Fact-checking Hochul-Blakeman NY gov debate: ICE, gas wells, and fired corrections officers

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and GOP Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman traded fierce accusations and nuanced claims during Tuesday night’s hour-long debate hosted by Spectrum News NY1.

The rivals sparred over immigration, sexual assault laws, taxes, crime, energy and New York’s business climate.

Below, The Post breaks down some of the most notable allegations by each candidate.

The claim: Agreements between municipalities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) permit “rogue agents roaming the streets” — Hochul

This comment came while Hochul was attacking Blakeman over Nassau County’s so-called 287(g) agreement with the feds, referring to the relevant section of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

Our verdict: Mostly false. Nassau County’s deal with ICE allowed county cops to operate as deputized federal agents to enforce immigration crimes before Hochul enacted sanctuary legislation earlier this year. Nearly a dozen other localities in the state have a working relationship with ICE, but their activities are strictly limited to allowing correctional facilities to run detainee names through a federal database.

The claim: The 2,000 corrections officers fired during last year’s strike were conducting an illegal work stoppage — Hochul

Responding to a question about her handling of a 2025 staffing crisis in the state prison system, Hochul said the 2,000 corrections officers she booted were violating the law by walking of the job — and that she’d “sure as hell fire them” if thousands did the same again.

“They walked out the door and shut it,” said the governor, later adding: “You violated the law. Shame on you.”

Our verdict: Half-true. While public sector unions in New York are barred by the Taylor Law from striking while they have a contract in place, many of the corrections officers Hochul fired were never supposed to be dismissed and ultimately got their jobs back.

Of the 2,000 guards shown the door, 848 had been rehired as of November 2025, a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesperson told The Post at the time. Many of those have claimed they were on pre-approved medical leave and were swept up in Hochul’s action.

The claim: Utility bills will be slashed in half by permitting fracking — Blakeman

Blakeman said he “would extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale,” the massive rock formation covering large parts of upstate New York, in an attempt to drive down rapidly increasing energy prices.

Our verdict: Highly unlikely. Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order banning fracking in 2014, which the legislature codified in 2021. Even if Blakeman pulls off an upset Nov. 3, overcoming a likely Democratic majority to implement such a controversial policy would be a challenge.

The claim: Hochul was previously endorsed by the National Rifle Association and opposed drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants — Blakeman

In response to the governor attacking him over votes to raise property taxes while a county legislator in 1998 and 1999, Blakeman accused Hochul of changing her stances from her tenure representing part of Western New York in Congress between 2011 and 2013.

“You didn’t want to give illegal migrants driver’s licenses [back then], now you’re giving it to them,” Blakeman argued. “Property taxes? You’re going to talk about something I did 28 years ago.”

Our verdict: True. Hochul received an “A” rating from the NRA during her unsuccessful 2012 congressional campaign, during which she also talked up her opposition to then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s 2007 executive order undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses without proving legal residency.

The previous year, Hochul made a point of saying “I led the fight against giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses” in a campaign ad. The future governor ultimately won an upset special election victory to replace former Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY), who had resigned after being caught sending salacious emails and a shirtless picture to a potential hookup he met on Craigslist.

The Claim: Hochul insists President Trump is blocking her energy projects

Hochul was asked by moderators early in the debate about what she was doing to alleviate New Yorkers’ energy costs – which are about the third highest across all US states – and she quickly blamed President Trump, accusing him of blocking initiatives to build new power plants and citing the war in Iran for high bills.

“You know what the real problem is? I’ve got Donald Trump standing in the way of my energy projects,” she said.

Our verdict: Half true. President Trump has resisted wind farm development in New York and across the country, offering energy companies billions of dollars to buy back their contracts as part of a mission to keep fossil fuels at the center of US energy infrastructure.

Hochul is not blameless for the energy costs, however. Some of her own clean-energy initiatives — like the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act — policies have arguably driven customer rates up by forcing providers to spend more money complying.

That bill was passed in 2019 while Hochul was lieutenant governor and mandated the state’s electricity generation be 70% zero-emissions by 2030 and 100% green by 2040.

The claim: Blakeman wants “data centers everywhere” across upstate New York.

While trading barbs about data center policies – including Hochul’s one-year statewide construction moratorium she signed in July – the governor accused Blakeman of wanting to blanket upstate in polluting industries, lumping in data centers during her diatribe.

“It feeds into your vision for upstate New York, because you also want oil rigs, and gas rigs all over New York,” Hochul said. “You want to see data centers everywhere. You want smokestacks everywhere.”

Our verdict: Half true, but definitely half false. Blakeman has expressed enthusiasm about data centers – calling them the “fastest growing industry in the world” during the debate – but has been adamant local communities be the ones to choose whether they are built.

He explained that three months ago in a WGRZ-TV interview, where he said upstate data centers could “create prosperity, new jobs, and rebuild infrastructure in a lot of these communities, and repopulate some of these communities.”

“If we make it so it’s a win-win, then we can put these data centers in places where people actually want them,” he said. “There are communities in this state, and I’ve travelled to them, where people want them if there’s an economic benefit.”

Blakeman also supports bringing fracking to upstate – likely the Dickensian “smokestacks” Hochul described – but has also said they should be rolled out in similar community-forward approaches.

The claim: Hochul cut tax rates for middle class New Yorkers to lowest levels in 70 years.

During a sparring session about income taxes – where Blakeman repeated his banner campaign promise to cut them – Hochul insisted she’d already done that during her term.

“I’ve cut middle class tax rates to the lowest level they’ve been in 70 years,” Hochul said, before Blakeman countered that income taxes had gone up by $8 billion under her  watch.

Our verdict: Half-true, half false. Hochul did lower rates on middle income earners – 5.30% for single-filers earning $13,900 to $80,650, and 5.80% for those earning $80,650 to $215,400 in 2026 — but that only tells half the story, as those cuts were covered by steep increases on the wealthy in a Robin Hood-esque switch.

She helped raise income taxes on wealthy residents making more than $2 million when she was lieutenant governor under Gov. Andrew Cuomo April 2021. Billed as “temporary” tax increases set to expire in 2027, rates were raised to 9.65% for those making more than $2 million, and 10.3% and 10.9% for people making $5 million and $25 million.

Then when the 2027 expiration date neared, Hochul extended the rates through 2032.

The Claim: New York has “the fastest growing economy in the United States of America

Hochul rebuked Blakeman’s citing of studies that placed New York as last in the nation for economic outlook by claiming New York in fact had the “fasted growing economy” in the country, saying “we are exploding.”

Our verdict: Technically true, but only for a brief period and it masks broader structural challenges. 

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that New York State had the highest increase in gross domestic product between the 1st and 2nd Quarter of 2026, a 4% jump or nearly double the national GDP 2.2% increase.

However, New York suffers from a stagnant population and has the highest tax burden of all states in the US. It also has the second highest government spending after oil-rich Alaska, per the Citizens Budget Commission, which Blakeman highlighted during the debate.