ALBANY — U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik formally announced her bid for New York governor on Friday, a long-anticipated declaration that comes after she has already been sparring for months with incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The congresswoman, who represents a sprawling district in upstate New York’s North Country, has been teasing a run for months, but maintained that she would not make a final decision until after Tuesday’s elections. Her announcement in a video kicks off what is expected to be a heated campaign with Hochul, who will be seeking her second full term.
“Kathy Hochul is the worst governor in America. Under Kathy Hochul’s failed leadership, New York is the most unaffordable state in the nation with the highest taxes, highest energy, utilities, rent, and grocery prices crushing hardworking families,” Stefanik said. “Hochul has created a crime crisis with failed bail reform and her support of defund the police candidates. … I am running for governor to bring a new generation of leadership to Albany to make New York affordable and safe for families all across our great state. Our campaign will unify Republicans, Democrats, and independents to fire Kathy Hochul once and for all to save New York.”
Since the spring, Stefanik has been traveling throughout the state to drum up Republican support in local elections — a “ground game” that Republican operatives also worked to build before the party’s last gubernatorial victory in the early 1990s, when George E. Pataki was elected to the first of what would be three terms as New York’s governor.
But no Republican has won a statewide office in New York since Pataki won his final term in 2002. Stefanik is expected to lean heavily on her prolific fundraising and fiery political prowess to try and lure voters in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by about two to one. But New York has seen an increasingly large bloc of unaffiliated voters — who now outnumber Republicans — and the effort to win those votes will be a key battleground in the 2026 gubernatorial race.
To augment her campaign with local support, Stefanik’s PAC, Save New York, has poured more than $500,000 into town, city and county races since June.
In recent weeks, her team has also pointed to rival surveys that paint a more favorable picture for Stefanik than polls by other well-known outfits, including the Siena Research Institute, which in September showed Hochul ahead by 25 points in a hypothetical matchup. An October poll commissioned by Stefanik’s PAC and conducted by a GOP-aligned firm put Hochul’s lead at only five points, and a poll released last week by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, found the race roughly even.
The GOP nomination has effectively been Stefanik’s to claim, with New York Republican Party Chair Edward P. Cox saying in September that the party does not plan to hold a gubernatorial primary this election cycle. U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, a moderate Hudson Valley Republican previously considered by Democrats to be the best GOP candidate, said in July that he would seek reelection to Congress rather than run for governor.
Stefanik’s campaign launch comes roughly a year after President Donald J. Trump nominated her to his cabinet as the United Nations ambassador, a position the White House later withdrew over concerns about maintaining the razor-thin GOP majority in the House. She has been a vocal supporter of Trump since his first term, when she helped lead his defense in Congress during his 2019 impeachment hearings.
In August, Stefanik told the Times Union that a potential campaign would focus on New York’s high cost of living and crime, citing what she described as Democratic policies — high taxation and spending, changes to bail laws, and unlawful immigration — as the causes.
She has also leaned into a position/image as a defender against antisemitism, after she drew national attention in December 2023 by interrogating Ivy League university presidents during a House hearing — a proceeding that led to the resignations of two presidents.
Stefanik has also sought to tie Hochul and the Democratic Party to Zohran Mamdani, whom she has repeatedly labeled antisemitic. Mamdani, New York City’s mayor-elect, has been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. On Oct. 28, Stefanik announced her first book, “Poisoned Ivies,” due this spring, about what she calls “far-left indoctrination, division, and moral rot” in elite American universities. She said the work was inspired by the antisemitism hearing in the House.
Stefanik was born in Albany and attended the Albany Academy for Girls before earning a bachelor’s degree in government at Harvard University. First elected to Congress in 2014 as a moderate Republican, she has since adopted a harder-right profile as an ally of Trump and a leading figure of conservative values and policies. Before leaving House leadership to be ready for the ambassador position, she was the House Republican Conference Chair — one of the highest GOP posts in the country — and was also considered a potential pick for Trump’s vice presidential running mate.
In April, House Speaker Mike Johnson named Stefanik chairwoman of House Republican Leadership, making her the highest-ranking elected Republican in New York.