Gov. Hochul has caved to the left, giving Elise Stefanik a good chance to win

On a chilly October night, Gov. Kathy Hochul stepped onto the stage at Forest Hills Stadium beneath a banner emblazoned “Freeze the Rent.”

Though she holds the most powerful office in New York, her remarks at Zohran Mamdani’s rally were swallowed by chants of “Tax the Rich!”

On Thursday, at the Democrats’ Somos confab in Puerto Rico, she was met with the same chorus.

Having spent her governorship under the shadow of an unpleasable left, Hochul now faces a new threat from the right: Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who announced her campaign for governor Friday.

Progressives and conservatives alike see Hochul as a leader without leverage.

That’s because she has often wanted the right policies — but has been unable to achieve her goals.

Time and again, the far left has outmaneuvered or out-muscled her.

Amid a spike in serious violent crime in 2021 and 2022, Hochul recognized that bail and discovery reforms went too far.

During the 2022 state budget process, she attempted to give judges more discretion to consider the danger to the community that a defendant accused of a felony would pose if released pretrial.

But she couldn’t make it happen — instead securing a few minor concessions that didn’t address the fundamental problem of dangerous perps returning to the streets.

A shrewd governor would have learned fast that there’s no way to play nice with New York’s lawmakers. Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile.

In late December 2022, fresh off her narrow victory over Rep. Lee Zeldin, Hochul had the chance to put herself in a strong bargaining position ahead of the legislative session.

Lawmakers, also freed from election pressures, interrupted their holiday festivities to run back to Albany so they could grant themselves pay raises.

Hochul could have refused to sign the raises into law unless she got some things in return.

Instead, she played nice, enacting them without extracting a single concession.

Legislators returned the favor by humbling her time and again during the session.

First, the senate sank her pick for the state’s chief judge, Justice Hector LaSalle — the first-ever rejection of a governor’s nominee to the Court of Appeals — mostly because he was unfairly smeared as anti-union.

She called for about 100 new charter schools across the state, and the legislature gave her 14.

It then shot down Hochul’s overwrought housing plan, which sought to turbocharge construction statewide.

Had she salvaged even part of it, New York City might have finally begun tackling its housing crisis the only way that works — by building more homes.

Since then, she’s boosted state spending massively, letting unions get a big slice of the action.

Last year, she secured a new tax abatement for rental developments in NYC, but not before loading it up with rules requiring “prevailing” (union) wages for buildings of 100 units or more.

The result: developers are applying for 99-unit projects.

This year, as the Manhattan Institute’s Ken Girardin has noted, she grew state spending by 9.3%, thrice the rate of inflation, driven by huge increases in Medicaid.

She also graced the teachers’ unions with a $1.7 billion (5%) boost in school aid.

In fairness, Hochul can claim one genuine accomplishment: Loosening the standard for civil commitment and raising inpatient mental-health bed capacity, easing the safety and homelessness crisis on New York City’s streets.

But that came only at the repeated behest of Mayor Eric Adams, who lobbied her relentlessly.

On the whole, Hochul’s missteps and political weakness helped clear the path that brought Mamdani to Gracie Mansion.

She’ll no doubt attempt to make the coming campaign about nothing but President Donald Trump.

But New Yorkers will be asking: Am I better off now after five years of Kathy Hochul?

Or after nearly 20 years since Democrats regained control of the governor’s mansion?

Hochul’s ability to stare down the radical DSA and public-union activists will define her next legislative session.

She’s mostly held the line on taxes, but now that she’s aligned with Mamdani, she’ll have to offer his base something in return.

Yet the DSA-fueled appetite for higher taxes is insatiable, driven as much by the urge to signal virtue and punish wealth as by any need to fund programs.

If Hochul doesn’t go far enough, the left has a vessel in Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who’s challenging her in the Democratic primary.

And if Mamdani’s public-safety agenda means more homicides and violent crime in 2026, she’ll be in the same weak spot as in 2022.

No matter which way she turns, Hochul’s new Republican rival — and even her new friends — are waiting to strike.

John Ketcham is director of cities and a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute. All views expressed are those of the author and not the Manhattan Institute.