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A victorious Gov. Kathy Hochul at her campaign headquarters in...

A victorious Gov. Kathy Hochul at her campaign headquarters in Manhattan Tuesday night. Credit: Craig Ruttle

For a while it looked as if Gov. Kathy Hochul’s entire campaign had gone AWOL.

All across Long Island and Queens, lawn signs for Lee Zeldin were everywhere. This might not have meant much except you could not find even a smattering of Hochul logos among them. This created one impressive visual landscape for the long-besieged state GOP.

In the closing days and on through Tuesday, veteran Democratic operatives on the sidelines privately voiced dismay at what they were not seeing. Several asked, rhetorically and unprompted, how her team was spending the tens of millions of dollars she’d raised so aggressively.

Zeldin gained ground so swiftly in the closing weeks that any bystander could feel a momentum, driven by popular fear of disorder and not sharply answered by Hochul’s side. New York’s top Democrat looked like a shaky relief pitcher on the verge of blowing a five-run lead in the ninth.

Some pointed to her national-minded consultants who posted rather generic abortion ads and mustered a paucity of the rally crowds, sharp radio blitzes, and get-out-the-vote appeals that Zeldin's camp put out.

Phone banks? Last-minute emergency mailings? Little was evident to average voters. Last Friday, even in deep-blue downtown Brooklyn around Borough Hall, no indication of any campaign was evident. This was at a moment when Zeldin’s forces let it be known they needed only a third of the city vote to offset her strength there.

On Monday night and Tuesday came sudden evidence of a last-ditch effort to pull it out. Robocalls from Barack Obama were received as late as two hours before the polls closed. An hour later came reports of lines around city polling sites. Eleventh-hour appearances by President Joe Biden, VP Kamala Harris, and ex-Sen. Hillary Clinton amounted to a party distress call.

In the end Hochul, who along with her current lieutenants had been Clinton and Obama backers, survived Zeldin. He surely was weighed down among some swing voters by his loyalty to Donald Trump, a toxic name in many parts of New York. How much is hard to quantify. The election margin came within the five-to-six percentage point range predicted. But her win was far from destined.

In Nassau and Suffolk counties, the energy for Zeldin and inertia for Hochul delivered blood-red ballot results, including the turnover of two House seats. Zeldin's Long Island romp was offset by big Democratic registration advantages elsewhere.

Tuesday’s results also shook out several key suburban Democratic incumbents in the State Senate, Assembly and Congress.

The early 1990s had a similar rhythm to today. In 1992, a Democrat unseated a Republican president. In 1993, crime and disorder helped former federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani become New York City mayor. In 1994, Republican George Pataki of Peekskill was elected governor.

Repeat and rinse: In 2020, a Democrat unseated a Republican president. In 2021, crime and disorder helped ex-cop Eric Adams become NYC mayor. In 2022, Republican Zeldin of Shirley almost became governor.

For the next round, all Assembly, State Senate and U.S. House seats come open again in two years amid a presidential race, leading some Democrats to optimistically describe the handful of House seats flipped by the GOP in New York as “on short-term lease.”

Will the statewide Democratic organization, to be directed by Hochul, perform better in 2024? That’s something for party leaders on both sides to consider. A lot depends on that old partisan cycle — but also, how effectively the candidates campaign.

Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.

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