Some NYC subway riders are hoping for a GOP win with Bruce Blakeman

By Staff Reporter

NEW YORK — The most consequential transit decision New York City riders make this year may not happen at a turnstile. It may happen on Nov. 3, and it may come down to whether they show up at all.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is counting on Washington for a fifth of its next five-year rebuilding program. The administration that controls that money has spent nearly two years fighting Gov. Kathy Hochul over the subway. The argument here is simple. As long as Hochul is governor, the MTA should not expect President Trump’s government to be a generous partner. Under a Governor Bruce Blakeman, the president’s longtime friend and endorsed candidate, it very plausibly would be.

A $68 billion plan with a federal hole in the middle

The MTA’s 2025–2029 capital plan totals $68.4 billion. Of that, $47.8 billion is for New York City Transit, Staten Island Railway and MTA Bus, according to the MTA’s own breakdown. On paper the plan is funded. Albany expanded the payroll mobility tax to raise $31.5 billion, and the city and state are putting in $3 billion and $4.2 billion. The MTA is also assuming $14 billion from the federal government.

That federal $14 billion is the weak point. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office warns that it “still faces some uncertainty,” because federal transit authorization expired in September and the president’s budget assumes less than the MTA needs. Congress has since passed a three-month extension that, according to MTA Chair Janno Lieber, cuts about $250 million a year from the authority’s formula funding. That extension expires Dec. 11. Lieber also warned that the administration’s tariffs could add $1 billion to the cost of new trains and buses.

Two years of open conflict

The record between this White House and Hochul’s MTA is a running fight. In February 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy moved to revoke federal approval of congestion pricing, and the president declared on social media, “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD.” The following month, Duffy threatened to redirect or withhold federal transit funds over subway crime. That April, the administration took the Penn Station reconstruction away from the MTA and handed it to Amtrak.

Then, last October, White House budget director Russell Vought froze roughly $18 billion for the Second Avenue Subway and the Gateway tunnel. The Second Avenue money began flowing again only in April, after the MTA sued. The congestion pricing fight ended the same way. In March a federal judge ruled Duffy’s effort unlawful, and the government has appealed to the Second Circuit.

The MTA has mostly won in court. But a court can stop the federal government from taking money away. It cannot make Washington offer more, and the extra discretionary money that would turn a repair plan into a new subway will not come from a lawsuit.

Why Blakeman changes the equation

Penn Station shows what the president does when he gets the credit. Once the project was under federal control, Duffy’s department put in a $43 million grant to jumpstart the work and announced a design unveiling in a release headlined with the president’s name. The president is a New York builder who wants his name on New York projects. He does not want to hand a win to a governor his campaign is trying to defeat.

Blakeman is a different case. Trump gave the Nassau County executive his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in December, calling him “MAGA all the way.” Blakeman answered that he and the president “will be partners.” At a rally in Syracuse on Oct. 9, Trump told supporters that Blakeman would “turn the state around and I’ll help him from the White House.” The Washington Post describes the two as old friends from Trump’s real estate days.

Trump has not promised subway money by name, and nothing here should be read as if he had. But it is a reasonable prediction that an administration this willing to punish an adversary’s transit agency would be just as willing to reward an ally’s. That could mean grants fast-tracked instead of frozen, and New York’s case for a better formula deal getting a hearing in the White House instead of a fight in court.

The strongest objections

There are serious objections to this argument. Blakeman has promised to end congestion pricing “on Day 1.” That toll netted more than $562 million in its first year and backs $15 billion in MTA capital work, and he has not said what would replace it. He says the MTA has “a spending problem,” not a revenue problem. Lieber says Blakeman opposed the projects that expanded Long Island Rail Road service.

Even very friendly federal treatment would not cover $68 billion. Washington’s share of this plan is about a fifth, and the largest source of the plan’s money, the payroll tax, is set in Albany by a Democratic legislature that a Governor Blakeman would have to work with. A rider who backs Blakeman to get more federal money could end up losing the congestion toll, and the toll is local money that already exists.

The answer is a bet on leverage. A governor who can call the president directly could plausibly trade the toll for a larger, guaranteed federal commitment. That would be a deal no Democratic governor will be offered.

The arithmetic of a quiet Election Day

Hochul leads. Siena’s latest statewide poll has her ahead 50% to 41% among likely voters. Marist has her up 53% to 42% among registered voters, and her lead rests on a 69% to 24% margin in the city. Blakeman leads upstate. One lesser-known text-to-web survey, from Pollfinity Research, puts the race at 47% to 44%.

Her lead depends almost entirely on the five boroughs. In 2022 Hochul won statewide by about 378,000 votes, according to the certified results. She carried New York City by about 712,000, out of roughly 1.8 million city votes, according to the city Board of Elections. That means she lost the rest of the state by more than 330,000. City turnout that year fell sharply from 2018.

So the outcome depends heavily on how many city voters show up. If the city’s margin shrinks by about half while the rest of the state votes as it did in 2022, the race is even. Nobody needs to persuade millions of riders to switch parties. If enough Democratic-leaning riders conclude that four more years of trench warfare with Washington is the worse outcome for their commute, and sit this one out, the result changes.

Every eligible New Yorker has the right to vote. Early voting runs Oct. 24 through Nov. 1, and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. How to use that right is each voter’s choice. For riders who care most about the trains, the argument here is that the federal money question deserves a place in that choice. And if the city’s vote is lighter this year, the result could be a governor the White House actually wants to help.