As the race for governor adds a second Republican candidate with current Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman declaring this week, polls and experts are looking how November’s local election results could impact the races next year.
November saw significant shake-ups in local politics. Fifty county legislator seats across New York flipped from red to blue. The shift marks what some are calling a “blue wave” across the state of New York.
Lawrence C. Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, says Democrats have a chance to repeat that success in 2026, but it’s not a guaranteed win.
“There are some challenges that still lie ahead,” Levy said. “They have people in their party and issues that they stand for that are not entirely popular. And if Donald Trump suddenly, somehow turns around his approval rating, it could make things a lot harder for Democrats.”
President Trump has a 35-61% favorability rating in New York, according to a November poll from Siena University, virtually identical to previous polls.
Then-Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., speaks at a campaign event in Concord, N.H., Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Trump has not officially endorsed a particular Republican in the race for governor, but sources told Spectrum News the president told Blakeman that victory over Rep. Elise Stefanik is unlikely. Meanwhile, Levy said the state’s 2026 elections won’t be decided by approval of Trump alone, and division from inside the Democratic Party itself could weaken its recently gained momentum.
“The biggest potential problem for the Democratic Party is, the potential of civil war between what you could call the moderate and the progressive forces. If either faction is so frustrated at the outcome of primaries and other maneuverings within the party that they sit out the 2026 elections, that could doom the Democrats to at least another two years of wandering in the congressional wilderness,” Levy said. “It could also cost them the governorship and another statewide races for the first time in a generation.”
That “congressional wilderness” is particularly important in New York. The state has the second most competitive races in the country, according to the Cook Political Report, an independent and nonpartisan analysis group. Levy said the results of the 2025 election spell out a particularly grim fate for Republicans looking to make their mark in the 2026 congressional race.
“You have Republicans who felt really good about their prospects in 2022 and 2024, wondering if this is going to be a really, really bad year,” Levy said. “If the wave continues, several Republican members of Congress are likely to be wiped out, races in what had thought to be vulnerable Democratic districts will not be as much, and the Democrats can spend more money on the less competitive ones and see what else they can pick up.”
 
While congressional races continue to brew, Levy says there still are signs of division within New York’s Democratic Party. This is particularly true with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. During the election, the incoming mayor, a democratic socialist, didn’t receive an endorsement from multiple prominent New York Democrats, such as U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, the latter of whom later apologized for comments she made against Mamdani and congratulated him for his political success. Mamdani beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a primary with 56% of the vote and again beat him in November when Cuomo ran as an independent.
Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Zohran Mamdani during this election and posted this picture with the New York City mayor-elect to Instagram in November. (Courtesy photo)
Gov. Kathy Hochul has attempted to court Mamdani’s supporters while keeping moderate Democrats in her corner.
“We’ve had our disagreements,” Hochul said in an opinion piece for the New York Times. “But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family.”
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado is being described as closer to Mamdani’s politics than Hochul. (Spectrum News)
Despite the endorsement, Levy said, Hochul’s primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, is closer to Mamdani’s politics than her. In this sense, Levy said, the results from 2025’s election leave more questions than answers about where the Democratic vote could land.
“Are some of them going to be angry at the Democratic Party and in its moderate establishment?” Levy said. “Kathy Hochul tried to deal with that by endorsing Mamdani. Yet she’s running against somebody who is trying to position himself, Anthony Delgado, as a progressive. So where do all these voters go?”
It’s not just the Democrats showing signs of division, Levy said.
“Republicans have a similar problem. They have only the beginnings of some fractures we’re seeing in MAGA world. Not quite at the same level as we’re seeing on the Democratic side, but whoever runs in some of these swing suburban congressional districts has the same challenge to build from their more rural exurban bases to the more moderate, independent, well-developed suburbs that have been trending light blue,” he said.
Onondaga County could be one of those areas to watch. In the most recent election, five county legislature seats flipped from red to blue. This meant the county is about to have its first Democratic majority since the 1970s. The city of Syracuse elected current Democratic Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens after eight years of an independent holding the office. She will be the city’s first Black mayor and second woman mayor.
The county makes up most of the population base for the 22nd Congressional District, a district accustomed to tight races and flipping between parties.
In previous elections, Republicans saw success in suburban areas across the state, with many of them taking leadership positions in smaller, more rural counties such as Dutchess and Schuyler counties. Now, election results show that typically Republican areas are turning slightly more blue in 2025. Republicans in the Suffolk County Legislature, for example, lost their supermajority and in more rural Dutchess County, Democrats saw their first majority since 2007. Levy believes that this shift is resuming a trend he saw before 2020.
“Over a 30-year-or-more period, red suburbs started to trend pink, and then purple and then light blue,” Levy said. “Then suddenly, the pandemic comes, and stokes fear of crime, and other stuff that turned off Democratic voters and had them stampede to Republicans. Now, certainly in 2025, we saw signs of that pendulum going, continuing in the direction it was going for a generation.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is seen at Republic Airport, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
There was one area, however, where the pendulum did not reverse its direction: Nassau County. There, Blakeman won his re-election campaign for county executive. Even though Democrats garnered success across the state, Levy said there’s still a long way to go until Election Day next November.
“Republicans are definitely on the back foot right now, but it can change again,” Levy said. “Trump can suddenly have a run of good luck, or even skill, like peace deals that stick or trade deals that are grasped by the public as being really beneficial to them at the kitchen table.”