CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn — Gov. Kathy Hochul spent the first weekend of early voting campaigning beside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and the mayor rewarded her by voting for her on a different party's line.
Folks, this is the most New York sentence ever written. The governor got the mayor's vote. She just got it from the side door.
Mamdani told reporters he was "excited" to have voted for Hochul on the Working Families Party line instead of the Democratic line. Hochul, asked about it, said: "OK by me, as long as they vote."
That's not a running mate. That's a roommate who pays rent in Venmo with a note that says "for utilities, not for you."
The two appeared together twice. On Friday it was McCarren Park in Williamsburg, where Politico reported people crowded in for selfies "mostly with the mayor." On Sunday it was a labor canvass kickoff at Medgar Evers College, where about 100 union leaders and members showed up, per Politico.
Picture Hochul at McCarren Park. She's the sitting governor of the fourth-largest state in the country. She's holding a clipboard of talking points. And a 24-year-old in a tote bag hands her his phone and asks if she can take one of him and the mayor.
She's not the headliner. She's the opening act at her own show.
To be fair, Hochul brought the money. Mamdani credited her with $1.2 billion for universal child care and free 2-K. In Albany, that's what love looks like. Not flowers. A line item.
And she kept the praise coming. "I cannot think of a better partner than our mayor, Zohran Mamdani," Hochul said.
He could think of a better ballot line, though.
Mamdani even admitted these joint appearances aren't always comfortable. "There are political events where we have to go to, it's a little more difficult to be up there on that stage... Today is not one of those," he said.
When your partner has to publicly announce that today is one of the good days, you're not in a partnership. You're in couples counseling with a press pool.
Across the river, Republican nominee Bruce Blakeman is thrilled. He called Hochul "Mamdani's puppet," and said the more the two campaign together, the more likely he is to win in what he called "a very, very astounding victory."
Blakeman is from Nassau County. Out there, a joint appearance with Mamdani isn't a rally. It's an attack ad that shows up and pays for its own parking.
Meanwhile, the voters are actually voting. The city cast 165,143 early ballots through the first two days, almost double the 97,155 cast at that point in 2022. Somewhere in that pile is one ballot for Kathy Hochul that technically belongs to a different party.
She'll take it. She already said so. "OK by me."
That's the new state motto. Rent up, utilities up, taxes up, and the mayor voting for you from the other line. OK by me, as long as they vote.
Early voting runs through Sunday. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. The selfie line is expected to remain mostly with the mayor.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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