LIVE RESULTS: Gov. Kathy Hochul fends off primary challengers, set to face Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island
New York held primaries for governor, lieutenant governor, and state assembly on Tuesday. Polls closed at 9 p.m. ET.
Congressional and New York State Senate primaries will be conducted in August because of a delay in finalized redistricting maps.
Gov. Kathy Hochul easily fended off a pair of primary challengers for the Democratic nomination for a full term. Her running mate, Lt. Gov Antonio Delgado, also cruised to victory with an early call.
Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island won the Republican primary and will face Hochul in November.
The races and the stakes:
Gov. Kathy Hochul, the first woman to lead the Empire State, won reelection Tuesday night in her first time facing voters since she stepped in to replace former Gov. Andrew Cuomo after several overlapping scandals led to his resignation in August 2021.
It was an early test of the Buffalo native's support in New York City outside of a lieutenant governor race, where she nearly lost to Jumaane Williams in 2018. Williams, now the New York City public advocate, is once again challenging Hochul from the left, with Rep. Tom Suozzi of Long Island attacking her from the right.
Steven Greenberg of Siena College, one of the top New York pollsters, recently told Insider that Hochul is still a long way off from Cuomo in terms of name recognition.
She's still the favorite to win, "assuming she gets through June and November, which at the moment I will make that assumption until I see something to change that," Greenberg said.
On the Republican side, party-endorsed Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island prevailed over 2014 gubernatorial nominee Rob Astorino, Andrew Giuliani — son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — and Harry Wilson.
There was no Trump endorsement in this race, though Zeldin's vote against certifying the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania and Arizona on the day of the January 6 insurrection will likely become a focus for the Hochul campaign.
Giuliani, despite having minimal campaign infrastructure, still managed to deliver a strong performance with a familiar family name.
"And there is the Giuliani factor, because nobody in this state knows Andrew Giuliani, yet he has the best favorability among Republicans — by far — among the four candidates," Greenberg told Insider. "And our callers, I can assure you, say Andrew Giuliani, but I can assure you the respondents are not hearing the word Andrew."
On the lieutenant governor side, incumbent Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who Hochul brought on after her first lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, was indicted and then arrested on federal bribery charges earlier this year, defeated challengers Ana María Archila and Diana Reyna.
Archila is aligned with Williams, while Reyna is running as Suozzi's informal running mate.
For the Republicans, the lieutenant governor primary was canceled and Zeldin's pick, New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Commanding Officer Alison Esposito, has already clinched the nomination.