Hochul

NEW YORK — U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, a close Republican ally of President Trump, announced Friday that she’s running for governor of New York, a place she depicted in a campaign launch video as being “in ashes” because of lawlessness and a high cost of living.

In her video, a narrator declares “The Empire State has fallen” as it paints a grim picture of urban, liberal leadership and life in New York City, though the message appeared to be aimed at audiences in other, more conservative parts of the state.

Her candidacy sets up a potential battle with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a centrist Democrat, though both candidates would have to first clear the field of any intraparty rivals before next November’s election.

Stefanik, 41, has teased a run for months, often castigating Hochul, 67, as the “worst governor in America.” She’s also assailed Hochul for endorsing the ascendent, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, now the mayor-elect of New York City.

In a written statement, Stefanik said she is running to make “New York affordable and safe for families all across our great state.”

“Our campaign will unify Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to Fire Kathy Hochul once and for all to Save New York,” she said.

Hochul’s campaign released its own attack ad Friday against the Republican, dubbing her “Sellout Stefanik,” and blamed her for enabling Trump’s tariffs and federal funding cuts to education and health care.

“Apparently, screwing over New Yorkers in Congress wasn’t enough — now she’s trying to bring Trump’s chaos and skyrocketing costs to our state,” said Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika.

Representing a conservative congressional district in northern New York, Stefanik had once been a pragmatic and moderate Republican who would avoid uttering Trump’s name, simply calling him “my party’s presidential nominee.”

But in recent years she has reshaped herself into a brash disciple and ardent defender of Trump’s MAGA movement, rising through the ranks of the Republican Party’s congressional hierarchy as it molded to Trump’s political style.

Last year, Stefanik was tapped to become the president’s ambassador to the United Nations, though her nomination was later pulled over concerns about her party’s tight margins in the House. She then began to angle toward a run for governor, and very quickly got a public nod of support from Trump.

Her announcement video, which was titled “From the Ashes,” casts New York as a dangerous place plagued by “migrant crime” and economic crisis, placing the blame on “Kathy Hochul’s failed policies,” as urgent, ominous music plays in the background.

New York City police officials have long touted drops in crime and this week said the city is in its eighth consecutive quarter of major crime decline.

The Republican primary field remains unclear ahead of the 2026 race.

On Long Island, Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has said he’s weighing a run for governor. In a statement Friday, he said he has “tremendous respect” for Stefanik but that the GOP needs to nominate a candidate who has “broad based appeal with independents and common sense Democrats.”

“The party must nominate the candidate with the best chance to defeat Kathy Hochul and I have been urged by business, community and political leaders across the state to make the run and I am seriously considering it,” said Blakeman, who handily won reelection to another four-year term on Tuesday.

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler had been contemplating a run but instead decided to seek reelection in his battleground House district in the Hudson Valley.

Hochul faces a contested primary, with her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, running against her.

Democrats have a major voter registration edge in New York. The state’s last Republican governor was former Gov. George Pataki, who left office about two decades ago.

Still, Republican Lee Zeldin, a former Long Island congressman and current head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made a serious run for the office in 2022, coming within striking distance of upsetting Hochul.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Philip Marcelo contributed to this report.

Sept. 15 (UPI) — With less than two months before the New York City mayoral election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has endorsed fellow Democrat Zohran Mamdani to lead the city.

Hochul, also a Democrat, issued her endorsement Sunday, penning a New York Times opinion piece.

“The question of who will be the next mayor is one I take extremely seriously and to which I have devoted a great deal of thought,” she said.

“I am endorsing Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.”

Mamdani is the frontrunner in the four-person race that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo running as independents and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Recent polling shows Mamdani has 43% of the support of respondents compared to 28% for Cuomo.

The New York State assemblyman is a democratic socialist democrat who is campaigning on a platform to implement a rent freeze, make bus transit free, offer free childcare for those aged 6 weeks to 5 years and raise the corporate tax rate while taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers a flat 2% tax.

In her essay, Hochul said they discussed several issues, including the New York Police Department, which, according to Hochul, they agreed on the importance of ensuring strong leadership.

The announcement came days after Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview that he intended to apologize for a comment he made in 2020 calling the NYPD “racist,” among other insults.

Hochul also said that New York needs leaders who are willing to put aside their differences in order to stand up against President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Mamdani and I will both be fearless in confronting the president’s extreme agenda — with urgency, conviction and the defiance that defines New York,” the governor said.

“And we must never allow Mr. Trump to control our city like the king he wants to be. Anyone who accepts his tainted influence or benefits from it is compromised from the start.”

Mamdani, in a statement on X, on Sunday night thanked Hochul for her endorsement, saying he is grateful for the governor’s support “in unifying our party, her resolve in standing up to Trump and her forces on making New York affordable.

