuckled primary fight against Andrew Giuliani and has little cash on hand going into the home stretch just weeks away. Hoping to defeat the odds and become the first Republican elected statewide in deep-blue New York in two decades, Zeldin turned to the twice-impeached president, who is currently embroiled in controversy after the FBI retrieved top-secret records from his Florida estate., to help raise campaign funds and voter turnout.
The Buffalo native leads Zeldin by a comfortable margin in the polls and is a heavy favorite to win four more years in the governor’s mansion in Albany.
Hochul agreed to a single hourlong television debate hosted by Spectrum News NY1 in Manhattan on Oct. 25. Zeldin, however, panned the idea of waiting until days before early voting is set to begin to face off against the governor.
“We have a lot to talk about, and I don’t believe that one hour at the very end of October ... does this process any justice or respect,” he said.
Election Day is Nov. 8.
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