This is the final story in a three-part series examining the major candidates running in New York’s Democratic primary for governor. The first, on Jumaane Williams, can be read here. The second, on Tom Suozzi, can be read here. Primary Day is June 28.
Her answer came with a vigorous nod.
In Kathy Hochul’s first live TV interview after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation last August, clearing the way for her to succeed him, she was asked if she intended to run to retain the office.
“Yes I will,” Hochul, then the lieutenant governor, told NBC. “I have led a life working in every level of government from Congress to local government. I am the most prepared person to assume this responsibility. And I’m going to ask the voters at some point for their faith in me again.”
The time has arrived.
Hochul is set to face voters in this month’s Democratic primary after 10 months marked by mammoth public health and safety challenges, hopeful that her leadership through a long COVID winter will win over New Yorkers, and soon make her the first woman elected governor of the state.
The primary does not appear close. Hochul, 63, a moderate former congresswoman from Buffalo, has consolidated institutional support, loaded a massive campaign war chest and taken wide leads in surveys conducted by the rare pollsters who have even bothered assessing the campaign.
The governor has sometimes floated above the fray as two long-shot challengers — Rep. Tom Suozzi and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — rip her over rising crime and support she received from the National Rifle Association a decade ago.
In advertisements, Hochul hardly addresses the primary at all, instead highlighting the historic nature of her run and presenting Andrew Giuliani and Lee Zeldin, two anti-abortion candidates running in the Republican primary, as threats to New Yorkers’ reproductive rights.
Hochul was the only candidate whose campaign declined an interview for this series, and she skipped the first TV debate of the Democratic race.
In the second, held June 7, she steered clear of negative attack lines, parrying criticism and picking up praise in the press for her performance. The third, on Thursday, had a bit more edge, but Hochul again appeared in command, at one point ignoring Suozzi as he implored her to look his way.
A veteran of local government who served more than a decade on the town board in upstate Hamburg, Hochul has managed to bridge various factions within the diverse Democratic electorate during her abbreviated term as governor.
Her candidacy is backed by Mayor Adams, organized labor and the state Democratic Party. Many progressives have been content, if not always thrilled, with her performance, too.
“She recognized that there is an iron triangle of voters within which the overwhelming majority of primary voters are found,” said Bruce Gyory, a political strategist who advised two former Democratic governors, Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.
“That base is minority voters. Along one angle or side, if you will, are highly educated professional women. Along the other side are white ethnics,” Gyory said. “She was able to establish good relations with each side of this iron triangle.”
Hochul has also been lucky. State Attorney General Letitia James, who was viewed as the most serious threat to Hochul, abruptly ended her 41-day campaign for governor in December, saying she wanted to focus on her office’s investigations.
James is seen as a formidable politician with a fearsome power base in her native borough of Brooklyn. But her campaign got off to a rickety start as Hochul fund-raised at a furious pace.
By January, Hochul’s campaign boasted a record-shattering $21.3 million war chest. In late May, after blitzing the airwaves with ads, she still had $18.6 million in campaign cash, according to the state Board of Elections, dwarfing the coffers of her top two Democratic competitors.
Suozzi, a Long Island centrist, and Williams, a Brooklyn progressive, combined to have less than $3 million on hand, according to state records.
Hochul has long been known for a relentless work ethic. But John LaFalce, a former congressman from the Buffalo area who became Hochul’s political mentor after hiring her as an aide in the 1980s, expressed a measure of surprise at the zest with which she has taken to fund-raising.
“I didn’t know about the fund-raising ability,” LaFalce said. “Even while she was lieutenant governor, she raised money — but modestly. But since she’s been governor, she’s proven herself to be a prodigious fund-raiser.”
Still, the campaign cash is hardly the only engine that has propelled Hochul to a prohibitive lead.
Hochul had many wins — and scattered losses — during her first legislative session, and is widely viewed as a stylistic departure from Cuomo, who wore out Albany with his domineering approach.
“It’s been incredibly refreshing and inspiring to see someone who really wants to get it right,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat, even as he acknowledged Hochul’s administration struggled at times with a steep learning curve in budget negotiations.
Hoylman said Cuomo used “legislative bullying” and was “very stingy” about sharing strategy with lawmakers. “Gov. Hochul’s approach is much more collaborative and earnest,” he said. “There’s trust that I think is building.”
Hochul reached a deal with lawmakers to tweak New York’s controversial 2019 bail reform law, a priority of Adams; created a plan to replace the state’s much-maligned ethics watchdog; and shepherded a package of strict gun bills through the Legislature.
And she proved a steady voice of leadership, steering New York through the omicron COVID wave in the winter, and responding confidently to Hurricane Ida last summer and to the racist massacre in her hometown of Buffalo this spring.
Still, her tenure has not been blemish-free. Her decision to pluck Brian Benjamin from the state Senate to serve as her lieutenant governor backfired spectacularly when he was arrested and charged in a federal corruption probe. (He resigned shortly after his April arrest, and denied the charges.)
Her deal reserving $600 million in state funds for a new Buffalo Bills stadium has proved unpopular across the state. (Hochul has defended it as a long-term economic victory that will deliver thousands of jobs to the state.)
And her fund-raising has generated concern in some corners that she could land in the pocket of moneyed interests, from cryptocurrency to real estate.
“New York State is a very expensive media market, and I have to raise to get the message out,” she said in an interview with the Daily News Editorial Board. “People want to give to me. They’re welcome to join all the supporters, the clergy, the labor unions, the businesses, the elected officials.”
Despite her critics, Hochul does not appear to have made any missteps that have significantly damaged her electability. An Emerson College poll of the race conducted this month showed her leading Suozzi by 40 percentage points and Williams by 51.
Other public and internal surveys have also shown Hochul far ahead. If she holds on, she will enter the general election seen as the favorite to win in deep-blue New York and become the first woman elected governor in the state since George Clinton inaugurated the post in 1777.
“I have a lot of weight on my shoulders to make sure that I can demonstrate that a woman can do this tough job,” Hochul told the editorial board. “I have a lot to prove. And I intend to do that.”
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