Trump’s top New York ally launches bold new campaign, but leaves one surprising name out

Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has announced she is running for governor of New York. She is going after current Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul by saying the state has become too expensive for regular people to live in. Stefanik said back in April that she would make her decision known after the 2025 elections were over.

Stefanik put out a campaign video that runs for about two and a half minutes. The video talks a lot about how hard it is for families and small business owners to afford living in New York. She blames Hochul for high taxes, expensive rent, costly energy bills, and rising grocery prices. The video also connects Hochul to Zohran Mamdani, who just won the race to become New York City’s next mayor.

“Kathy Hochul made New York the most unaffordable state in the nation, crushing families with sky-high taxes, unaffordable rent, soaring energy costs and record-high grocery bills, and cozied up to an anti-police, tax-hiking, antisemitic communist,” a narrator said in Stefanik’s announcement video, according to NBC News.

She’s taking on a sitting governor in a blue state

But there is something interesting missing from Stefanik’s video. Even though she is known as one of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, she does not mention the president even once in her announcement. The video only talks about problems in New York and what Hochul has done as governor.

Winning in New York will not be easy for Stefanik. The state usually votes for Democrats, and changing that will be tough. Trump did better in New York during the 2024 election than he did in 2020, picking up 11 more points. But he still lost the state by 13 points. This means Stefanik has a hard fight ahead of her, even though many people in the Republican Party know who she is.

Stefanik is the first big name Republican to jump into the governor’s race. She got a clear shot at running after Congressman Mike Lawler said he would not run for governor. People say Trump talked Lawler into staying in his House seat because it is in an area where either party could win. This left Stefanik without any serious competition in the Republican primary

Stefanik first got elected to Congress back in 2014 when she was the youngest woman ever elected to the House. Since then, she has moved up in Republican leadership and was the conference chairwoman in the last Congress. She became well known across the country when she stood up for Trump during his first impeachment back in 2019. She is also really good at raising money for Republican candidates.

Before deciding to run for governor, Stefanik was supposed to become Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. But Trump pulled back that nomination because Republicans were worried about losing her House seat. The party has a very small majority in the House, and a special election to replace her could have made things worse.

Hochul is trying to win a second full term as governor. She took over in 2021 after Andrew Cuomo quit because of sexual harassment claims, which he said were not true. Hochul won her first full term in 2022 by about 6 points. Now she has to deal with a challenge from her own lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, who is also running.