One year ago, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s popularity was plummeting, rivals from the left and right were circling and her path to re-election looked bumpy.
Two Republican House members were weighing challenges, eager to press their party’s momentum after President Trump’s election. Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, was also contemplating a bid, and Democrats to his left questioned if Ms. Hochul, a moderate from western New York, was the right person to respond to MAGA sentiment.
Even Ms. Hochul’s own deputy, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, had severed ties with her, announcing that he would not be on her re-election ticket, and had begun gearing up to challenge her in a Democratic primary.
Now, with the election nine months away, Ms. Hochul is heading to Syracuse for the State Democratic Party convention on Friday in a somewhat surprising position of strength. Two Republican bids fizzled: Representative Elise Stefanik dropped out, and Representative Mike Lawler’s challenge never materialized. Mr. Torres similarly ruled out running.
The only serious candidates left standing are Bruce Blakeman, the Republican Nassau County executive, and Mr. Delgado, who entered the race in June.
He hoped to capitalize on the energy that fueled Zohran Mamdani’s rise to become mayor of New York City. He said that the election showed that people “really want bold, transformational change” instead of the clubby political system he said Ms. Hochul embodies.
“These are new voters, first-time voters, younger voters, immigrant communities that have come out now and often been overlooked,” he said. And, he added, “the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is now activated.” He asserted that the governor had “completely overlooked” these constituencies.
But the forces most opposed to Ms. Hochul have failed to coalesce behind Mr. Delgado — in large measure because of the governor’s actions and outreach.
Since Mr. Trump re-entered office last year, Ms. Hochul has emerged as a capable defender of New York State against the president’s threats. She fought the Trump administration’s attempt to kill the congestion pricing program in New York City, even after she had initially wavered on its implementation and lowered its tolls. She also defended several large wind projects that Mr. Trump opposed.
She has taken several actions to counteract what she said was “an unprecedented escalation in aggressive federal immigration enforcement.” And she has continued to emphasize affordability in her own messaging, a tactic that would seem to play well with Mr. Mamdani’s supporters.
“Governor Hochul and her team are attempting to address the affordability crisis for New Yorkers,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York Working Families Party, which will hold its endorsement convention on Saturday.
“Of course, they also took note of the enthusiasm around Zohran’s win.”
Part of Ms. Hochul’s calculus is determining how far she can lean into the Mamdani wave while still staying true to her roots as a centrist Democrat from western New York. Unlike many other moderate Democrats, Ms. Hochul cautiously endorsed Mr. Mamdani last fall, saying they shared a set of priorities despite profound areas of disagreement.
Their relationship was evident last month when they stood together and announced a plan to to expand child care access for children ages 2 and up within four years in New York City. The goal is to set the state on a path to universal child care statewide.
Mr. Mamdani is expected to endorse Ms. Hochul as early as Thursday, several people familiar with the matter said. His support signals to his supporters that despite their ambivalence, Ms. Hochul offers the best chance of achieving the ambitious goals he has set forth.
“She actually has been smart about Trump, and she’s been smart about Mayor Mamdani,” said Rebecca Katz, whose firm, Fight Agency, made the Mamdani campaign’s ads.
She contrasted the governor’s “very good political decision to back Zohran” with the way that Democratic leaders in Washington withheld their endorsements. “She saw that he is somebody who can move voters,” Ms. Katz said, “and she is a smart politician, and it is smart to be aligned with the mayor on some core issues.”
Ms. Hochul’s efforts have appeared to quash Mr. Delgado’s hopes of attracting influential backers to an insurgency candidacy.
“I think there’s some people who are absolutely loyal to the governor,” said Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman, who represents Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights in Brooklyn. She said she speaks regularly with Mr. Delgado, but is unlikely to endorse him.
“I think there are a larger number of people who are like, we just have so much to do in this year, we can’t be messy.”
Mr. Delgado has about $1.1 million cash on hand, and his campaign expects to be eligible for up to $3.5 million in matching funds — the first time a matching program has been available to candidates for governor. It is still far less than the roughly $20 million that Ms. Hochul has in her campaign.
The disparity in campaign funds mirrors the gap in the polls. Ms. Hochul is viewed favorably by about half of New York’s voters, according to a poll released by Siena University on Tuesday. It’s her highest rating since taking office, and a 10 percentage point increase from about the same time last year. She is beating Mr. Delgado by about 50 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup, according to the survey.
Some of his supporters say they are committed to trying to unseat Ms. Hochul, citing her resistance to raising taxes and her support for new natural gas pipelines — issues that Mr. Delgado has raised.
“Many of us are from frontline communities, and we have been impacted by Sandy and other catastrophic events,” Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, a democratic socialist who backed Mr. Mamdani and now supports Mr. Delgado, said at recent campaign rally.
“We need a governor who is putting them first, not oil and gas companies and not Donald Trump, who she is making deals with for the messy pipeline that we defeated for 14 years.”
But Mr. Delgado has not seemed to do enough to cultivate more support from lawmakers like Ms. Gallagher. State Senator Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat, said Mr. Delgado has not come close to matching Ms. Hochul’s outreach.
When Ms. Hochul was lieutenant governor, she regularly appeared at events in his district, Mr. Gounardes recalled. And as governor, Ms. Hochul maintained a constructive working relationship with him even as they sparred over several contentious policy issues.
With Mr. Delgado, a former House member whose swing district included moderate portions of the Hudson Valley, that has not been the case.
“I represent one of the most left-leaning districts in the state. It is the epicenter of the Brooklyn Working Families Party movement,” Mr. Gounardes said. “On paper, I am someone that he should be trying to, if not court, at least try talk to. I just haven’t seen that outreach whatsoever.”
Mr. Delgado has met repeatedly in recent months with senior members and elected officials from the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose support was key to the mayor’s victory. He also solicited the backing of former aides and allies to Mr. Mamdani, who is a member of the local D.S.A. chapter.
Gustavo Gordillo, the local chapter’s co-chair, said the governor “can’t ignore the one million New Yorkers who voted to tax the rich, but we are still assessing whether the current primary challenge is the best way N.Y.C.-D.S.A. can advance the affordability agenda.”
Though prominent D.S.A. members have endorsed Mr. Delgado, there is still a great skepticism about him. The reluctance stems in part from the lack of energy around his campaign, members said, and his changing positions on a number of topics, including raising taxes and increasing funds for immigration enforcement, which he supported in Congress in the past.
Shahana Hanif, a New York City councilwoman who is a D.S.A. member and a Mamdani supporter, and said she is no fan of Ms. Hochul and doesn’t expect to endorse her. But she said that Mr. Delgado is trying to “turn himself into something he has not been.”
“That’s not a bad thing, but this is just not the opportune moment for him to shape shift,” Ms. Hanif said. “You need to have more than just agreeing with the narrative and the rhetoric. There’s that extra sauce. And he just doesn’t have that now.”
Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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