Blakeman blasts new polls showing Hochul with double-digit lead as "voter suppression tactics"

Election Day is just days away.

Two new polls show Gov. Kathy Hochul holding a double-digit lead over her Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman. A Siena poll finds more than two-thirds of voters, including 40% of Republicans, believe Hochul will win reelection. A Marist poll also puts Hochul at 53% among likely voters to Blakeman's 42% 

Blakeman blasted the polls in a statement. 

"Today's polls are nothing more than voter suppression tactics designed to discourage Republicans and manipulate the outcome of this election," Blakeman's statement said, in part. He claimed his campaign's polling and internal surveys "show a neck-and-neck race."

"That's a novel approach to how your real polls, since we've had polls in this country since about 1822, and I never heard them being defined as something that's intended to suppress people getting out to vote," Hochul said. "Everybody gets caught up in the horse race aspects of it, but I want to get the message out clearly that there are still days to go." 

In Manhattan Tuesday, Blakeman kept the spotlight on affordability, arguing New Yorkers are being squeezed by rising costs. 

"My goal is to reduce the fees, the taxes that people have to pay in this state," Blakeman said. "We don't have a revenue problem, we've got a spending problem, and we're not spending the money on New Yorkers."

According to political analyst JC Polanco, early voting is up 85% statewide, with nearly 295,000 ballots cast in New York City.

"Kathy Hochul has to run the numbers up in New York City. It's why she's with Mayor Mamdani everywhere. She's gonna lose most of those upstate counties. She has to win big in New York City," Polanco said. "Bruce Blakeman has to remind the world that he's not Donald Trump. He's not the man in the White House." 

President Trump's unpopularity could be a factor in the race. The same Marist poll found 61% of likely voters disapprove of the president.