From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Lee Zeldin, Jewish pro-Trump voice in US Congress, announces run for NY governor
Rep. Lee Zeldin, one of two Jewish Republicans in the US Congress and a staunch defender of Donald Trump, is running for governor of New York.
“The bottom line is this: To save New York, Andrew Cuomo’s gotta go,” Zeldin says in a news release.
Zeldin, a House member from Long Island, handily won reelection in the fall over a Democratic Jewish challenger, despite being unabashedly pro-Trump in a state where the former president is extremely unpopular.
Both Zeldin and David Kustoff of Tennessee, another Jewish House Republican, voted to object to the Electoral College’s presidential vote tally after condemning the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
Cuomo, the incumbent governor, is ensnared in a series of scandals — one involving lies about nursing home deaths in New York from COVID-19, as well as several allegations of sexual harassment by former colleagues.
The last Jewish governor of New York was Eliot Spitzer, who held the office between 2007 and 2008 before resigning amid a prostitution scandal.
