Major Republican Enters New York Governor Race

After months of teasing a run, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., has entered the race to unseat Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026.

“Elise Stefanik will clean up Kathy Hochul’s catastrophe and restore New York’s greatness,” says a narrator in Stefanik’s announcement video, released just days after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election.

Hochul endorsed Mamdani’s bid for mayor, joining him in campaign events.

Stefanik, however, has established herself as an enthusiastic blue state ally of President Donald Trump. After his victory in the 2024 election, Trump nominated her to be United States ambassador to the United Nations. But with Republicans’ razor-thin majority in Congress, he withdrew the nomination in late March, saying, “I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat.”

“I’ve always put New York families first,” Stefanik said in an interview on Fox News’s Fox and Friends about her run. “Kathy Hochul has put New York families last again and again and again… And when New Yorkers were looking for strong leadership from a governor not to bend the knee to Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul bent the knee.”

Stefanik also has experience in House Republican leadership, having been elected conference chair in 2021 to replace former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney—a role that involves crafting messaging for leadership.

In 2023, she gained fame with her tough questioning of then-Harvard president Claudine Gay about campus antisemitism in a congressional hearing. Shortly thereafter, Gay resigned amid plagiarism accusations.

More recently, as the One Big Beautiful Bill took shape, she fought alongside fellow New York Republicans to raise the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which was a priority for Republicans representing blue states. A SALT deduction allows residents in high-tax states to deduct their state and local taxes on their federal tax returns. 

Stefanik likely faces a tough race in New York, which has not had a Republican Governor since George Pataki in 2006. But a late October poll from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative organization, showed Stefanik narrowly leading Hochul in a prospective matchup 43% to 42%.

In 2022, Hochul won her race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin (currently head of the Environmental Protection Agency) by a 6.4% margin.

Although Stefanik’s announcement video makes no mention of Trump, it is already clear that Democrats will seek to tie her to the president.

“Meet Elise Stefanik. She’s Donald Trump’s top ally in Congress,” the narrator in an early Hochul attack ad says. “Now Elise Stefanik is running for Governor of New York to do what she has always done—put Trump first.”

While Trump lost the state by an almost 13% margin in 2024, he fared better in the Empire state than any Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

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