No Mystery: Blakeman is running again

                                                                                         

Emailed Blakeman fundraiser invitation


Why are there so many questions about whether Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is running for re-election this year?

It was clear months ago.

After Republican President Donald Trump announced in mid-November that he was appointing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel -- a post Blakeman had hoped to get -- Blakeman declared at a fundraiser that he would be running for re-election, according to sources at the event.

Bruce Blakeman

Blakeman also reportedly said he had turned down three different offers from Trump because he wanted to run again for county executive, a statement met with skepticism from some attendees.

Since then, Newsday reported that Blakeman had raised $720,000 in the last half of 2024, putting a total $1.7 million in his campaign account by mid-January.

Blakeman has made a issue of being Nassau's first Jewish county executive in a county with a large Jewish population.

He even contended that he was the highest elected Jewish official in America in a recent post defending Elon Musk against allegations that Musk had given a Nazi salute at an event.


(It is questionable whether Blakeman is the highest Jewish elected official in the country. There are Jewish members of Congress.)

 But Blakeman's religion it won't give him much of a boost in his re-election. His Democratic challenger,  Nassau Legis. Seth Koslow of South Merrick, is also Jewish.


Koslow could be at a disadvantage, though. Former Democratic President Joseph Biden, who had appeared to have dementia even before he was elected president in 2020, pretty much ran his party into the ground by the time he left office with even most supporters acknowledging he was cognitively impaired.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Democrats nationally had a 57 percent unfavorable rating -- an unprecedented negative rating for the party in Quinnipiac polling history.

But Nassau voters are a quirky bunch. For example, Trump won the November presidential election in Nassau over Democratic candidate, then-vice president Kamala Harris, by more than 5 percentage points.

At the same time,  Democrat Laura Gillen of Rockville Centre,, a former Hempstead Town Supervisor, defeated Republican incumbent Anthony D'Esposito of Island Park, for the 4th District Congressional seat. And former Nassau County executive and current District 3 Congressman Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, won re-election even while Trump captured Nassau.

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nassau CSEA contract deal -- talk of the county for two days -- finally announced (UPDATED)

Image
Talk around Nassau County for the past two days has been that Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman had struck a new labor agreement, signed Monday, with the county's largest union, the Nassau Civil Service Employees Association. The CSEA, which include most non-law enforcement county employees, has been working without a contract since the end of 2017. As of June, there were 3,359 fulltime CSEA members. An announcement went out late today but it didn't say much: A spokesman for Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman did not respond to an email today asking when the CSEA deal would be announced. Everyone is looking at the CSEA because exempt employees -- county workers who are hired and fired at will -- traditionally are given the same benefits as the union members. But the exempts are not happy with some of the rumors about the agreement: one is that the CSEA will take a lesser health insurance plan in return for an upfront payment, perhaps of $1,500, for each member....
Read more

Democrat lawyer prepares to challenge Donnelly for Nassau DA

Image
                                                                               From Aloise Linked in Post A female Democratic lawyer backed by former Democratic Congresswoman and former Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice is trying to gather support to make a run against Republican District Attorney Anne Donnelly next year. Nicole Aloise, the daughter of a prominent New York City judge,  has a fundraiser scheduled  tomorrow night at the Garden City home of developer Peter Florey, president of the New York State Builders Association. Tickets range from in price from $250 to $20,000. Aloise says in a post announcing her campaign on Linked In that she has been a prosecutor in both the Nassau and Queens District Attorney offices. A quick internet search shows no other runs for poli...
Read more

Local Nassau CSEA president and VP kicked out by state union

Image
                                                                               Nassau CSEA poster truck in Long Beach earlier this month                    Nassau CSEA Local 830 president Ron Gurrieri and vice president Bob Arciello were removed from their union positions today following an angry month-long public fight with Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman over health insurance. State CSEA president Mary Sullivan notified members in a letter today that she had removed Gurrieri and Arciello, explaining the...
Read more