Local government wins (1994 to 2011)

Hochul's political career began with her 1994 election to the Hamburg Town Board in Erie County. She served on the board for 13 years through 2007, when she was elected Erie County Clerk in a campaign that emphasized her opposition to then-Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses [1]. She served as Erie County Clerk from 2007 to 2011 [1].

2011 special election: NY-26

Hochul's first federal election came in the May 24, 2011, special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Republican Chris Lee, who resigned in February 2011 following a personal scandal. The district was Republican-leaning, but the four-way race included Tea Party-backed independent Jack Davis, who split Republican-leaning votes [2].

Hochul ran against Republican Jane Corwin and Davis, casting the race as a referendum on the Paul Ryan-led Republican Medicare overhaul plan that Corwin and Davis both supported [3]. She won 47.34 percent of the vote to Corwin's 42.38 percent, and Davis's 9.01 percent, capturing the seat for the Democrats in a district President Obama lost in 2008 [2, 3].

2012 House loss

In November 2012, after court-ordered redistricting moved Hochul to NY-27, she faced Republican businessman Chris Collins. Despite her near-perfect attendance record and the high-profile Clothe a Homeless Hero Act signing weeks before she left office, she lost 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent [1]. Collins was later convicted of insider trading and resigned from the House in 2019.

2014 to 2021: Lieutenant Governor under Cuomo

In 2014, Andrew Cuomo selected Hochul as his running mate for his second gubernatorial term. They won that November, and Hochul was sworn in as the 77th Lieutenant Governor of New York in January 2015 [4]. She and Cuomo were re-elected in 2018 after Hochul defeated NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in the Democratic primary [4].

Hochul has described her relationship with Cuomo as professional but distant. She told NY1 in 2021 that it was "no secret that the governor and I were not close" and that Cuomo had his own tight inner circle [5]. The distance proved politically useful: she was not implicated in the sexual harassment allegations that led to Cuomo's August 2021 resignation, and she ascended to the governorship with a degree of distance from his administration [4].

August 2021: ascension to governor

On August 24, 2021, Hochul was sworn in as the 57th Governor of New York and the state's first female governor, taking office two days after Cuomo's resignation [4]. Two days later, on August 26, 2021, she appointed state Senator Brian Benjamin as her lieutenant governor; he was sworn in on September 9, 2021 [6]. Benjamin's April 12, 2022, indictment and immediate resignation created the first political crisis of her tenure.

After Benjamin's resignation, Hochul selected former U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado as her new lieutenant governor in May 2022, paired with her in the 2022 election [7]. Delgado broke with her in 2025 and announced his own primary challenge.

2022 primary and general election

Hochul faced two Democratic primary challengers in June 2022: NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams from the left, and Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi from the right. Both attacked her on the Buffalo Bills stadium deal and on her past NRA "A" rating, with Williams telling debate audiences he wrote his first gun violence report "while the governor was touting her A rating from the NRA" [8]. Hochul won the three-way primary handily.

In the general election, she faced Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin in what became the closest New York gubernatorial election since 1994. She participated in only one televised debate, on October 25, 2022 [9]. On November 8, 2022, she won 52.4 percent to Zeldin's 46.8 percent, becoming the first woman elected governor of New York. Notably, her margins in New York City and Westchester drove the win, while turnout in NYC dropped sharply from 2018 levels [10].

September 2025: endorsing Mamdani

On September 14, 2025, in a New York Times op-ed, Hochul endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor, becoming the first major statewide elected Democrat to do so [11]. The endorsement came months after Mamdani's June 24 primary upset of Andrew Cuomo and reflected her bid to consolidate progressive support for her 2026 re-election. The decision was sharply criticized by some pro-Israel Democrats and by Elise Stefanik, then her likely Republican challenger, who said Hochul "now owns every radical position" Mamdani held [11].

The Forest Hills Stadium rally on October 26, 2025, produced one of the campaign's defining images: Hochul addressing 13,000 supporters while the crowd persistently chanted "tax the rich" in apparent criticism of her opposition to the wealth taxes Mamdani's platform required [12].

2026 re-election: a moving field

Hochul announced her 2026 re-election bid on July 2, 2024 [4]. The field has shifted markedly across 2025 and into 2026:

In June 2025, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado announced he would primary challenge Hochul. Polling consistently showed Hochul leading him by 30-plus points among Democrats. On February 10, 2026, Delgado suspended his campaign, stating "there simply is no path forward" [13].

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik formally launched her gubernatorial campaign on November 7, 2025, calling Hochul "America's worst governor" [14]. She withdrew on December 19, 2025, citing concerns about a competitive Republican primary and time with her young son. She also announced she would not seek re-election to Congress [13].

With Stefanik's withdrawal, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman became the Republican frontrunner. President Trump endorsed Blakeman in late 2025 [14].

On February 4, 2026, Hochul tapped former NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her 2026 running mate, creating the first all-female ticket for governor and lieutenant governor in New York history and the fifth such ticket in U.S. history [15, 16, 17]. The selection drew immediate pushback from the Brooklyn Democratic Party, whose chair, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, withdrew the borough's endorsement of Hochul over what was described as a "political miscalculation," though the endorsement was reportedly later reinstated [15, 17].

The Working Families Party declined to endorse Hochul or Delgado in early 2026, instead nominating a placeholder candidate that would be replaced by the eventual Democratic nominee [14].

December 2025 polling snapshot

A Siena College poll released December 16, 2025, showed Hochul leading Stefanik 49-30, leading Blakeman 50-25, and leading Delgado in the Democratic primary 56-13 [18]. Her favorability had improved slightly to 43-41, and 44 percent of voters thought New York was on the right track, only the second time that figure had crossed 40 percent during her tenure [18].

Key political relationships in summary

Andrew Cuomo and Hochul had a cordial-but-distant LG-Governor partnership from 2015 to 2021; Hochul's career was advanced by his resignation, and she has subsequently kept a careful distance. Adrienne Adams, her new running mate as of February 2026, was selected as part of an attempt to consolidate downstate Black voter support and to project moderate-progressive balance. Zohran Mamdani and Hochul exchanged mutual endorsements in 2025 and 2026 despite policy disagreements on taxation and Israel, a relationship of mutual political necessity heading into both 2026 races. Chuck Schumer remains a long-standing ally who has publicly supported Hochul throughout her tenure. Bruce Blakeman, the current Republican frontrunner, is the most openly adversarial of her current political relationships.