Earlier this week, it was reported that potential Republican gubernatorial challenger, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, is launching a PAC – a slush fund for special interest donors – as she eyes the Executive Mansion next year.
Last cycle, we saw voters across the country make a giant shift to the right as once-reliable Democratic voting blocs drift away from the party. These national trends, combined with the all-but-certain surge of outside money special interests in PACs like Stefanik’s, present the single greatest challenge for Democrats up and down the ballot in 2026.
Here in New York, Governor Hochul is entering the cycle with a robust campaign infrastructure and broadly-popular accomplishments, like inflation rebate checks and a bell-to-bell cell phone ban, but she will need robust resources if Democrats can hope to compete next fall.
Those who dismiss the impact of outside spending from right-wing special interest billionaires are making a dangerous miscalculation — and ignoring the lessons of 2022.
Last cycle, Governor Hochul wasn’t just running against Lee Zeldin, a Trump-endorsed, MAGA-fringe congressman from Long Island. She was running against an unprecedented tsunami of outside spending from right-wing billionaires and their super PACs. In total, nearly $20 million in independent expenditures (IEs) was deployed against her or in support of Zeldin — a staggering sum in any race, let alone in New York.
To understand just how unprecedented this was, let’s look at the history books. In New York’s 2018 gubernatorial election, independent expenditure groups spent a total of $4.1 million. In 2014, it was just $2 million. The 2022 race shattered those records several times over, marking a new era in New York politics — one where outside groups can inject tens of millions into an election virtually overnight.
We saw this firsthand in the final weeks of the 2022 race. According to campaign finance data reviewed by the Times Union, Hochul and political action committees supporting her were outspent by pro-Zeldin groups by $12–17 million in the closing stretch. That last-minute barrage of negative advertising wasn’t accidental. It was a deliberate effort to “flood the zone” in the final days.
You could argue that it worked to a certain extent. The spending blitz narrowed the race significantly in its closing weeks, closer than anticipated with polls tightening and media coverage increasingly dominated by crime-focused messaging — a narrative driven largely by outside-funded ads.
And there’s no reason to believe the playbook in 2026 will be any different. Regardless of the winner of the Republican primary, the same MAGA-aligned donors and dark-money groups that tried to buy the Governor’s Mansion for Zeldin are emboldened — increasingly convinced that with enough money, they can turn New York into GOP/Trump territory.
That means the stakes next year will be enormous. Governor Hochul has fought to lower costs for New Yorkers, boost public safety, and defend our freedoms — all while steering New York through public health crises, economic challenges, and unprecedented political headwinds. Yet all of that could be undermined by a tidal wave of billionaire cash and bad-faith attack ads.
Governor Hochul proved in 2022 that she could fight back against the tide of right-wing outside spending. But make no mistake: the floodgates will open again. New Yorkers must be prepared for another multimillion-dollar MAGA offensive designed to tear down a governor who’s delivered real results for New York families.
This time, let’s call it out early. Let’s save New York and build a firewall against the far-right and MAGA-aligned interests who want to buy our elections.
Bryan Lesswing is a Democratic consultant for SKDK and a former senior advisor to Governor Kathy Hochul.
Albany, NY
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