This will be the year that makes or breaks Kathy Hochul’s political career.
The Democratic governor, who won a full term in 2022 and intends to run again in 2026, is at a crossroads. Her approval ratings are middling and she has never enjoyed widespread popularity. And unlike her scandal-scarred predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, she has not been able to intimidate well-heeled, viable challengers who could make life difficult during a campaign.
First, there’s the Democratic primary, where she seems increasingly likely to face Ritchie Torres, the young congressman from the Bronx who has given every indication he wants to run for governor. Torres, ideologically, profiles like Tom Suozzi, the Long Island congressman who ran to Hochul’s right in 2022 and was beaten easily. Torres, of late, has attacked Hochul for instances of crime on the subways.
But there are reasons to believe Torres, if he does run, could do far better than Suozzi. In 2022, Hochul was a new governor, and more voters were giving her the benefit of the doubt after she replaced Cuomo, who had resigned a year earlier in a sexual harassment scandal. That fall, the crime issue would first start to damage Hochul, with Republican Lee Zeldin coming within seven points of defeating her. She hasn’t been overly popular since.
Hochul does have tangible accomplishments to tout. She has boosted funding for public schools compared to Cuomo, signed into law new environmental and tenant protections, and managed an administration that has been mostly free of scandal, no small feat in Albany. Under her watch, the statewide Democratic organization has also started to function again after many decades of neglect and even sabotage. For law-and-order types who wanted the state’s criminal justice and bail laws weakened, she certainly accomplished that.
The trouble for Hochul is that many residents aren’t feeling overly optimistic about New York. Cost of living remains an enormous challenge. It is harder than ever to buy a house, and rents post-pandemic have been stubbornly high. Lingering anger over the migrant crisis has damaged her standing. Crime concerns haven’t helped, either.
And her waffling over congestion pricing — the tolling plan for Manhattan is finally set to launch on Jan. 5 — has pleased few constituencies. Progressives and transit advocates were furious in June when she temporarily mothballed the program. Outer-borough and suburban motorists who were infuriated about having to pay a new toll were not placated and haven’t given her much credit for lowering the peak charge to $9 from $15.
Torres is a strong fundraiser and could spend much more on the primary than Suozzi. As an Afro-Latino, he could hold appeal in nonwhite working class neighborhoods, and he’s forged a strong relationship with the Jewish community over his full-throated defense of Israel and criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters. He is, for now, an underdog, but he has a chance to pull off the upset against Hochul if he decides to run.
Her other problem is Mike Lawler, the Republican congressman from the Hudson Valley. Lawler, like Torres, is weighing a 2026 run. If Hochul survives Torres, she will have to fend off a Republican who is arguably more talented and formidable than Zeldin. Lawler has cut a more moderate path in Washington and is a proven vote-getter in a district that Joe Biden once carried. If the 2026 electoral conditions should be more favorable to Hochul — it will be President Donald Trump’s midterm, and a backlash to Republican policymaking is probable — Lawler will still be a feisty opponent and would likely make his staunch opposition to congestion pricing a centerpiece of his campaign.
All is not lost for Hochul. She’ll need to take a page out of the playbooks of more popular Democratic governors like Jared Polis of Colorado, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan by delivering tangible goods for her state and reminding voters of what she has done. She will need to become, at the minimum, a better communicator. And she’ll have to offer a compelling argument and vision for what New York should be. Can she make New Yorkers excited about New York again? That’s her real challenge.
Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.
