Hochul, who was forced to call in the cavalry — Bill and Hillary Clinton and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — in an effort to rouse sleepy New York Democrats last week, is in the political fight of her life against the surging Republican challenger Lee. Zeldin. A total of 432,634 voters turned out early in the five boroughs, although both public and internal polls showed a very tight race. “The lack of enthusiasm for the Hochul campaign is validated by these mediocre ones [early voting] numbers,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Zeldin has a better chance of winning based on these numbers.” One Democratic strategist said of the turnout: “This race is a jump ball.” Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during the “Get Out The Vote” rally at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.Ron Adar/Shutterstock New York’s cumulative turnout on the seventh day of early voting on Friday was just 33.7% of early turnout compared to the 2020 presidential election. Breaking the glass of alarm seems to have worked a bit – as attendances across the five boroughs rose slightly over the weekend. When early voting closed on Sunday, turnout had jumped five percentage points — still just 38.6 percent of the 2020 turnout when 1.19 million people voted early in the hotly contested 2020 presidential election between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. Hochul brought out President Biden to try to energize voters ahead of Election Day. Steve Sands/NewYorkNewswire/Baue Early turnout was abysmal in the heavily Democratic Bronx, where only 39,069 residents cast ballots — just 3,000 more votes than GOP-led Staten Island, which has just a third of the Bronx’s population. Brooklyn garnered 135,239 votes, followed by Manhattan with 133,618, Queens with 88,840, the Bronx with 39,069 and Staten Island with 35,868. Zeldin told The Post Monday that turnout and enthusiasm for Hochul is light in many of the city’s Democratic strongholds, while he is gathering enthusiastic support. “It’s a big deal for Hotchul, I don’t know if she’ll be able to recover from it tomorrow. The turnout in some areas where he expected higher turnout just wasn’t there,” Zeldin said. “Zeldin has a better chance of winning based on these numbers.” AFP via Getty Images “We’ve seen the enthusiasm gap for a while – it’s seen in different ways. While he was participating a few days ago with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, we had 10 times as many people show up for a rally in the Capital Region. There is clearly a wide gap in energy and enthusiasm between the two campaigns. “He just didn’t get the numbers he needed from some of these municipalities. There are certain groups within the municipalities that simply did not show up. And we don’t see anything today that lights a fuse between those people who just didn’t show up.” State Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Cassar said that by contrast, early voter turnout was stronger in Zeldin’s base in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island than in Democratic-leaning New York City, where Hochul must to increase the score. But state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs, a key adviser to Hochul, insisted the turnout was good for Hochul and the Democratic ticket. Jacobs said New York City typically accounts for about a third of the vote in state elections. He said he was at 27 percent of all early votes and hoped to reach at least that point by the final vote on Tuesday. A total of 432,634 voters turned out early in the five municipalities.AP “We feel very good. We’ll see what happens when the polls close on Tuesday,” Jacobs said. Sources said government employees and black voters historically tend to vote on Election Day, which could boost Hochul’s turnout. But many Republican-leaning voters also prefer to vote on Election Day. Hochul and the Democratic ticket have a big advantage when it comes to absentee ballots, a Post review of state and city election data reveals. The state Board of Elections reported that 62 percent or 349,087 of the 564,318 absentee ballots requested from voters statewide were from registered Democrats. Only 20% or 111,744 were asked by Republicans and 17% or 96,288 were asked by independents. Of the 327,886 absentee ballots returned so far, 200,243 were from Democrats, 72,495 from Republicans and 50,604 from independents. The overwhelming number of absentee ballots requested in New York were from Democrats — 171,188 out of 219,228. So far, 83,582 of the 102,923 paper ballots received by the local election board have been from Democrats.
