Hochul officially shifts into campaign mode

Gov. Kathy Hochul is running for reelection, and she wants to make sure you know that she’s tough, she swears and she’s got President Donald Trump squarely in her crosshairs. 

Without even a Republican challenger officially declared to run against her, Hochul released her first campaign ad on Monday ahead of her reelection next year. It struck a decidedly different tone from her first race, when former President Joe Biden was in office and Democrats controlled the House. This time around, Hochul leaned heavily into her increasingly vocal opposition to the Trump administration and her growing national presence as a resistance governor. 

Hochul highlighted two of her favorite attributes: being a mom, and being from Buffalo. “She’s not just our governor,” the narrator says in the ad. “She’s also a mom from Buffalo, and it doesn’t get much tougher than that.” It segued into a montage of Hochul’s greatest hits since adopting her Trump-fighting “Rambo” rhetoric, from calling the arrest of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander at immigration court “bullshit,” to her invitation to Trump border czar Tom Homan to attempt to arrest her over New York’s immigrant protections, to discussing retaliatory redistricting in the state. “We’re New Yorkers, we fight back,” the governor said in one clip featured from a Fox News interview.

Don't mess with a mom from Buffalo. pic.twitter.com/D2VnJCR0Nl

— Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul) August 25, 2025

The ad’s tone and style evoked those seen from populist insurgent Democrats in red states in recent years. But Hochul is an incumbent, and the opponent is not another candidate in the race but Trump himself. “This is the kind of ad you do when you want people to know you aren’t Zohran Mamdani, but you are going to fight just as hard,” said Democratic consultant Ryan Adams. “It is a solid ad for her audience – it paints the Republicans as chaotic and weak, bending to Trump’s crazy whim, and her being the champion of sanity and strength. Now she has to follow through.”

Over a year out from the 2026 election, and ahead of a high-profile and combative election for mayor of New York City, now would normally seem a little early for an incumbent to hard launch their reelection with their first ad. But after a tight 2020 election that drew sharp criticism from Democrats both in New York and nationally, Hochul seems not to be taking any chances by beginning her messaging strong and early. 

The ad isn’t the only sign that Hochul is shifting gears to head full throttle into campaign season. Earlier this month, her campaign announced that the governor’s Chief of Staff Stacy Lynch would leave the executive chamber to serve as the campaign’s senior adviser. The New York City native will likely compliment national Democratic political operative Preston Elliot, whom Hochul tapped as her campaign manager earlier this year. Hochul’s penchant for taking advice from out-of-staters with little knowledge of New York’s political playing field was scrutinized in the wake of her lackluster 2020 election.

Hochul’s government-side press team released a memo with a variety of her accomplishments to coincide with the anniversary of her swearing in in 2021. At the top of the list was affordability, with the memo touting wins like a large middle-class tax cut included in the most recent state budget and the governor’s plan to build 100,000 units of affordable housing across the state within five years. Public safety came next, with mentions of her rollbacks to the state’s 2019 bail reforms. With Trump’s new executive order threatening to pull federal funding from states with “cashless bail,” the issue will surely become a flashpoint once again in New York elections.

Also on Monday, Hochul’s government press team launched a new “Governor Hochul Press Office” account on X, appearing to take a page out of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s book with his similarly-named account that regularly trolls Trump. Newsom’s strategy has earned him positive news coverage and reactions online by responding to the president in similar manners that he posts, only from the left.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, Hochul’s yet-undeclared but likely Republican challenger, wasted no time lambasting the governor. “More than a year out, Kathy Hochul is running scared due to the tightening polls,” Stefanik senior adviser Alex DeGrasse said in a statement. “As soon as there was even a hint of Elise Stefanik running for Governor this past spring, the Worst Governor in America Kathy Hochul has desperately tried to rebrand herself as a tough, moderate ‘Mom.’” 

The latest Siena poll of a direct matchup between the pair showed Hochul maintained a comfortable lead, but one that had shrunk considerably compared to the previous poll roughly a month earlier.

Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who is challenging Hochul for the Democratic nomination, also took aim at Hochul over the ad, questioning her actual ability to meaningfully stand up to Trump. “Kathy Hochul can posture all she wants in a TV ad, but New Yorkers know the truth: under her watch, Trump and his allies have already run rampant in our state,” Delgado spokesperson Steve Ileka said in a statement. “Does anyone really feel secure with Kathy Hochul at the helm when the most vulnerable among us are already paying the price?”