From New York Times, I'm Michael Abarro. This is the Daily.

Today, as Democratic Party leaders assessed their vulnerabilities in this year's midterm elections,

the one state they did not worry about was New York. That, it turns out, was a mistake.

My colleague, Nick Fando's, on Why New York, is suddenly up for grabs.

It's Thursday, October 27th.

So, Nick, we have been talking on the daily about the dawning realization that Republicans are doing better and better in the run up to these midterm elections that they had been, and Democrats are, so result doing worse.

But I think it's safe to say that nobody expected the Republican resurgence over the past few weeks to occur here in New York.

The entire New York state government right now is Democratic. Governor, both parts of a legislature here in New York City mayor. It's a blue state through and through.

And yet, you're finding that the red tide of this moment is kind of lapping up against New York shores. So, tell us about that.

Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. Donald Trump just two years ago lost New York by 23 points, Biden won by 23 points.

It's been 20 years since New York elected a Republican governor. It's been a long time since Republicans had much of a foothold in Albany.

And yet, here we are just two weeks before election day, as you say, and races all across the state, including for governor, have gotten way too close for Democrats' comfort.

Well, let's start with that governor's race.

So, I think to tell the story, we've got to go back a little bit more than a year when Andrew Cuomo, the then popular and quite well known, domineering governor of New York, runs full on into a sexual harassment scandal.

And ends up having to resign in August of 2021.

And that elevates his lieutenant governor, Kathy Hocal.

I have to go back to New York. I have to go back to New York.

Who is not particularly well known is really frankly. I don't think any of us really had heard much about her at all.

No, she's an accidental governor in a way. And she has a really difficult task upon taking off. She basically has to learn how to become governor and start running for re-election simultaneously.

And so she does something that I think nobody quite saw coming. She goes out and races just a ridiculously large amount of money.

Tens of millions of dollars over the course of just a few months. She puts together a very impressive campaign team.

She scares better known rivals, build a blasio, leticia james out of the race.

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