When Gov. Kathy Hochul first ran for re-election, Republicans in New York tried to prey on fears over crime, rising inflation and illegal immigration to boost the chances of their ticket statewide in the critical 2022 midterms.
The strategy seemed to work. Republicans flipped four House seats in New York, while putting a scare into Ms. Hochul, who eked out a six-point victory over Lee Zeldin, then a Long Island congressman who now leads the E.P.A.
Republicans have followed a similar game plan in this year’s midterms.
They have united behind another Long Islander, the Nassau County executive, Bruce Blakeman, in his bid to unseat Ms. Hochul. And they have used crime — along with the specter of a New York City run amok — as attack lines across the state, particularly in Nassau County, the home of two volatile swing district House seats now controlled by Democrats.
But a lot has changed over the last four years, with issues that resonated in 2022 seeming less potent now, according to interviews with voters, candidates and others involved in the races.
Crime has fallen in New York, as it has in much of the nation. Voter anger over the economy is now directed at the Trump administration, rather than at his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And President Trump is no longer viewed as the answer to rising prices, even among some Republicans.
“Republicans are talking about issues like crime, which concerned us, like, two or three years ago,” said Assemblyman Charles Lavine, a longtime Democrat on Long Island who backs the governor.
“Everyone knows it’s their party and Trump who are responsible for the economic crisis,” he continued. “It’s their responsibility.”
A private poll, conducted this summer in large portions of Nassau County and obtained by The New York Times, found that ending corruption in Washington, lowering the cost of living and ensuring quality health care that was affordable were the three most important issues for voters. Fighting crime and illegal drugs ranked seventh.
“Times have changed,” said Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the powerful chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee.
“I think that we highlighted crime much more in 2022, but taxes has always been the top issue with us here,” he added. “Lee Zeldin is a good guy and did a great job, but he is not quite Bruce Blakeman.”
Mr. Cairo said he thought that Mr. Blakeman’s deep ties to the area, where he has served as county executive since 2022, would help boost turnout. He also said he thought it would help Republican candidates in Nassau like Mike LiPetri, a former state legislator running against Representative Tom Suozzi, and Jeanine Driscoll, the Republican tax receiver of Hempstead who is challenging Representative Laura Gillen. Democrats have a nearly 100,000-person edge in voter registration in Nassau County, but Mr. Blakeman won re-election last year by nearly 11 percentage points.
In recent interviews, prospective voters in Nassau suggested that upticks in prices for essential goods had made the economy the most salient issue for voters.
Kevin Lang, 45, a Democrat who is an engineer and lives in Rockville Centre, said that Mr. Blakeman’s campaign messaging had not moved him nor had his emphasis on fighting crime in New York. The state these days, Mr. Lang said, “feels very safe to me.” He added that Mr. Blakeman’s economic promises rang hollow because of his ties to President Trump, whose tax cuts primarily benefited the wealthy.
“It’s got to be cost of living,” Mr. Lang said, identifying what has emerged as the most important issue in the 2026 elections. “It’s out of control.”
The internal poll tracked with public statewide surveys that have found Mr. Trump to be deeply unpopular. Perhaps the most surprising finding was Nassau County voters’ opinion of Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor of New York City who was viewed favorably by 45 percent of likely voters, as opposed to unfavorably by 46 percent.
Whitney Ralston, the field director for Battleground New York, a group supporting Democratic congressional candidates in swing districts, has been working on Long Island for six years. In recent months, canvassers working for Ms. Ralston have knocked on more than 100,000 doors of both registered Republicans and Democrats in Nassau County to talk about the impact of Medicaid cuts.
In those conversations, Mr. Mamdani has not come up once, she said.
Voters on Long Island “used to be so afraid of the city,” she said, referring to New York. “But it has just completely 180’d to: ‘What can people afford?’”
Politicians from both parties said they had expected Mr. Mamdani, with his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America and criticisms of Israel, to be a more potent cudgel for Republicans. But Mr. Trump has undercut the premise by lavishing Mr. Mamdani with praise during their three meetings.
Republican candidates on Long Island have been less complimentary about Mr. Mamdani, none more so than Mr. Blakeman, who said in an interview that he was the “most divisive mayor in my lifetime.”
And in a recent meeting with leaders from the Hasidic community, Mr. Blakeman told them that neither the governor nor the mayor would act if there were “rioting” in their community.
Ms. Driscoll, who is trying to unseat Ms. Gillen, the congresswoman in Hempstead, has often criticized Mr. Mamdani and has suggested that he, Ms. Gillen and the governor share political beliefs.
“Hochul has, in more recent times really aligned herself with Mamdani,” Ms. Driscoll said. “I would have been distancing myself, but she’s doing the opposite, so I think that is probably helping us.”
Ms. Driscoll acknowledged that voters have been affected by higher grocery bills and gas prices, among other expenses, but she argued that Republicans should be given a chance to address the problem because throwing them out of office would be worse.
Besides Mr. Mamdani, the governor also figures prominently as a supposed boogeyman in New York Republicans’ campaign strategy.
Mr. LiPetri, the former state legislator running against Mr. Suozzi, used one ad to describe how voters were “fed up with career politicians like Kathy Hochul and Tom Suozzi, who sold us out and left us behind.”
For his part, Mr. Suozzi has endorsed the governor, but has gone to great lengths to distance himself from Mr. Mamdani and the party’s more leftist elements. He endorsed the mayor’s more moderate opponent last year, and made a play for right-leaning voters when he wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal about how “we can allow patriotism to become a partisan label, or we can reclaim a tradition that rightly belongs to every American.”
“People in my district know me, and I’ve been working very hard to try and represent their concerns,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Blakeman is hoping that his tenure as county executive will help him carry Nassau County. He said in an interview that the governor was “the person that’s most responsible for making this state unaffordable, and people notice that.”
Joel Gomez, an undecided voter who lives in Baldwin and declined to say what party he is registered with, said that Mr. Blakeman was doing a great job and that, despite paying high taxes, city services were good and the parks were nice.
Taylor Ellis, 33, another undecided voter, said increased costs for essentials like food and transportation were a source of stress and were likely to dictate her vote.
Ms. Ellis, who works at Home Depot in Hempstead, said that Mr. Mamdani’s support of the governor was another factor.
“That would help me with Kathy Hochul even more,” she said.
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