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🚨🚨MUST READ🚨🚨: Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a group of fellow basketball enthusiasts have been secretly using the NYPD Police Academy’s gymnasium in Queens to play pickup ball, according to four people familiar with the games. The mayor and his crew typically show up around 10 or 11 p.m. and enter surreptitiously through a loading dock before hitting the court. While sports fanaticism has often buoyed the political brand of past mayors, Mamdani’s choice of venue is raising eyebrows. Read the story from POLITICO’s Graham Rayman, Chris Sommerfeldt and Joe Anuta here . FINANCE FLAWS: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been plagued by inaccuracies since the spring. Copies of the campaign’s bank statements obtained by POLITICO suggest his filings might have even more problems than previously suspected. According to a disclosure report submitted to the state Board of Elections earlier this month, the Blakeman campaign had only $178,000 in the bank as of Sept. 28. Yet the campaign’s checking account had a balance of $1.7 million on Sept. 28, according to TD Bank’s monthly statement. The bank records also show dozens of transactions that are missing from his campaign finance filings. On July 29, for example, the bank statements identified the campaign using a check with the number 1156 to make a $13,500 payment to an unspecified recipient. Yet Blakeman’s campaign finance reports do not identify any transactions that used check number 1156. It also hasn’t shown a single payment totaling $13,500 at any point over the past year. In addition, there are instances in which the bank records show apparent contributions to the campaign that never show up in the disclosure reports. The statements show Blakeman was wired $18,000 by actress Lois Robbins on Sept. 2, for example, while the filings don’t show any transactions totaling $18,000 within two weeks of that date or any donations from Robbins. An $18,000 wire from attorney and campaign finance chair Howard Fensterman in July similarly doesn’t match anything in the disclosure reports. Blakeman is the first gubernatorial candidate in state history to participate in the new matching funds program that lets him receive up to $3.5 million in public money. Then-Mayor Eric Adams was blocked from participating in a similar New York City program last year due to discrepancies between his bank statements and disclosure reports. Reinvent Albany’s Kyle Kennedy said he didn’t know the cause of the discrepancies, but that it could just be due to “the timing of when things were recorded.” But, he noted, Blakeman’s campaign “will automatically be audited by the Board of Elections after the election. … Campaign finance enforcement takes place after elections, not in real-time.” Blakeman’s campaign didn’t respond to a request to explain the discrepancies. It has previously said its campaign finance problems are due to technical issues caused by a large number of donors. Several of the candidate’s campaign finance disclosure reports have been repeatedly amended, often in ways that made the initial numbers wildly inaccurate. His July report showed him with $4.7 million in the bank; that was changed a week later to show his balance was $6.1 million; then in August it was changed to $4.3 million. As POLITICO reported earlier this month , Blakeman has received about $360,000 in donations over the contribution limit that he still needs to return. Many of the donations he has already returned have been highly unusual — one person who gave $1 in July was quickly refunded $780.76. His campaign then said he accidentally submitted some duplicate contributions. Nearly a month later, it hasn’t amended the filing to show which transactions were real. And as New York Focus reported , the Blakeman campaign submitted requests to receive matching funds for 2,600 donations that were ineligible for matches. From the Capitol THE WEEKEND TURNOUT: Early voting turnout has s…

Bruce Blakeman called Kathy Hochul a "puppet" of Zohran Mamdani at a campaign rally, accusing both of failing on crime and illegal immigration.

Former Democratic Bronx Assemblyman Stephen Kaufman accuses his own party of being overtaken by socialists while rallying for Bruce Blakeman.

New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman says internal polls show a dead heat in his race against Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Anyone who wants the state to have a better future needs to choose a governor who’ll fight to rebuild the sensible center — and that means a vote for Bruce Blakeman.

Republican New York gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman is making public safety a centerpiece of his campaign against Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, betting that lingering concerns about crime will resonate with voters, Politico reported Wednesday.

BLAKEMAN’S (LACK OF) ENERGY PLAN: GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman continued to hammer Gov. Kathy Hochul on rising energy costs today, promising to slash utility bills in half if he’s elected. The Republican, however, still has not offered up a policy proposal on how he’d go about doing that. “Kathy Hochul increased our utility rates 48 times in four years,” Blakeman said in upper Manhattan this morning. The Washington Heights press conference, which included former Gov. George Pataki, was heavy on rhetoric and relatively light on details. Afterward, Blakeman’s campaign would not spell out how exactly he plans to cut consumer utility costs and did not respond to a request for clarification about his claim that Hochul increased utility rates 48 times. (While the state’s Public Service Commission has approved increases in major utility rate cases during Hochul’s tenure, those hikes have been less than what the utilities requested .) “Donald Trump’s puppet, Bruce Blakeman … wants data centers raising your costs and said Trump was doing an ‘amazing job’ after he jacked up utility bills.” Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “Two weeks from irrelevance, here’s what Blakeman won’t tell you: Governor Kathy Hochul delivered a billion dollars in energy relief, ten billion in tax relief, and made data centers pay for the energy they use.” The Nassau County executive described meeting the owner of a Bronx diner who told him the business would need to sell 1,000 burgers a month to pay its $16,000 utility bill. Blakeman said he would legalize fracking to help New Yorkers lower their energy bills fast. Aside from the fact that fracking doesn’t necessarily lead to lower utility bills and the reality that Blakeman would need buy-in from the state’s Democratic-dominated Legislature to do so, he insists that legalizing fracking could offer near-term relief from high energy costs. “I met with those same individuals and companies that are doing the extraction of natural gas in Pennsylvania. They told me they can be up and running in 60 days,” Blakeman said. “If Albany has the will to reduce people's utility bills … we can get it done in 60 days.” He pointed to Pennsylvania, arguing that the state has lower electric bills because it allows fracking. But he neglected to mention that Pennsylvania is not part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — the carbon trading program of 11 eastern states, which Blakeman has pledged to withdraw from if he is elected. Pataki, the last Republican to serve as governor in the Empire State, spearheaded the creation of that initiative, which is commonly known as RGGI. “The concept is right, but the way it's being done in Albany is wrong,” Pataki said at the presser, accusing Albany of using RGGI as a “slush fund.” Even if New York did withdraw from RGGI, the benefit would amount to a 5% to 6% decrease on an average New York residential household bill, according to an estimate from National Grid — barely making a dent in the 50% Blakeman is promising to slash. Exactly how the state would cover the rest of his proposed cut remains unclear. Affordability, though, continues to be a key concern in Washington Heights, a largely Dominican neighborhood that Mayor Zohran Mamdani did well in during his ascent to victory last year. To drive their message home, the Republicans even attempted to make their pitch in Spanish. Pataki, much more practiced in this than Blakeman, talked about how much he loved the “barrio” when he was governor, describing Blakeman as a leader “muy fuerte.” “Gracias, hombre grande,” Blakeman exclaimed, before touting what he views as the GOP ticket’s immigrant bonafides — Saritha Komatireddy for attorney general and Joe Hernandez for comptroller. “Governor, your Spanish is better than my Spanish, and I grew up speaking it,” Hernandez praised Pataki. — Mona Zhang From the Capitol LABOR BOOSTS GOV: A coalition of public employee unions is joining the crowded ro…