New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin said in Tuesday night’s debate that he is running for governor to clean up crime in the state.
“Kathy Hochul supports cashless bail,” Zeldin said. “As soon as it got implemented, she was out there bragging about it. She chose the champion of the defund the police movement and the architect of cashless bail Brian Benjamin [to be her lieutenant governor]. Yeah. That guy who got arrested and had to resign. That was her first big decision to make as governor.”
“We need to repeal cashless ball,” Zeldin continued. “We need to make our streets safe again. I’m running to take back our streets and to support unapologetically our men and women in law enforcement. This is about all of us together — Republicans, Democrats, independents, as New Yorkers — to make sure streets are safe again, to make sure subways are safe again.”
Zeldin then slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for her soft-on-crime policies. “We can continue with the status quo, where they believe they haven’t passed enough pro-criminal laws, or we could take control of our destiny and make law-abiding New Yorkers in charge of our streets again.”
As governor, Hochul has been soft on crime by attacking the second amendment. The New York governor recently created gun free-zones in the state. She has additionally passed many other gun control initiatives, such as banning the sale of AR-15s for people under the age of 21. Hochul also tried to enact gun-banning legislation that a federal judge recently struck down.
Recent polling shows the race between Zeldin and Hochul is very tight, with the governor leading by a few points.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.