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Rep. Elise Stefanik will officially launch her long-anticipated campaign for New York governor on Friday, entering the 2026 race as a Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.
Stefanik, a top House Republican and one of 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 be very, very soon and people are very excited,” Stefanik said Thursday in an interview on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“There’s been an outpouring of support from Republicans, Democrats, independents, all across our great state,” Stefanik touted. “Many Democrats who previously supported Kathy Hochul are lining up in support.”
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Stefanik, a member of the House Republican leadership, 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 City.
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“People are looking for strong, commonsense leadership to be a check on this radical insanity that we’re seeing play out in New York City with Zohran Mamdani as a tax-hiking, defund the police, antisemite socialist,” Stefanik said in her Fox News interview, again linking Hochul to the progressive mayor-elect.
Stefanik, who once criticized Trump, has since become one of his staunchest defenders in Congress.
After Trump’s White House victory last year, he briefly considered naming Stefanik U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but ultimately backed off amid concerns that her departure would shrink the GOP’s razor-thin House majority.
It has been more than two decades since a Republican last won a New York gubernatorial race. The last was former Gov. George Pataki’s re-election in 2002.
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Hochul, meanwhile, could face a tough re-election fight.
A former lieutenant governor, Hochul took office in 2021 after Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned amid multiple scandals.
She defeated then-Rep. Lee Zeldin by just over six points in 2022 to win a full four-year term. But Zeldin’s showing was the best by a Republican gubernatorial nominee since Pataki won re-election to a third term in 2002.
Meanwhile, Trump, who lost New York by 23 points in the 2020 presidential election, trimmed his deficit by 10 points last November.
Hochul, a moderate Democrat from Buffalo, is facing a primary challenge from New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, in a very rare move by a lieutenant governor to primary challenge a sitting incumbent.
Stefanik is expected to hammer Hochul as she focuses her campaign on the issue of affordability.
“People are very concerned about affordability and I have a strong record of delivering for families,” she highlighted in her Fox News interview.
And she charged that Hochul had made New York “the most unaffordable state in the nation. We have the highest taxes, the highest energy prices, the highest utility prices, the highest grocery prices, and rent that continues to skyrocket.”
Democrats notched double-digit victories this week in New Jersey and Virginia, emphasizing affordability as a top issue. Stefanik said those results show Republicans must put forward a clear economic vision.
“You have to have a vision, and you have to put forth policies to make your state affordable again,” she said. “We are going to win the affordability message because her [Hochul] record is making it the most unaffordable state in the nation.”
But New York State Democratic Party Spokesperson Addison Dick charged that “Elise Stefanik is a rubber stamp in Washington for Trump’s deeply unpopular agenda that is raising costs, gutting health care, and defunding New York schools, hospitals, and police.”
And Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe charged that “from gutting health care to backing cost-raising tariffs, Stefanik’s record as Trump’s cheerleader in chief could not be more toxic with New York voters.”
Earlier this year, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York seriously mulled a run for governor. But Lawler announced in July that he would seek re-election and forgo a gubernatorial run.
Stefanik, however, has already begun assembling a seasoned campaign team that includes veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who served as chief pollster for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
But Stefanik may not have the Republican nomination to herself.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Trump ally who was re-elected this week, may be eyeing a run for governor, GOP sources in New York confirmed to Fox News.
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