While it’s the votes that’ll count between Lee Zeldin and Kathy Hochul come tomorrow night, New Yorkers have shown a definite interest in one candidate over the other in online searches.

The term “Lee Zeldin” has been Googled roughly twice as much as “Kathy Hochul” while the race for governor tightened to the single digits ahead of the final day of voting on Nov. 8.

“By every measurable metric, Lee Zeldin is surging in popularity. But at 9:01 tomorrow night, we will see that it was the voters who brought him across the only finish line that counts,” City Councilman Joe Borelli, a spokesman for the pro-Zeldin super PAC Save Our State, said on the eve of the final day of voting on Nov. 8.

The Google Trends data suggests the Republican pol has had success in overcoming relative obscurity while campaigning hard on rising crime against the embattled Democratic incumbent alongside a multi-million dollar ad barrage funded by his political allies.

A surge in online hits with the biggest search engine around follows previous success by Zeldin in expanding his following on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram compared to Hochul.

Both he and Hochul have struggled with being recognized by voters though she appears to have gotten a big head start while leaning on the powers of incumbency over the past year after taking over for disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021.

“She had little statewide name recognition after taking office. Zeldin had less,” political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said.

Google Trends data shows a big spike in searches for his name following an Oct. 9 shooting outside his Suffolk home, with Zeldin overtaking Hochul as the bigger focus of searches compared to previous months when they both received similar levels of interest.

The high-profile violence outside his Long Island home is one of many incidents that Zeldin has leverage to build awareness of his campaign pledges to undo many of the progressive reforms championed by Albany Democrats like Hochul – including controversial limits on cash bail.

Many of the online hits for Zeldin appear related to searches about the shooting, his Oct. 25 debate against Hochul, his positions on touchy issues like abortion and queries centering on “can Zeldin win” the first statewide race for Republicans in a generation.

A total of 79% of likely voters expressed an opinion about Zeldin – compared to 64% three weeks before – in a Siena Poll conducted Oct. 12-14, which 86% of respondents also appearing familiar with Hochul.

Some critics have accused online giants like Google in recent years of supposedly limiting their online reach in favor of progressives, though the extent to which any purported censorship might happen remains shrouded in secrecy.

Spokespeople for the Zeldin and Hochul campaigns did not provide comment about what the Google data might say about the state of the race ahead of Election Day.

Whatever the balance in search results linking to website tilting for or against Zeldin, Democrats demonstrated Monday how Google can be used to hamper his campaign messaging in real time.

“This took me about 5 seconds to find with a simple Google search,” Democratic City Councilman Keith Powers, a Hochul supporter, tweeted Monday while highlighting Zeldin’s pro-life positions during his four terms in Congress.

Hochul has focused on turning out her base in the final days of the campaign after Democrats pulled the “fire alarm” by mobilizing political lightning rods like President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to boost her flagging campaign.

But Zeldin supporters say the volume of Google searches about him – whether or not they are by people who support or oppose his campaign – hints how he might be positioned to pull off an historic upset this week despite the odds against him.

“The enthusiasm and interest in the race really picked up and the focus seems to be on him,” Borelli said.