Republican hopes of unseating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul took a brutal hit Tuesday after their candidate was denied up to $7 million in matching funds over a pair of filing blunders, leaving him vastly outgunned in an already uphill race.
The Public Campaign Finance Board voted 4-3 along party lines to deny Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman the funds after he failed to list a lieutenant governor on his December application and never updated his paperwork when he picked his running mate, The New York Times reported.
Blakeman trails Hochul’s $20 million war chest without a clear path to close the gap.
Blakeman’s camp cried foul, blasting the ruling as being orchestrated by Hochul’s appointee.
Madison Spanodemos, a spokeswoman for Blakeman, said in a statement that the decision “reeks of corruption.”
“With the race tightening and her poll numbers sagging, it’s no surprise Kathy Hochul’s handpicked appointee would vote to take away funds from Bruce Blakeman’s campaign.”
Even so, Democratic commissioners were unmoved.
“There’s no ‘Bruce’ rule,” said commissioner Henry Berger. ““It’s a matter of the integrity of the program.”
The good-government group Reinvent Albany blasted the decision as an “embarrassing display of self-defeating partisanship” that torched the spirit of the public financing program on its very first run.
Hochul’s campaign twisted the knife, with spokesman Ryan Radulovacki saying Blakeman “doesn’t need any help from us to run an incompetent, losing campaign.”
“The onus is on each campaign to ensure they meet its requirements,” he said.
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