Nassau GOP Picks Bruce Blakeman To Run For County Executive

ATLANTIC BEACH, NY — The Nassau County Republican party has picked Hempstead Town Councilman Bruce Blakeman to run against Democratic incumbent Laura Curran as Nassau County Executive.

Blakeman, 65, lives in Atlantic Beach and has been on the Hempstead Town Board since 2015. He also served on the council from 1993-95. He left the Town Board the first time to serve in the Nassau County Legislature. He was Presiding Officer From 1996 through 1999.

Additionally, he served as commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 2001 to 2009.

"Nassau Republicans are excited that Hempstead Town Councilman Bruce Blakeman is our candidate for county executive," the Nassau County GOP wrote on Facebook. "Bruce will fix the county executive's broken reassessment, which has hiked taxes for 65 percent of Nassau's homeowners. Bruce Blakeman is putting taxpayers first."

But Blakeman's career has never risen above the local level, despite numerous attempts. In 1998, he made a failed bid for New York Comptroller. And a year later, he lost his seat on the Nassau County Legislator to Jeffery Toback.

In 2010, he ran in a primary to be the Republican nominee for a special election for a New York Senate seat, which he lost. He ran on the Tax Revolt party, but was handily defeated by Kirsten Gillibrand.

He won the Republican primary to run for the state's Fourth Congressional District in 2014, but lost the general election to Kathleen Rice.

"I am focused on the tax burden on the average person in Nassau," Blakeman told Newsday. "There is only so much they can take."

After the announcement, Nassau County Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs hit Blakeman hard.

"Bruce Blakeman is another career politician who would take us backwards," Jacobs said in a statement. "Let’s remember that it was Bruce Blakeman who was the presiding officer of the Legislature when Nassau’s finances crumbled, requiring the state to impose the NIFA control board. It was Bruce Blakeman who presided over the BPA insurance scandal and it was Bruce Blakeman who led the legislature in creating the assessment mess in the first place, sticking taxpayers with the bill."