James Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks, had a bone to pick with the city’s business elite.
So on Monday, he sent an email to the co-chairman of the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, which soon ricocheted from one local business leader to another.
Why, Mr. Dolan asked the Partnership co-chairman, Rob Speyer, copying other members of the organization, was the group sitting on the sidelines while Gov. Kathy Hochul supported “anti-business, economically harmful approaches”?
Ms. Hochul was too closely aligned with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, Mr. Dolan said in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.
Mr. Dolan did not mention Bruce Blakeman’s name in the email. But he didn’t have to. In November, New York voters can choose to re-elect Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, or oust her by backing the Republican candidate, Mr. Blakeman, the Nassau County executive embraced by President Trump.
“The mayor cannot raise taxes without Governor Hochul’s support,” Mr. Dolan wrote Mr. Speyer, the chief executive of Tishman Speyer, a New York-based real estate behemoth that controls Rockefeller Center and the Chrysler Building. “Whoever serves as New York State’s next governor is our only defense against these harmful policies for the next three years.”
Mr. Dolan called on the Partnership to redirect some of the $30 million it had reserved for issue advocacy into an account he controlled.
On Thursday, Mr. Dolan will host a fund-raiser for Mr. Blakeman during a Knicks preseason game, with the cheapest ticket going for $10,000.
Such public support represents a U-turn for Mr. Dolan. Four years ago, a super PAC controlled by his Madison Square Garden spent about $700,000 supporting Ms. Hochul. In addition the Dolan family funneled financial support directly to the governor’s campaign.
In backing Mr. Blakeman, Mr. Dolan is diverging from many New York business leaders, whose political giving tends to be governed by practical self-interest. That generally translates into supporting incumbents when it looks like they will win, or sitting on the sidelines.
“I would bet the overwhelming majority of the members that are politically engaged support Hochul,” said Steven Fulop, the Partnership’s chief executive.
But Mr. Dolan marches to the beat of his own drum. And no New York businessman has been more bullish on Mr. Blakeman, despite recent public surveys showing the Republican losing to the governor by between nine and 19 points. The two candidates will face off in their only televised debate on Tuesday night.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Dolan did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Blakeman in a statement noted Mr. Dolan’s business success and said he appreciated his “support and advice.”
“Together, we’re ready to take on Kathy Hochul and deliver another win for all New Yorkers,” Mr. Blakeman said.
A pro-Blakeman super PAC, Strong and Safe New York, has raised more than $6 million since Mr. Blakeman entered the race according to public filings. A portion of that support, $2 million, comes from entities affiliated with Mr. Dolan.
Mr. Dolan and members of his family have donated about $108,000 directly to Mr. Blakeman’s campaign. They have also given close to $1 million to the Nassau County Republican Committee, which in turn has transferred about $3.5 million into the Blakeman campaign’s coffers.
The support doesn’t come close to filling the void left by Ronald Lauder, a major funder of conservative political causes who in 2022 pumped $11 million into Lee Zeldin’s failed campaign against Ms. Hochul and is largely sitting this race out.
Strong and Safe New York appears to have spent much of its funding so far on billboards and ads on MSG Networks. A one-minute online ad assails Ms. Hochul for rising energy costs and for subsidizing a new Buffalo Bills stadium: “She pays her friends and leaves you the bill,” the narrator intones. (The Garden also benefits from substantial state subsidies.)
Ms. Hochul first learned that Mr. Dolan had officially switched sides around the time of the Knicks championship earlier this year. The governor called Mr. Dolan to congratulate him on his team’s success, and he explicitly told her that he would be backing Mr. Blakeman, according to two people familiar with the call.
For a New York City business magnate, Mr. Dolan appears to be pushing against the tide. Mr. Speyer, for one, has supported Ms. Hochul in the past, as have other members of the Partnership’s executive committee, including the Newmark chief executive Barry Gosin, who since July has given more than $100,000 to the state Democratic committee that Ms. Hochul controls.
Mr. Gosin did not respond to a request for comment.
But Mr. Dolan may have other interests at stake. He has close ties to Mr. Trump, who on Friday rallied with Mr. Blakeman in Syracuse and in August appeared with him on Long Island. And Mr. Dolan’s properties are implicated in the Trump administration’s redevelopment of Penn Station, which would involve the demolition of a small Madison Square Garden theater. Mr. Dolan is expected to receive significant compensation.
In his email, Mr. Dolan mentioned none of those things, instead focusing on Ms. Hochul’s warm relationship with Mr. Mamdani, who Mr. Dolan said “is and will continue to be bad for the city.”
In fact, Mr. Dolan reminded Mr. Speyer, the governor had backed Mr. Mamdani’s request for a so-called pied-à-terre tax on expensive second homes in New York City.
Mr. Dolan urged the Partnership to use its “well-endowed” issue advocacy organization to help “get out the vote for New Yorkers who want a sensible approach to business policies emanating out of Albany.”
Between Ms. Hochul’s war chest and the Democratic state party, which she controls, her campaign has about $30 million at its disposal as of September. “New Yorkers can’t afford Bruce Blakeman in the governor’s mansion,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Hochul campaign, said in a written statement that did not address Mr. Dolan’s support for Mr. Blakeman.
Mr. Blakeman’s campaign has raised millions since he entered the race last December. But rather than stockpile it for a final push in the weeks before the election, the campaign blanketed the state with $9 million in ads from July through the end of Septemberin an effort to tear down the governor and raise his standing among voters, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
The campaign hoped the spending would give Mr. Blakeman a bump in the polls and draw support from deep-pocketed donors besides Mr. Dolan. In recent weeks, Mr. Blakeman has had a string of fund-raisers in New York City but has not come close to matching the financial might of the coalition supporting the governor.
Mr. Blakeman, the first Jewish county executive in Nassau, has found some success raising money on Long Island, even netting contributions from Democrats. In August, Bonnie Lautenberg, the widow of Frank Lautenberg, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, hosted a fund-raiser at her Water Mill home for Mr. Blakeman, her former neighbor, which she said had raised between $300,000 and $400,000.
Ms. Hochul’s support for Mr. Mamdani infuriated Ms. Lautenberg, a longtime Democrat, and her daughter. Ms. Lautenberg said it amounted to a tacit endorsement of someone she viewed as antisemitic.
As for Ms. Hochul, Ms. Lautenberg said, “I never thought she was a great governor. She is nice person but not a great governor.”
“
Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.
The post James Dolan, a Former Hochul Supporter, Goes All In on Her G.O.P. Rival appeared first on New York Times.
