Every election season, New York’s real estate families face the same question: back the likely winner or back the candidate who agrees with them. Most of the industry has chosen the first. The campaign finance record, at least, does not suggest second thoughts.
On October 19, the New York Post’s Carl Campanile listed the building families and executives who have given to Governor Kathy Hochul‘s re-election campaign, Friends of Kathy Hochul, and to the Hochul-led New York State Democratic Committee. Reduced to its family names, the list reads like a society seating chart.
The checks
According to the Post:
Jed Walentas of Two Trees, who chairs the board of the Real Estate Board of New York, gave two donations totaling $18,000 in 2023, and $129,600 to the state Democratic Committee this August.
Douglas Durst of the Durst Organization gave $7,500 across two donations in 2023 and 2025, and the Durst Organization gave $25,000 to the state Democratic Party in February.
Richard, James and Harrison LeFrak of the LeFrak Organization gave a combined $18,000 on the same day in 2024.
Members of the Elghanayan family, who run Rockrose Development and TF Cornerstone, gave a combined $43,000 in 2023 and 2024.
Donald Zucker of the Zucker Company gave a combined $14,500 in 2023 and last month.
Larry Silverstein gave $18,000 in 2023.
Rob Speyer of Tishman Speyer, who is also co-chairman of the Partnership for New York City, gave $18,000 in 2023 and 2024, and Tishman Speyer entities gave another $10,000.
The Post’s list also included two executives whose firms are not family-run: Marc Holliday of SL Green, who gave $18,000 in 2023 and $24,000 to the state party from 2024 to 2026, and Jeff Blau of Related Companies, who gave $18,000 in 2023.
None of this is unusual. Developers depend on the state for zoning, tax policy and rent law, and New York has had a Democratic governor since 2007. REBNY gave the Post a careful reply: “REBNY does not endorse candidates, and our Board members make their own individual decisions about political contributions.”
The Republican case
The Republican argument deserves a fair hearing, and the party made it clearly. State G.O.P. chairman Ed Cox pointed to the pied-à-terre tax enacted in this year’s state budget. “For their reward, Hochul shoved the pied-à-terre tax down their throats to satisfy Zohran Mamdani’s desire to tax the rich. Of course they were burned,” he told the Post.
The tax itself is not trivial. According to an analysis by Holland & Knight, the surcharge on New York City homes that are not their owners’ primary residence took effect July 1, 2026, and sunsets June 30, 2031, unless the Legislature extends it. In its first phase it applies to one-to-three-family houses with a market value of $5 million or more, and to condominium and co-op apartments valued at $1 million or more on the city’s existing measures. The firm’s author, the real estate lawyer Stuart Saft, called it a tax that “will impact sales prices of all housing.” The same analysis cites the City Comptroller’s estimate that the tax could raise between roughly $340 million and $500 million, depending on how owners respond.
The Republican nominee, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, is pitching himself as the business candidate. “I am going to win the governor’s race and restore economic growth and job creation to the Empire State by lowering taxes and electric bills for all New Yorkers,” he told the Post. “Our business community has a choice: four more years of Hochul policies that increase taxes and drive jobs out of New York, or join my campaign and help build a state where everyone prospers.”
He has at least one prominent backer from the city’s business establishment. The Post reports that James Dolan, owner of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden, has put millions of dollars into Strong and Safe New York, a pro-Blakeman super PAC, and wrote to the Partnership’s leadership. “This is where we diverge. The mayor cannot raise taxes without Governor Hochul’s support,” Mr. Dolan told Mr. Speyer.
The Democratic case
The Hochul campaign answered on housing. “Governor Hochul has cut red tape on housing to bring costs down for families across New York – Blakeman bragged that because he doesn’t build any, housing costs have skyrocketed,” a spokesperson told the Post. Mr. Dolan’s letter actually makes the structural point her industry supporters rely on: the mayor cannot raise taxes without Albany.
At least one developer is hedging. Scott Rechler of RXR, a Long Island developer, gave to Mr. Blakeman’s re-election for county executive last year and to Ms. Hochul’s campaign this cycle. O’Brien Murray, a strategist who has worked for both parties, summed up the bind: “It’s a conundrum when the people you support go against you.”
Why the families stay
In The Real Deal’s NY Dirt newsletter, Lilah Burke argued that the habit is partly about access and partly about culture. Jay Martin, a public relations consultant who has worked with landlord clients, told her: “You weren’t going to cocktail parties and saying you weren’t pro-choice or you were against gay rights… It wasn’t good business practice to do that or be that way in New York City.” He added that the rise of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America is leading some in the industry to ask why they are supporting Democrats at all. The same piece reported that the broker Jason Haber and the team behind the American Real Estate Association have started a group to raise money and mobilize industry voters, with an open primary among its priorities.
That shift is already showing up on the ground. On October 1, NY1 reported that the Rent Guidelines Board’s freeze on the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments had taken effect. A lawsuit argues that Mayor Mamdani improperly influenced the board, and a Staten Island judge has ordered communications between his office and the board to be turned over. The administration maintains that the board acted appropriately. Those are allegations in pending litigation, not findings. Landlord advocate Kenny Burgos told NY1 a two-year freeze “is going to cause a lower quality housing for so many tenants.”
For the families, the arithmetic is simple. A $43,000 donation is small change for a firm that owns Manhattan towers, and access in Albany is worth considerably more. Whether the checks bought restraint, as the Hochul camp suggests, or nothing at all, as Mr. Cox argues, is what the voters will weigh on November 3.
Featured image: The New York State Capitol in Albany. Photo by Beyond My Ken via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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