Is New York Seeing Red?

She has seen Zeldin whittle that lead down to a razor’s edge, and most analysts say it’s because crime has crept to the top of the list of New York voter concerns.

We’ve been told for decades that the law-and-order coalition that put Republicans George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani in power in the 1990s has long since dissipated.

George Floyd, apparently, has brought it back together. The race riots that engulfed the nation in 2020 have died down, but haven’t really completely ended. The crime rates that began soaring over the course of that summer have only continued going up — and up and up. And that has gradually bubbled to the surface as the biggest issue in the New York governor’s race, eclipsing even the flailing economy and rising inflation in importance.

That anxiety is causing many voters to give the Republican candidate a serious chance at leading New York, the bluest of blue states, in next Tuesday’s election. And it’s making national headlines.