Hochul Expects ‘helpful’ Mamdani In Her Reelection Bid

ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul expects Big Apple Mayor Zohran Mamdani will aid her reelection bid this year — support that stands to harness the base of young, left-leaning backers who propelled him to City Hall.

“I think he’ll be helpful,” Hochul told POLITICO in an interview Monday when asked if she expects Mamdani will campaign for her.

The governor potentially campaigning alongside Mamdani is a reflection of the mayor’s ongoing strength with voters less than a year since he took office — and Hochul’s recognition of that political prowess. Yet doing so as she seeks a second term would also present pitfalls for Hochul, who runs the risk of alienating the mayor’s critics — including Jewish voters and the business community — if she’s seen as too closely tied to the 34-year-old democratic socialist.

Hochul is under pressure this year to perform well at the top of the Democratic ticket against her Republican foe, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. She leads Blakeman in fundraising and polling, but her campaign must turn out Democratic voters to help down-ballot House candidates in swing seats. Her party, desperate to flip the House and act as a check on President Donald Trump’s final two years in office, is looking to blue states like New York to provide a major boost this November.

A Gotham mayor campaigning alongside an Empire State governor would be a rare sight. Over the decades, the holders of those respective offices have typically feuded with each other — a clash of titanic egos that often had little to do with policy. Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch, and most recently, Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, all battled for political supremacy.

Hochul, the first woman to hold the governor’s office, has insisted she would be different. For the most part, she’s delivered in that respect.

The moderate Democrat and hard-left Mamdani have forged a working relationship over the last year, with Hochul proving herself a key ally to the first-year mayor. She steered additional state cash to the city’s coffers meant to help him close a budget gap and handed him an early victory by significantly expanding no-cost child care. And while she’s been critical of his administration’s bumpy rollout of a surcharge on high-cost second homes in New York City, Hochul backed the property tax levy in the first place — helping Mamdani fulfill his tax-the-rich campaign pledge.

“If you go back through history, there's always conflict between the governor and the mayor, almost universally, and I wanted to end that,” Hochul said.

Reached for comment, the mayor’s office referred back to his comments earlier this month, when Mamdani pledged to make his “support clear at every opportunity I have” while also ripping into Blakeman.

The mayor already this year has served a crucial purpose in Hochul’s reelection: His February endorsement of Hochul, alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was considered the death knell to Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s left-flank primary campaign.

Hochul took office five years ago Monday following her predecessor Andrew Cuomo’s implosion amid a barrage of sexual harassment allegations, which he continues to deny, and criticism of his Covid policies.

Catapulted into the job of overseeing a politically complex state, she’s struggled at times with a Democratic-dominated Legislature, two troubled selections for lieutenant governor and the still-rising socialist tide that led to Mamdani’s surprise election last year. The Buffalo native has also been frustrated with the often opaque, Kafkaesque inertia in Albany’s state Capitol, where lobbyists and special interests have long stymied gubernatorial priorities.

She has victories to point toward too though, including a cellphone ban in schools and the child care expansion.

Yet the governor is also facing swirling discontent over the cost of living in a deeply expensive state. Institutional Democrats have struggled in primaries against socialist opponents, and one of her Congressional allies, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, lost to the Mamdani-backed candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier, this June.

The success of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America has angered moderate party leaders who have tried to hatch ways of halting their momentum. Hochul has taken a far more conciliatory approach with the DSA — and why younger voters are gravitating toward the far left amid profound disruptions like the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence.

“The rug has been pulled out from under a lot of young people for a variety of reasons,” Hochul said. “They didn't ask for the pandemic. Everything got so expensive. Their lives were disrupted.”

The 67-year-old Democrat has spent most of her life in government roles — including a stint in Congress. Managing Albany — a sharp-elbowed political environment where self-interest often rises above all else — has proven especially challenging. Cuomo, Hochul’s predecessor, spent 10 years pulling the levers of government power, finding leverage over political enemies and allies alike. His successor, by contrast, had to acclimate more quickly.

“It's partially my impatience and my desire to shake up the status quo — felt sometimes it was running into a brick wall, and then I had to dismantle that brick wall,” she said. “There's all kinds of lobbyists and advocates and interest groups and legislators with specific agendas, and it's the whole ecosystem of Albany.”

She also had to build an administration from scratch following Cuomo’s scandal-scarred departure. Hochul inherited her predecessor’s staff, appointees and policies — all in the middle of the pandemic. That challenge was similar to the one faced by then-Gov. David Paterson when he replaced Eliot Spitzer in 2008.

“There’s no question there's going to be a learning curve, especially for someone who is taking over in the middle of an administration,” said Morgan Hook, a former Paterson aide. “Also, you're building your team on the fly. And let’s be honest here: There are going to be people in your administration who worked for the old guy.”

Other difficulties followed.

The Democratic-led state Senate voted down her top state judge nominee — an embarrassing and unprecedented rejection. Her first lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned following a corruption indictment. (The case was later dismissed.) Delgado, her second No. 2, became disgruntled with the unglamorous role and unsuccessfully ran against her. He’s still in office, but essentially in an administrative purgatory without any official office space.

The repudiation of Judge Hector LaSalle “was frustrating for me,” Hochul said. The governor also acknowledged that she did not initially know Delgado, a former House lawmaker, all that well.

“I did not know that loyalty was such a problem for him, or understanding the role is not that of the governor, and he understood later, probably too late,” she said.

Delgado did not respond to a text message seeking comment.

Politically, she must mount a strong effort against Blakeman to aid House candidates in key swing seats. Democrats are trying to maintain their hold on a handful of competitive districts, including on Long Island, where Blakeman is from.

Hochul said she’s not thinking about the stinging criticism of ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who blamed the governor’s 2022 reelection for lacking strong coattails.

“I forgot about it — don’t even think about it,” she said when asked if Pelosi’s comments are fueling her efforts to help Democrats.

Nevertheless, Hochul has moved to build up the state Democratic Party’s infrastructure, launching a coordinated campaign that provides logistical support to down-ballot candidates while also raising money for the effort.

Some Democratic candidates have attempted to distance themselves from the governor. Blake Gendebien, an upstate farmer running to succeed Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik in a deep red district, ran a TV ad telling voters he would “stand up” to Hochul.

Republicans are also eager to capitalize on the DSA’s run of success, further complicating Democratic efforts to win more moderate areas of New York.

“I need to win in November,” Hochul said. “Let's stay focused on the prize. It is taking back our country, one congressional seat at a time, and that's why I've invested a lot of political capital, and fundraising time and effort, and calling candidates and helping them work through the challenges.”

Hochul’s partnership with Mamdani comes with its own risks — including the alienation of parts of her own base, like Jewish New Yorkers and the private sector. She subscribes to a big tent theory of the Democratic Party and notes that “in certain districts” the socialist message has become more appealing for voters.

In order to run up a big score against Blakeman, she’ll need New York City voters, many of whom worry their financial footing has slipped and appear less inclined to support institutional Democrats as a result.

“I'm a moderate Democrat who is responding to their same anxieties, and maybe they don't see that, but that is hardcore what I'm all about — fighting for families, reducing the burdens they have on child care and school lunches and cost of living,” she said. “So I think our interests are more aligned than people believe. I don't think it's a socialism versus capitalism debate.”