Representative Lee Zeldin of New York's First Congressional District is the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for governor of New York, following the state party's straw poll of county Republican committees last week. The congressman, who declared his candidacy in April, won more than 85 percent of the vote.
Mr. Zeldin, who is serving a fourth term in Congress, secured endorsements from 76 percent of county Republican committees in the state. He has been traveling throughout New York since announcing his candidacy for governor.
Should he win the nomination, he may challenge Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has indicated that he will seek a fourth term, in the 2022 election. The governor has been battered by sexual harassment allegations as well as accusations of a cover-up of deaths from Covid-19 infection in the state's nursing homes.
According to results of a Siena College Research Institute poll issued last Thursday, just 33 percent of New York voters said that Mr. Cuomo should complete his third term and run for re-election. Thirty-nine percent said that he should serve out his term but not seek re-election, and 23 percent said he should resign immediately. The poll of registered voters separately concluded that 56 percent would prefer someone else as governor, while 35 percent said they would vote to re-elect Mr. Cuomo.
The poll, of 809 registered voters, said that voters approve of the governor's handling of the pandemic by 51 to 32 percent, and that 66 percent believe he did a good job of managing the administration of Covid-19 vaccines, with 20 percent disagreeing.
But 60 percent believe he did a poor job addressing questions about his handling of nursing homes, versus 22 percent believing otherwise. His favorability, job performance, and re-election ratings have remained largely stable in the last few months, since falling sharply earlier this year, the Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said.
Mr. Zeldin's statewide prospects are uncertain. In the First Congressional District, he won his congressional seat by defeating the longtime incumbent, Tim Bishop, in 2014, following an unsuccessful challenge in 2008. He then easily held off a challenge from former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst in 2016, defeated Perry Gershon, an East Hampton resident and political newcomer, by just four percentage points in 2018, and easily defeated Nancy Goroff, the Democrats' 2020 candidate.
Mr. Zeldin touts among his East End accomplishments his work with Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to prevent the sale of Plum Island to the highest bidder. But his zealous support for and defense of twice-impeached former President Donald Trump may prove a political albatross in a statewide race.
While Mr. Trump narrowly defeated President Biden in Suffolk County last year, winning by just 232 votes, Mr. Biden won the state by a lopsided 61 percent to 38 percent margin. Mr. Zeldin voted to essentially disenfranchise his fellow citizens in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, hours after the armed insurrection at the United States Capitol, an act of domestic terrorism encouraged by Mr. Trump and intended to overturn the certification of electoral votes that was underway.
Mr. Zeldin repeatedly insisted that the 2020 election was illegitimate because state officials, many of them Republicans, had changed election rules to enable voting during the coronavirus pandemic. In December, he supported a Supreme Court challenge to the certified election results from four states won by Mr. Biden and Vice President Harris (the court quickly denied the complaint). Those moves followed years of defending the former president, including throughout his 2019 impeachment in the House of Representatives and his 2021 impeachment following the insurrection.
