{"id":20595,"date":"2025-10-29T00:16:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20595\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:16:22","slug":"stefanik-leads-hochul-in-new-2026-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20595\/","title":{"rendered":"Stefanik leads Hochul in new 2026 poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York could have a Republican governor next year, a shocking new poll claims.<\/p>\n

The Manhattan Institute poll released Tuesday shows North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) narrowly beating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in a hypothetical 2026 matchup.<\/p>\n

The unpopular incumbent governor trails her firebrand GOP nemesis by 1%, according to the statewide survey<\/a> conducted by the right-leaning think tank.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is in a statistical tie with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a newly released poll shows.
\n Hans Pennink for the NY Post<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest in a series of polls showing Hochul\u2019s controversial move to back socialist mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani hasn\u2019t seemed to result in a boost in support.<\/p>\n

The Manhattan Institute survey found Stefanik getting 43% support, compared with 42% for Hochul \u2013\u00a0a statistical tie with the poll\u2019s 3% margin of error.<\/p>\n

Nine percent of those surveyed said they would vote for \u201csomeone else\u201d and 7% responded that they were \u201cnot sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poll showed Stefanik \u2014 who has said she will officially declare<\/a> her bid after the Nov. 4 election \u2014 leading Hochul with those aged 50 and up and among critical independent voters, especially in the suburbs.<\/p>\n

Stefanik leads Hochul 46% to 33% among independents and 54% to 37% on Long Island, the poll found.<\/p>\n

But Hochul beat Stefanik in the Hudson Valley, 45% to 36%, according to the survey of 600 likely voters taken last week.<\/p>\n

NY Gov. Kathy Hochul is up for re-election in 2026. Aristide Economopoulos<\/p>\n

Her campaign dismissed the findings because the poll was conducted by a right-leaning think tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to hand it to Sellout Stefanik: when her own polls don\u2019t reflect reality, she can count on Trump and his megadonors \u2013 like Betsy DeVos and Paul Singer \u2013 to repeat her lies,\u201d Hochul spokesperson Sarafina Chitka said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately for her, New Yorkers aren\u2019t interested in letting an unhinged Trump enabler anywhere near the Governor\u2019s mansion.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Stefanik\u2019s team cheered the results, saying in a statement that \u201cNew Yorkers of all political parties are hungry for new commonsense leadership after decades of Hochul\u2019s failed single party Democrat rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hochul was nearly booed off the stage by mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani\u2019s supporters at a rally Sunday. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a decision that she will come to regret, Kathy Hochul lives up to her title as the Worst Governor in America when she chose to bend the knee and put New Yorkers LAST by desperately endorsing the Defund the Police, tax hiking, raging Antisemite Socialist Zohran Mamdani who will destroy New York,\u201d Stefanik spokesperson Bernadette Breslin said.<\/p>\n

New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox added: \u201cUnder Kathy Hochul and one-party Democrat rule, New York has become the most taxed, most regulated, least free state in America. The message is clear: New Yorkers want change, and next year they\u2019ll get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public polling has shown a wide range of polling gaps between Stefanik and Hochul. Siena College had Hochul 25 points ahead of Stefanik in its September poll and the governor 14 points ahead in August.<\/p>\n

An internal poll released by Stefanik\u2019s campaign<\/a> earlier this month showed Hochul only five points ahead of the upstate Trump ally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ome pollsters raised eyebrows at the weighing of responses in the Manhattan Institute\u2019s survey. For instance, asked to identify themselves as either more traditional liberal or democratic socialist, the poll said a weighted 73% of Democrats on Long Island went with the latter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how or where they screwed this up, but they screwed this up and the data isn\u2019t worth the paper it\u2019s printed on,\u201d Democratic pollster Evan Roth-Smith, of Slingshot Strategies, told The Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York could have a Republican governor next year, a shocking new poll claims. The Manhattan Institute poll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[424,426,75,84,11070,83,57,9,24,13895,63,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-20595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-elise-stefanik","9":"tag-kathy-hochul","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-institute","13":"tag-manhattan-news","14":"tag-metro","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-ny-governor-election-2026","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}