Kathy Hochul Wins Second Full Term as New York Governor, Defeating Bruce Blakeman

Gov. Kathy Hochul won a second full term as governor of New York on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, defeating Republican Bruce Blakeman. The Associated Press called the race moments after polls closed at 9 p.m. ET. FOX 5 NY also reported the AP projection on election night, and the Wall Street Journal reported that Hochul easily defeated Blakeman, dashing Republican hopes for a more competitive contest.

The count

The AP results feed marked the New York governor race Called for Hochul with 1,931,613 votes to 815,019 for Blakeman. The feed put precincts reporting at 39.69 percent, 5,266 of 13,268, with an estimated 39.69 percent of the vote counted at that snapshot. Blakeman is the Nassau County executive, and he carried the Republican challenge in a state where, the New York Post reported, 48 percent of registered voters are Democrats. The call came at the close of polls, before most ballots had been counted, because the early margin left no realistic path back for Blakeman.

A lead that widened late

Polls showed Hochul pulling away in the final weeks of the campaign. The New York Post reported that Blakeman's most favorable deficit was nine points in a Siena University poll in September, and that the final Siena survey gave Hochul a 14 point lead. The same polling found only 41 percent of New Yorkers saying the state is heading in the right direction, a number the Post reported was nearly unchanged from 39 percent in October 2022, a month before Hochul won her first full term. Blakeman signed a no new taxes pledge on Friday and challenged Hochul to do the same, and he hit her through the campaign on the cost of living, energy and immigration, the Post reported.

How Hochul reached this race

Hochul is a Democrat and New York's first female governor. She took office in 2021 after Andrew Cuomo resigned. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cuomo stepped down following a series of sexual harassment allegations. Hochul then won her first full term in 2022. The New York Post reported that she defeated Republican Lee Zeldin that year by a narrow six points, a far tighter race than the one that ended on Tuesday night.

The campaign and what comes next

Hochul built her reelection platform on affordability, the Post reported, pointing to rebate checks, free school meals and childcare subsidies, along with a ban on phones in schools. Her administration also put a one year moratorium on new data centers and approved sanctuary state measures aimed at federal immigration enforcement. On election night, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised her at the state Democrats' election night party at the Hilton hotel in Midtown. "She has embraced new ideas," Mamdani told the crowd, in remarks reported by the Post. Hochul chose former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her lieutenant governor running mate, the Post reported, and the four year term the pair secured will run through 2030.