Stefanik to launch 2026 New York governor campaign Friday vs Hochul

Rep. Elise Stefanik will formally launch her long-awaited marketing campaign for governor of New York on Friday and enter the 2026 race as a Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, a number of sources confirmed to Fox Information on Thursday.

Stefanik, a Home Republican and one in every of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies, represents a conservative-leaning district in upstate New York and has been struggling for governor for months.

“It should occur very, very quickly and persons are very excited,” Stefanik mentioned Thursday in an interview on Fox Information’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

“There was an outpouring of help from Republicans, Democrats and independents, all throughout our nice state,” Stefanik praised. “Many Democrats who beforehand supported Kathy Hochul are lining as much as specific help.”

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Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York will headline a Staten Island GOP fundraising dinner in New York Metropolis on June 2, 2025. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox Information)

Stefanik, a member of the Republican management within the Home of Representatives, has repeatedly claimed for months that Hochul is “the worst governor in America.”

And Stefanik has lambasted Hochul for the governor’s endorsement earlier this fall of Zohran Mamdani, who was elected mayor of New York Metropolis this week.

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“Individuals are in search of sturdy, frequent sense management to cease this radical insanity that we see taking part in out in New York Metropolis with Zohran Mamdani as a tax collector, anti-Semitic socialist and anti-Semitic socialist,” Stefanik mentioned in her Fox Information interview, once more linking Hochul to the progressive mayor-elect.

Stefanik, who as soon as criticized Trump, has since develop into one in every of his staunchest defenders in Congress.

Consultant Elise Stefanik with then-former President Donald Trump, through the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. (Getty Pictures)

After Trump’s victory within the White Home final yr, he briefly thought-about appointing Stefanik as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, however in the end withdrew as a result of he feared her departure would shrink the razor-thin majority within the Home of Representatives.

It has been greater than twenty years since a Republican final received a governor’s race in New York. The final was the re-election of former Governor George Pataki in 2002.

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Hochul, in the meantime, might face a tricky re-election battle.

Hochul, a former lieutenant governor, took workplace in 2021, working as a Democrat Andreas Cuomo resigned amid a number of scandals.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is working for re-election in 2026. (Julia Nikhinson/AP Picture)

She defeated then-Rep. Lee Zeldin by simply over six factors in 2022 to win a full four-year time period. However Zeldin’s efficiency was the perfect by a Republican gubernatorial candidate since Pataki was re-elected to a 3rd time period in 2002.

In the meantime, Trump, who misplaced New York by 23 factors within the 2020 presidential election, reduce his deficit by 10 factors final November.

Hochul, a average Democrat from Buffalo, is going through a major problem from New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, in a really uncommon transfer by a lieutenant governor to problem an incumbent.

Stefanik Hochul is predicted to hammer residence as she focuses her marketing campaign on the problem of affordability.

“Individuals are very involved about affordability and I’ve a powerful monitor document of serving households,” she emphasised in her Fox Information interview.

And she or he claimed that Hochul had made New York “essentially the most unaffordable state within the nation.” We have now the very best taxes, the very best power costs, the very best power costs, the very best meals costs and rents that proceed to skyrocket.”

Democrats scored double-digit victories in New Jersey and Virginia this week, highlighting affordability as a high problem. Stefanik mentioned these outcomes present that Republicans have to put ahead a transparent financial imaginative and prescient.

“You must have a imaginative and prescient and put ahead insurance policies to make your state inexpensive once more,” she mentioned. ‘We will win the affordability message as a result of they [Hochul] document makes it essentially the most unaffordable state within the nation.”

However Addison Dick, spokesperson for the New York State Democratic Occasion, acknowledged that “Elise Stefanik in Washington is a rubber stamp for Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda, which is elevating prices, depleting well being care and defunding New York’s faculties, hospitals and police.”

And Democratic Governors Affiliation spokesman Kevin Donohoe acknowledged that “from chopping well being care to supporting cost-increasing tariffs, Stefanik’s document as Trump’s chief in chief couldn’t be extra poisonous to New York voters.”

Earlier this yr, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York severely thought-about a run for governor. However Lawler introduced in July that he would search re-election and forgo a governorship.

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Nevertheless, Stefanik has already begun assembling a seasoned marketing campaign group, together with veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who served as lead researcher for Trump’s 2024 presidential marketing campaign.

However Stefanik might not have the Republican nomination for himself.

Nassau County Government Bruce Blakeman, a Trump ally who was re-elected this week, might have his eye on a gubernatorial candidate, Republican sources in New York confirmed to Fox Information.