August 24, 2025
By Esther Sun
ALBANY — With recent polling showing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lead narrowing against likely gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the question emerging for Republicans is what path could yield the first GOP win of a statewide office in New York in more than two decades.
Stefanik, who represents a sprawling North Country district, has said she’ll make a final decision on a gubernatorial bid after November’s elections. U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler — a moderate Republican previously considered by Democrats to be the GOP’s best shot for governor — has said he will seek reelection to Congress, clearing the field for Stefanik and another potential nominee, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
In New York, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, Republicans running statewide face an uphill climb. New York Republicans have not taken down an incumbent Democratic governor since the 1990s, when George E. Pataki unseated third-term governor Mario Cuomo.
Asked how she might break the streak of Democratic victories, Stefanik noted she has already done so in her district. First elected to the House in 2014, she won a seat previously held by Democrats by more than 20 points and has been reelected five times. When she launched her inaugural congressional campaign, Republicans made up the largest share of voters in the district, as they still do today.
There are about 130,000 voters in her district who are not registered with any party, and Stefanik said she wins them “overwhelmingly.” That voting bloc is key in New York, where voters unaffiliated with a political party now outnumber Republicans.
‘Kitchen-table’ issues
Interviews with current and former officials, strategists, and campaign experts across the political spectrum have revealed that the high cost of living and crime are two defining issues of this election cycle.
When he first ran for governor in 1994, Pataki said, he focused on the same issues — and let them drive his campaign. “The list of issues is enormous. The opportunity is enormous,” Pataki said. “And these are not Republican issues. These are New York issues that a candidate with the right approach and solutions could run on and have an excellent chance of success.”
Even so, Stefanik will likely face a steep challenge. Pataki won his race in a “wave” election, where a nationwide Republican surge secured GOP control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. But next year is expected to bode well for Democrats, as midterm elections historically swing opposite the sitting president’s party.
U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy, a former state Republican chair from western New York, said Stefanik’s ties to upstate New York provide her a “different perspective” as a Republican nominee. Upstate regions, including the North Country, have experienced population and job losses over the past decade tied in part to “steep declines” in manufacturing, according to a recent Federal Reserve Bank of New York report.
“The upstate economic message is one that is very powerful and needs to be delivered to just show how the Hochul policies are crushing any signs of life that we once had up here,” Langworthy said.
Outmigration is a key element of that message. New York has led the nation in population loss in recent years, with many former residents moving to Florida and nearby Northeast states. While both parties link outmigration to economic problems, Republicans emphasize high taxes and over-regulation, while Democrats focus on housing costs.
Stefanik also cites the economy and crime, along with unlawful immigration, as her core issues — and she believes they will resonate across party lines. Outmigration, she said, is a “direct result of failed ‘tax and spend’ economic policy,” and she is calling for lower taxes and fewer regulations.
She said there has been a “skyrocketing” of crime since “failed bail reform.” And she argues the state is spending billions to support immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally with housing and public services while many New Yorkers struggle to make ends meet.
State crime data indicates that the total number of crimes statewide has risen since 2019, but has remained relatively level over the past decade. The state and New York City have spent more than $7 billion aiding tens of thousands of migrants who came to New York over the past several years, triggering a crisis. Many of the arrivals are asylum seekers who are legally allowed to remain in the U.S. while their claims are pending; others have different statuses.
In response, Sarafina Chitika, Hochul’s campaign spokeswoman, said the governor has implemented middle-class tax cuts, expanded free school meals, and helped remove illegal guns from the streets.
She also emphasized Stefanik’s alliance with President Donald J. Trump, referencing a July campaign strategy memo that cited the congresswoman’s support for the president’s tariffs, her opposition to Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which included middle-class tax cuts, and her support for Trump’s cuts to government programs through the Department of Government Efficiency.
A Republican roadmap
Still, several GOP insiders emphasized there is an opportunity for Stefanik to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with Hochul.
According to a recent Siena Research Institute poll, Hochul’s lead in a hypothetical race with Stefanik has narrowed since June. And independents, once firmly in Hochul’s camp, now narrowly favor Stefanik, who picked up a wave of support from those voters recently.
But voters are more likely to approve of the job Hochul’s doing, according to the poll.
Winning an election often involves being an “acceptable receptacle of votes to take the discontent” with the status quo, said Republican strategist David Catalfamo, who has been a longtime confidant for Pataki and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro.
Julie Novkov, a political science professor at the University at Albany and dean of its Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, pointed out that the Siena poll found 41 percent of respondents said they did not know or never heard of Stefanik.
“So, what you’re picking up there is really just support for a generic Republican, and whoever is running against Trump on the Democratic side will obviously work very hard to define her as being a close ally of Trump,” she said.
The expectation is that Stefanik’s increasingly hard‑right profile and alliance with Trump may help in a Republican primary but will likely hinder her in a general election, especially with the suburban moderates and independents a Republican needs to win statewide.
“I certainly don’t want to make the mistake of underestimating her, but I do think the conventional wisdom in New York is that for a Republican to win, they need to broaden the electorate,” said Jack O’Donnell, a Democratic strategist in western New York who has worked on statewide campaigns for Hochul and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
Novkov said heightened polarization in the electorate also makes it more difficult for voters today to cross party lines and elect a far-right Republican in a general election in New York.