“I look forward to the great work we will accomplish together,” he said.

“Our movement is only growing stronger.”

The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, has endorsed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate who has campaigned for a more equitable allocation of the city’s resources, for mayor ahead of a closely watched November election in the financial capital of the United States.

Writing in The New York Times, the state leader said on Sunday she made her decision after “frank conversations” with her fellow Democrat, who resoundingly won the support of the party’s voters in a primary election in May.

“In our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighbourhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” Hochul wrote in the city-based newspaper.

“I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support,” Hochul added.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old left-wing politician who has promised to make buses free and freeze rents for subsidised tenants, won 56.4 percent of votes among registered Democrats in the primary race, easily beating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Yet Cuomo, a pro-Israel candidate who joined a team of lawyers defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes allegations in Gaza, has taken the unusual move of choosing to stay in the race, reflecting a continued divide within the Democratic Party.

While recent polls suggest Mamdani has a 22-point lead among New York voters, some prominent New York Democrats have appeared hesitant to back him, including US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, and, until recently, Hochul — though the governor had been more positive in comments about Mamdani than the others.

Speaking in Iowa on Saturday, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen criticised his Democratic colleagues for failing to endorse Mamdani, accusing them of the “kind of spineless politics” that “people are sick of”.

“They need to get behind him, and get behind him now,” Van Hollen said.

Mamdani, who has campaigned alongside independent Senator Bernie Sanders and progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal in recent days, has received fewer endorsements from centrist Democrats like Hochul, less than two months out from the November 4 general election.

Thanking the governor for her announcement on Sunday, Mamdani acknowledged Hochul’s “support in unifying our party” as well as her “focus on making New York affordable”.

He also praised “her resolve in standing up to Trump”.

Trump has also weighed in on the race, saying Mamdani being “up by 20” in a recent poll shows there is a “rebellion against bad candidates … they’re tired of it”.

“I’m not looking at the polls too carefully, but it would look like he is going to win, and that is a rebellion,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Fox News on Friday, describing Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as “my little communist mayor”.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Mamdani with 45 percent support among likely voters, and a comfortable 22-point lead over his closest rival, Cuomo, with 23 percent.

Repeat Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who cofounded the Guardian Angels to combat “violence and crime” on the New York subway in the 1970s, is polling at 15 percent, according to the Quinnipiac poll, while embattled incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent candidate, has just 12 percent support.

Trump has dismissed Sliwa as a candidate, describing the Republican candidate known for his trademark red beret as “not exactly prime time”.

Mamdani, meanwhile, has portrayed Adams as a “puppet” of Trump’s following meetings between the mayor and the US president and his team. Trump has described Adams as a “very nice person” but has denied recent reports that he offered the mayor an ambassadorship.

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday urged New Yorkers to vote for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, giving the Democratic nominee one of his most significant endorsements to date in the contest to lead the nation’s biggest city.

Writing in the New York Times’ opinion section, Hochul said that while she and Mamdani diverged on some issues, they came together on the importance of addressing the affordability crisis in the city and across the state.

“But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” wrote Hochul, a fellow Democrat. “I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support.”

The stunning success of Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, in the race for New York City mayor has exposed divisions within the Democratic Party as it struggles to repair its brand more than half a year into Donald Trump’s presidency. Hochul’s endorsement is the latest sign that Democratic leaders who had been skeptical of Mamdani’s left-leaning views are beginning to consolidate around him.

Mamdani thanked Hochul for the boost, saying it’s a sign that “our movement is growing stronger.”

“Governor Hochul has made affordability the centerpiece of her work. I look forward to fighting alongside her to continue her track record of putting money back in New Yorkers’ pockets and building a safer and stronger New York City where no one is forced to leave just so they can afford to raise a family,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday night. “I’m grateful to the Governor for her support in unifying our party — as well as the work she’s done standing up to President Trump, securing free lunch meals for our kids, and expanding access to childcare.”

In recent weeks, the other candidates in the race — former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa — have intensified their criticism of Mamdani over his platform and past statements ahead of the city’s general election in November.

U.S. House Republican Leadership Chair Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, said Hochul’s endorsement is a sign that the governor is moving left to shore up falling poll numbers.

“At the exact moment when New Yorkers are looking for strong leadership from their Governor with a majority opposing Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul embraces this raging Communist who will destroy New York making it less affordable and more dangerous — once again putting criminals and communists first, and New Yorkers LAST,” Stefanik said in a Sunday statement.

Mamdani soundly defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo has since relaunched his campaign as an independent. Adams, a Democrat, skipped the primary to run as an independent in November. Sliwa ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Hochul served as lieutenant governor to Cuomo and replaced him after he stepped down in 2021 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations. He denied wrongdoing during the campaign, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics.