Editor’s note: ‘Governing on easy mode’

Gov. Kathy Hochul won reelection, in part, on her strong stand against AI data centers. And heading into her second term, she’s got to make sure that AI doesn’t burn her right back. 

The stock market has been on an absolute tear for the past four years. Hochul – and her partner in governing, and chicken wings, Mayor Zohran Mamdani – have been “governing on easy mode” as economics reporter Matthew Zeitlin aptly put it.

But tech stocks tanked after Election Day, and there are fears that a bubble could burst sooner rather than later.

Hochul is not unaware of that fact. That’s why she told City & State’s Kate Lisa on the sidelines of the Somos conference that she’s going to stick some of the $8 billion in unanticipated revenue into the state’s rainy day reserve fund.

“I’m very pragmatic and conservative when it comes to my budgeting,” she said, by way of explanation.

Those are also words that Mamdani would never, ever say. And it’ll continue to be a source of some tension with the mayor, and his progressive allies in the state Legislature, who will be pushing, once again, to raise taxes to fund priorities like free buses and statewide universal childcare.

Hochul was, deservedly, in a celebratory mood at the Somos conference. Who wouldn’t be, after exceeding expectations to crush her gubernatorial opponent by nearly 20 points, and flip a congressional seat too? But it’s right back to work, as Rebecca C. Lewis writes in this week’s cover story. And her second full term may not be on “easy mode.”