New York Rep. Elise Stefanik officially entered the race for New York governor on Friday, looking to topple Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and reverse a streak of Republican losses in statewide elections.
Her 2 1/2-minute video announcement didn’t mention President Donald Trump, a close ally. Instead, she focused on affordability and dinged Hochul for what Stefanik cast as her failed leadership of an increasingly expensive state.
“The Empire State has fallen,” the narrator said. “And Kathy Hochul’s failed policies are to blame. Kathy Hochul made New York the most unaffordable state in the nation, crushing families with sky-high taxes, unaffordable rent, soaring energy costs and record-high grocery bills.”
POLITICO reported on Thursday that Stefanik planned to enter the race.
Another Democrat who featured prominently in Stefanik’s campaign announcement was New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose brand of politics Republicans are seeking to tie to Democrats running for office in 2026. The launch video accused Hochul of cozying up “to a defund the police, tax-hiking, antisemitic communist.”
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump in November tapped Stefanik — then the House GOP conference chair — to serve as his next ambassador to the United Nations. But under pressure from an ever-tightening House majority, Trump withdrew her nomination in the spring. Stefanik returned to House leadership and has since been telegraphing her plans to make a play for the governor’s mansion in Albany.
“I am running for governor to make New York affordable and safe FOR ALL,” she wrote Friday on X. “Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will unify to save our state.”
Her effort has come with an assist from the president, who convinced would-be primary rival Rep. Mike Lawler to run for reelection in his battleground House seat next year rather than fight Stefanik in a messy statewide GOP primary.
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