It’s a battle of the attack ads as Republican Elise Stefanik officially announced her bid for New York governor Friday in a video slamming Hochul, blaming her for high taxes and crime.
"The empire state has fallen" rumbles the narrator at the start of the video, which goes on to claim Hochul is "the worst governor in America"
Backed by music equally heavy on the string section, Hochul clapped back with an ad of her own, pulling focus to the Republican Congresswoman’s friendly relationship with President Donald Trump and her voting record.
In the video, a clip is shown where Trump says Stefanik is "phenomenal."
"Phenomenal at putting Trump ahead of you," claims the voiceover.
We can expect months of this from both campaigns between now and the general election next November, according to Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo Jacob Neiheisel.
"We've seen the opening salvo from both sides coming in pretty quick succession," he said. "The Stefanik campaign seems to want to run on law and order types of issues - ones that have been historically kind of strong for Republicans and wants to run on costs. And the Hochul campaign wants desperately to tie Stefanik to the Trump administration, which was a fairly successful strategy in this cycle."
He added that voters are likely to cast their ballot based on party affiliation rather than policy issues.
Stefanik has represented parts of upstate and the North Country in Congress since 2015. Last year Trump nominated her for the position of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations but withdrew that nomination two months later, stating he wanted her to remain in Congress to protect her seat.
Hamburg-native Hochul worked her way up from serving on the Hamburg Town Board from 1994 to 2007 and has served as New York’s governor since 2021.
Before facing Stefanik, however, she’ll contend with a June Democratic Primary against her own lieutenant governor, Anthony Delgado. Neiheisel predicts her strategy with that in mind.
"I think that there are a number of people who are not terribly happy with her, not because she's too far in the Stefanik direction, but because she's not sufficiently far to the left," Neiheisel said.
Hochul endorsed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani before his victory in the New York mayoral election. That was a strategic move to "protect her left flank" before next year's primary battle Neiheisel said.
But if she wins that race, she's likely to change tact.
"She will do what most candidates do and kind of pivot more toward the institutional party after that's over."
