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In office, Governor Kathy Hochul has wielded power in an uneven and yet increasingly effective and shrewd fashion, recently bending the state legislature to her will on issues like cheaper car insurance, climate law rollbacks, and getting cell phones out of classrooms.
But one thing that Hochul has never governed with: a large mandate from voters.
She took office when Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, and then elbowed out all would-be contenders (like Attorney General Tish James) for a full term, through sheer force of will and a massive fundraising haul from some of the state's wealthiest people and corporations. In 2022, her first time in front of voters as governor, in a midterm election where Democrats massively outperformed expectations across the country, especially in governorships, and in a state where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by 2:1, Hochul just narrowly defeated little-known Long Island Republican congressmember Lee Zeldin by six points, as she spent the final weeks of the campaign frantically trying to stop bleeding voters, amidst a lackluster campaign steered by a random dude in Colorado.
Now, just six weeks before a general election against another unheralded Republican from Long Island—and with Democrats heading for what looks to be a massive romp this coming November, with polling suggesting a wave that might even surpass 2018 and 2006 territory and approach a 1994-style reset of American politics—Governor Hochul must be sitting pretty, right? Right? Right?