Kathy Hochul’s Endorsement of Zohran Mamdani Will Come at a High Cost

In February 2024, a little-known assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, took to X with an angry denunciation: “Disgusting,” he said of a leading Democrat, accusing her of “justifying genocide, while laughing” in her support of Israel. A year and a half later, Governor Kathy Hochul, that same leader, endorsed Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.

In making a deal with this far-left faction, Hochul believes that she’s making peace with Mamdani’s base in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). More likely, she’s sending herself and her fellow establishment Democrats down the road to socialism, posing national political challenges.

Hochul can’t say that she wasn’t warned. On December 22, 2022, state lawmakers trudged back to Albany to approve pay raises for themselves. The governor could have used the situation to earn a concession in the upcoming legislative session. In 2016, for example, Andrew Cuomo pursued ethics reform in exchange for legislative pay raises. Hochul, however, was intent on living up to her reputation as the “anti-Cuomo.” She wouldn’t play hardball. She signed the raises into law without securing anything in return.

That same day, Hochul nominated Second Department Presiding Justice Hector LaSalle to fill the vacancy for chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. Leftist activists smeared LaSalle, among other things, for merely joining unanimous opinions perceived as antiunion. State senators, fearing the far Left, voted down LaSalle’s nomination, humiliating Hochul with the first-ever rejection of a high-court nomination.

In the years since, despite the governor’s upper hand in state budget negotiations, she has had to contend with far-left lawmakers determined to push through their agenda and block hers. For three consecutive years, she presided over late budgets because of drawn-out fights over modest rollbacks to bail and discovery reforms.

Hochul knows that the DSA can’t govern effectively. After the Trump Department of Justice sought to drop corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams without prejudice, she refrained from removing Adams—her political ally and friend—but kept him on a tight leash. Hochul didn’t remove Adams partly because she feared the consequences of having DSA member and public advocate Jumaane Williams serve as interim mayor. Williams challenged Hochul in the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Now, Hochul sees the DSA writing on the wall. Cuomo, her once practically omnipotent predecessor, lost his mayoral bid by a wide margin in the June primary; she wants to avoid a similar fate in her own primary next year. By endorsing Mamdani, the logic goes, she’ll avoid facing a DSA-backed challenger.

But Hochul’s endorsement and Mamdani’s likely victory will embolden socialists. Why would they make peace with someone they see as a shill for the real-estate industry, opposed to higher taxes, and in favor of rolling back criminal-justice reforms? A mere endorsement isn’t enough to forgive these sins. In contrast to her mostly warm relationship with Adams, Hochul shouldn’t expect chumminess with Mamdani or his DSA acolytes.

Hochul could have kept Mamdani at arm’s length, as Democratic state chair Jay Jacobs and Representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen did. She could have been the pragmatist, reassuring businesses and skittish residents that she wouldn’t let Mamdani take the city too far left. Instead, she has aligned herself with Mamdani’s victory, on a platform unrealistically expensive and squarely opposed to her repeated promise not to raise taxes.

Fiscal matters raise the stakes. The federal government controls about 6.4 percent of the city budget, which must be balanced every year. Albany receives a whopping 38.8 percent of its budget from Washington—mostly because of Medicaid. If Republicans pull back funding, the mayor and governor will both be in a world of hurt.

Albany is already staring down a $34.3 billion budget gap through 2029. If Hochul and the legislature raise taxes, they’ll want to put their own fiscal house in order before helping Mamdani make bus fare free or offer universal government-run child care.

When making these decisions, it helps to have friends. But Hochul’s endorsement has weakened her support with business leaders, Jews concerned about the DSA’s anti-Semitism, and moderate Democrats. In 2026, many may well turn to Republican Representative Elise Stefanik.

As a congresswoman from 2011 to 2013, Kathy Hochul was known as a conservative Democrat. She earned an A rating and endorsement from the National Rifle Association. In 2025, trying to survive politically, she has transformed herself into a socialist-adjacent governor. As with all Faustian bargains, the bill will come due.

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