Congress

Republican Bruce Blakeman planning to enter race for New York governor

Published

8 months ago

December 8, 2025

ALBANY, New York — Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is preparing to enter the race for New York governor as soon as Tuesday, according to two people with direct knowledge of his plans.

Blakeman’s decision to seek the Republican nomination is a major snag in Rep. Elise Stefanik’s efforts to secure GOP backing in her challenge to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for a second full term next year.

The looming primary has the makings of a battle royale between two ardent supporters of President Donald Trump — a generational fight pitting an ascendent woman in the Republican Party against a stalwart GOP officeholder who has been on the periphery of the Empire State’s political scene for decades.

Blakeman, who last month won reelection in the suburbs east of New York City, has said Trump has not discouraged him from seeking statewide office. The president offered no preference Monday when reporters asked about Blakeman and Stefanik, appearing to signal that he doesn’t mind them competing.

“He’s great and she’s great,” Trump said at the White House. “They’re both great people.”

Hochul more overtly welcomed the competition.

“If there’s a Republican primary, it makes it much more entertaining for me,” Hochul said about Blakeman’s launch. “Let them go at it. Let’s see how they out-MAGA each other.”

Hochul has reason to be reassured. Republican Lee Zeldin competed in a four-candidate primary in 2022 and eventually came within 6 points of unseating her. Some New York Republicans grumble that Zeldin lost time he could have used to focus on Hochul and was drained of resources as a result.

The people who spoke with Blue Light News about Blakeman’s announcement were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. A Blakeman spokesperson declined to comment on the pending launch.

The county executive has downplayed the problems a primary would pose.

“You gotta be sharp. You gotta be on your game if you want to win this,” he said when he was beginning to explore his bid. “There’s not a large margin of error for Republicans. So I think it sharpens both candidates if there is a primary in many circumstances as long as you can keep it from not degrading into namecalling and things of that nature, which I would never do.”

Hochul, who faces her own primary challenge against Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, led Stefanik 52 percent to 27 percent in a Siena University poll last month. In their bid to defeat the governor, Republicans plan to leverage New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s ascendance to City Hall — tying the moderate Hochul to the 34-year-old democratic socialist who is unpopular in the suburban counties.

The suburbs will be key to Blakeman’s campaign.

While he’s not well known statewide, the Nassau County executive hails from vote-rich Long Island, which has trended toward Republicans in recent elections. He identifies as a “pro-choice Republican” — a position that stands to complicate his ability to win over GOP voters in a closed party primary. Republicans, though, are hungry to win after being shut out of statewide office in New York for the last 20 years, and a less rigid stance on abortion rights may win over moderate voters.

Blakeman is also a Trump-allied Republican who revels in culture wars and has twice won a purple county where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Nassau County is home to two critical House battlegrounds, and Republicans are eager to flip the seats held by Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen in an effort to retain the majority in Washington.

“Even before the election, a lot of community leaders, business leaders, political leaders asked me if I would get into the race because they feel that I would have the best chance to beat Kathy Hochul because of my attraction to crossover Democrats and independent voters,” Blakeman said last month after he won reelection.

He has taken a conservative line on trans athletes, masking in public and is eager to have local law enforcement coordinate with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

He also enjoys a warm relationship with The New York Post, the influential conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch. Blakeman this year announced the Post would become the “official newspaper” of Nassau County.

But Blakeman will face an immediate fundraising crunch. Stefanik, an aggressive fundraiser, formally entered the race for governor in November, but she has been effectively a candidate since the summer after Rep. Mike Lawler bowed out to run for reelection in his swing House seat. Stefanik has made early inroads with Republicans statewide, funding an effort to boost the party’s local-level candidates in the November elections.

Trump likely will loom large in the race. Democrats are poised to tether the president to whoever emerges as the GOP nominee. And Trump’s May endorsement of Lawler’s House reelection bid almost certainly influenced the Hudson Valley Republican’s decision to forgo a gubernatorial run. If Trump decides to favor Stefanik or Blakeman, it is almost certain to have an impact on whether one or the other remains in the running.

“I spoke to President Trump on election night. He congratulated me,” Blakeman said in November. “I told him I wanted to sit down and talk to him. And he said he was willing to sit down and talk about it. He didn’t discourage me.”

Congress

Scalise will kick off August campaign sprint in marquee Nebraska House race

Published

7 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.

Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.

Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.

After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

11 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

12 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.