Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has a campaign war chest seven times the size of Republican challenger Lee Zeldin ahead of the November election.
State campaign finance reports due Friday show Hochul has $11.7 million in the bank, compared with the $1.6 million reported by Zeldin, a U.S. representative from Long Island.
The fundraising gap between the two candidates is steep in a state where Democrats already have the voter registration edge and legislative supermajorities.
Republicans are hoping to muster an upset by painting Democrats as easy on crime and governmental corruption. But the GOP faces a tough fight: The state’s Republican party had about $80,000 in the bank as of July 11. That’s less than one-fourth the size of the Democratic party’s $376,000 war chest.
Hochul’s biggest donors include real estate developers, hedge fund managers, health insurer Fidelis and powerful unions representing New York City hotel and restaurant workers.
Her running mate, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, got a boost from $943,000 in television ads paid by the independent expenditure committee Protect Our Future, which is funded by crypto firm FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.