According to Democratic strategist Jason Elan, the issue isn’t Stefanik shifting toward the center so much as Democrats demonstrating sound governance. Elan handles communications for Andrew M. Cuomo’s New York City mayoral campaign. And he formerly worked for Hochul when she was lieutenant governor and for Tom Suozzi’s 2022 gubernatorial bid
“I think because people feel like the (Democratic) party has not shown an ability to deliver on an agenda that affects them on a personal basis, it’s been more focused on the ideological fights,” Elan said.
Catalfamo emphasized that what he sees as Stefanik’s strong work ethic and effectiveness in office are qualities that could draw voters, even if they may not agree with her on every issue.
And former U.S. Rep. John Sweeney said that while Stefanik will remain true to Republican ideals, there will likely be a “fluidity to messaging” on “softer issues or more moderate positions” if she mounts a statewide campaign. In this regard, a current Republican official said it would be especially helpful for Stefanik’s “celebrity status” in the party to allow her to avoid a primary, where candidates sometimes have to run farther right in GOP contests or left in Democratic ones before migrating to the middle for the general election
Sweeney said building party power from the ground up — flipping county legislatures, town boards and city halls — is essential for Stefanik, given what he described as a “rather dormant” state Republican party.
“Without the infrastructure of some sort — and it’s what Republican candidates have sorely been missing for the most part in their attempts to win back the governor’s office — there isn’t much of a chance,” he said.
In the early 1990s, Sweeney was part of the New York GOP team that deployed the same strategy successfully, building up the Republican ground game across the state that preceded Pataki’s defeat of Cuomo.
Stefanik said her team has been engaged in that same type of effort for years. The 15 counties in her district are now under Republican leadership, up from 12 when she was first elected. A June news release from her office noted it has also helped flip mayoralties in cities Biden carried in 2020, including Troy and Utica. In 2022, Stefanik contends she “led the effort” to flip four congressional seats statewide and secure a Republican majority in the House.
“If we run, we intend to do that statewide, working with whether it’s the Assembly Republicans, the congressional Republicans — again, who have gone on offense, have done a great job with these swing district areas — or key county leaders,” she said.
External forces
The political experts interviewed for this story said the landscape will also be shaped by figures the governor will likely have to work with, especially Trump and Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who is the leading contender to win New York City’s mayoral race.
Stefanik has been a staunch Trump ally since his first term, when she came to his defense during his 2019 impeachment hearings. Last November, the president tapped her to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations before pulling the nomination months later over concerns about maintaining the slim Republican majority in the House.
Novkov thinks that in light of the state’s Democratic dominance among registered voters, the question of how to frame her relationship with Trump — a “polarizing” character — would be a “tricky” one for Stefanik in her prospective campaign. She said Stefanik’s connection with Trump has benefited her in her district, which Trump carried in 2020 and 2024.
“But of course, that’s not the reality in New York state,” Novkov said.
That dynamic presents an opportunity for Hochul, Democrat strategist Elan said, to tie Stefanik not only to Trump as a personality, but his policies.
“That’s how I would couch it going into next year,” he said. “It’s not the Trump tariffs, it’s the Trump tax increases.”
Catalfamo is skeptical that Trump is still a source of “polarizing energy” that Democrats could harness the way they used to — for example, in 2018 when Cuomo worked to link Molinaro to Trump. Molinaro, a former Hudson Valley congressman, is administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
Although state Conservative Party Chairman Gerald Kassar thinks Trump can be a benefit to Republican candidates in New York in some situations and a problem in others, he and others said there is no need for Stefanik to shy away from her support for him.
Alex deGrasse, a longtime advisor to Stefanik, believes her relationship with Trump is an “immense asset,” arguing New Yorkers will want a governor who can and has worked with the occupant of the White House.
Republicans are hopeful that if there is polarizing energy in 2026, it could be due to a new Mamdani administration.
On the campaign trail, Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens, has advocated for measures including free buses, rent freezes, government-run grocery stores and an expansion of free child care, which he has proposed funding through tax hikes on corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent of New Yorkers.
A “backlash” in the suburbs against Mamdani’s win could propel a Republican victory in the governor’s race, Catalfamo said.
O’Donnell, the Democratic strategist, said the impact will depend on how Mamdani approaches governing, but he argued the rhetoric surrounding Mamdani is an “exaggeration from his actual policy positions.”
“I think a lot of people, whether they live in the city or the suburbs, would love to see buses be free,” he said. “They’d love to see the MTA be more affordable and more frequent.”
Stefanik has leaned into rhetoric tying Mamdani to Democrats at large, saying the party is “epitomized” by the mayoral candidate while she has been describing Republicans as the party of “common sense.”
Regardless, sources said, the choice for New Yorkers will be between whoever is on the ballot in November, not Trump and Mamdani.
“The bottom line is that neither one of those are going to decide the outcome of the governor’s race,” Pataki said. “It’s going to be decided on the two candidates and what their positions (are) on the issues that appeal to New Yorkers across partisan lines.”
–READ the story in the Albany Times Union HERE
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