Why is An Obscure Anti-Gun Long Island Pol Threatening to Muck Up the GOP’s Chance to Unseat New York’s Unpopular Democrat Governor?

Elise Stefanik is a six-term Congressman from upstate New York. She’s been a high profile bulldog in the House on issues like insanely woke universities with ludicrous DEI regimes and anti-Israel policies. She’s also a staunch gun rights supporter with an A rating from the NRA.

Last week she confirmed months of speculation by officially announcing that she’s running for Governor. Stefanik has a very good chance of unseating the Empire State’s accidental Governor Kathy Hochul, an inept machine politician who endorsed an admitted socialist for mayor of New York City and has never seen a gun control bill she wouldn’t sign into law.

The good news is that as soon as Stefanik officially announced her candidacy, she was inundated with campaign donations…about $2 million poured in in the days after she jumped in the race. She also got the quick endorsements of New York’s state Republican party chairman along with a long list of influential GOP county executives.

One GOP county exec who didn’t jump on the Stefanik express, however, is newly reelected Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. The relatively obscure Long Island GOPer — 75% of New Yorker GOP voters either don’t know who he is or have no opinion of him at all — seems to think he has a better chance of taking down Hochul than Stefanik does. Meanwhile 75% of Republicans polled view her either very or somewhat favorably.

And then there’s Blakeman’s stance on gun rights.

After the Bruen decision was handed down, New York’s legislators threw a collective hissy fit and passed one of the most restrictive and intrusive Bruen response bills in the country. Hochul, being the hoplophobic hack she is, gleefully signed it into law. It created a huge list of “sensitive place” no-go zones where concealed carry is banned, enacted a “vampire rule” for carrying on private property, mandated background checks for ammo purchases, and expanded searches of applicants’ social media accounts, among other fun features.

While Blakeman says he respects gun owners’ rights…that claim is immediately followed by a ‘but’. When it comes to gun control, he’s pretty much in lock step with Hochul in terms of erecting more hoops through which New Yorkers have to jump in order to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Just like Governor Hochul . . .

Blakeman says he’s also not for a completely unrestricted Second Amendment, either.

“We would do background checks, regardless of what the state law requires,” the Republican said, if such actions were left strictly up to local governments. “We certainly want to see if someone has a propensity for criminality or violence. We would do social media checks as well.”

So while he may have an (R) after his name, Blakeman mirrors Hochul’s restrictive views on concealed carry and the right to keep and bear arms. That may pass with the electorate in and around New York City, but it won’t play well with upstate voters who don’t appreciate downstaters’ propensity for restricting their gun rights.

The seventy-year-old Blakeman, however, isn’t letting a little thing like that get in his way. He claims that Empire Staters are begging him to throw his moth-eaten old hat in the ring and contest the GOP nomination.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Friday he’s received “overwhelming” support since he revealed a possible gubernatorial run — and will decide in the “near future” if he wants to battle upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik for the GOP nomination. …

“Based on the phone calls that I received just in the last 48 hours, the support has been overwhelming, and it’s from a lot of people that you would never think wanted to support a Republican for governor,” he said.

Uh huh. While he hasn’t officially announced his candidacy yet, he’s planning an upstate listening tour campaign swing later this week to “gauge support.” Whoever may be telling Blakeman that he has a chance, the polls tell a very different story.

If the Long Island squish is foolish enough to actually challenge Stefanik for the GOP nomination, the latest survey of likely voters indicates that he doesn’t have a prayer. And while polling shows Stefanik in a statistical dead heat with Hochul in a head-to-head race, Blakeman is running 18 points behind the uniquely unpopular Democrat incumbent.

So not only does Blakeman not have a chance of winning the nomination, he’d have a tough time staying in the same ballpark with Hochul in the general. A run for Governor by Blakeman would be quixotic at best. Worse still, it would drain time and resources that fellow Republican Stefanik could better use to unseat one of the most anti-gun governors in the nation.

The question is, then, what’s going on here? Does Blakeman really think a run for Governor makes any sense? Is he utterly delusional? Is this just a vanity project? Is any New Yorker outside of his immediate family really clamoring for him to get into the race?

We don’t know, but if anyone out there actually thinks a Blakeman campaign would increase the chances of electing a pro-gun governor in deep blue New York, we’d love to quote you a very attractive price on the Throgs Neck Bridge.