New York Dems Call for Investigation of Blakeman Campaign

The head of New York’s Democratic Party filed a complaint last week asking the state elections watchdog to investigate Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s campaign due to errors with his campaign finance reports.

The complaint relied heavily on a recent report by New York Focus, which found that Blakeman’s campaign had requested matching dollars for thousands of donations that did not meet the requirements of New York’s public matching funds program.

Blakeman, currently the Nassau County executive, is mounting an underdog challenge to Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat seeking a second full term. 

Blakeman is participating in New York’s public campaign finance program, which offers gubernatorial candidates $6 in taxpayer money for every $1 they receive in small contributions from in-state donors.

But New York Focus found that Blakeman’s campaign had requested matching funds for over 2,600 donations that were either from out of state donors, too big to be eligible for matching funds, or both. The donations could have generated as much as $860,000 in matching funds.

New York Focus’s investigation was independent, and was neither requested nor suggested by any political actor or other outside party.

New York Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs wrote that the thousands of mistakes amounted to “a scale that cannot be dismissed as clerical error,” and argued that until the Blakeman campaign fixes the errors, “the public cannot have confidence that a single additional taxpayer dollar is being paid out lawfully.”

Jacobs’s complaint also cited reporting from Newsday which found that the campaign had double- or triple-counted many contributions, potentially generating even more unearned matching funds. 

In an email, Blakeman spokesperson Madison Spanodemos said, “Kathy Hochul already tried to illegally block our matching funds once, and a judge stopped her. Now, with our ads exposing her tax and utility hikes, she’s trying again. She knows she’s in trouble, and this desperate attempt won’t save her.”

Polling shows Hochul with a significant lead over Blakeman.

The complaint asked the state’s Division of Election Law Enforcement to open an investigation into the campaign, and whether it knowingly provided false information in the error-riddled reports. 

Blakeman’s campaign has received $3.5 million in matching funds, the maximum for a candidate for governor. It’s not clear whether any of that was because of the ineligible contributions, since Blakeman’s campaign also received many contributions that did meet the eligibility requirements.

The Board of Elections maintains that it carefully audits all requests for matching funds to prevent ineligible donations from being matched.

Hochul’s campaign is not participating in the matching funds program. With $19 million in the bank, she holds a massive cash advantage over Blakeman, whose campaign has just $178,000.

A spokesperson for the Board of Elections declined to comment, citing the pending complaint.