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Rep. Elise Stefanik will formally launch her long-anticipated marketing campaign for New York governor on Friday, getting into the 2026 race as a Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, a number of sources confirmed to Fox Information on Thursday.
Stefanik, a high Home Republican and one in all former President Donald Trump’s closest allies, represents a conservative-leaning district in upstate New York and has been weighing a gubernatorial run for months.
“It will likely be very, very quickly and individuals are very excited,” Stefanik mentioned Thursday in an interview on Fox Information’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“There’s been an outpouring of help from Republicans, Democrats, independents, all throughout our nice state,” Stefanik touted. “Many Democrats who beforehand supported Kathy Hochul are lining up in help.”
STEFANIK WRITING NEW BOOK AMID GUBERNATORIAL RUN BUZZ
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York headlines a Staten Island GOP fundraising dinner in New York Metropolis on June 2, 2025. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox Information )
Stefanik, a member of the Home Republican management, for months has repeatedly charged that Hochul is “the worst governor in America.”
And Stefanik has blasted Hochul over the governor’s endorsement earlier this autumn of Zohran Mamdani, who this week was elected mayor of New York Metropolis.
REPUBLICANS AIM TO LINK VULERNABLE DEMOCRATS TO MAMDANI
“Individuals are on the lookout for robust, commonsense management to be a test on this radical madness that we’re seeing play out in New York Metropolis with Zohran Mamdani as a tax-hiking, defund the police, antisemite 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 change into one in all his staunchest defenders in Congress.
Rep. Elise Stefanik with then-former President Donald Trump, through the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. (Getty Pictures)
After Trump’s White Home victory final yr, he briefly thought of naming Stefanik U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, however in the end backed off amid considerations that her departure would shrink the GOP’s razor-thin Home majority.
It has been greater than 20 years since a Republican final gained a New York gubernatorial race. The final was former Gov. George Pataki’s re-election in 2002.
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Hochul, in the meantime, might face a tricky re-election struggle.
A former lieutenant governor, Hochul took workplace in 2021 after Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a number of scandals.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is working for re-election in 2026. (Julia Nikhinson/AP Photograph)
She defeated then-Rep. Lee Zeldin by simply over six factors in 2022 to win a full four-year time period. However Zeldin’s exhibiting was the perfect by a Republican gubernatorial nominee since Pataki gained re-election to a 3rd time period in 2002.
In the meantime, Trump, who misplaced New York by 23 factors within the 2020 presidential election, trimmed his deficit by 10 factors final November.
Hochul, a average Democrat from Buffalo, is dealing with a main problem from New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, in a really uncommon transfer by a lieutenant governor to main problem a sitting incumbent.
Stefanik is predicted to hammer Hochul as she focuses her marketing campaign on the difficulty of affordability.
“Individuals are very involved about affordability and I’ve a robust report of delivering for households,” she highlighted in her Fox Information interview.
And he or she charged that Hochul had made New York “essentially the most unaffordable state within the nation. We now have the very best taxes, the very best vitality costs, the very best utility costs, the very best grocery costs, and hire that continues to skyrocket.”
Democrats notched double-digit victories this week in New Jersey and Virginia, emphasizing affordability as a high challenge. Stefanik mentioned these outcomes present Republicans should put ahead a transparent financial imaginative and prescient.
“You must have a imaginative and prescient, and you need to put forth insurance policies to make your state reasonably priced once more,” she mentioned. “We’re going to win the affordability message as a result of her [Hochul] report is making it essentially the most unaffordable state within the nation.”
However New York State Democratic Celebration Spokesperson Addison Dick charged that “Elise Stefanik is a rubber stamp in Washington for Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda that’s elevating prices, gutting well being care, and defunding New York colleges, hospitals, and police.”
And Democratic Governors Affiliation spokesperson Kevin Donohoe charged that “from gutting well being care to backing cost-raising tariffs, Stefanik’s report as Trump’s cheerleader in chief couldn’t be extra poisonous with New York voters.”
Earlier this yr, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York critically mulled a run for governor. However Lawler introduced in July that he would search re-election and forgo a gubernatorial run.
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Stefanik, nevertheless, has already begun assembling a seasoned marketing campaign workforce that features veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who served as chief pollster for Trump’s 2024 presidential marketing campaign.
However Stefanik might not have the Republican nomination to herself.
Nassau County Govt Bruce Blakeman, a Trump ally who was re-elected this week, could also be eyeing a run for governor, GOP sources in New York confirmed to Fox Information.
