By Callahan Blackwood | Sunday, October 18, 2026
Every major poll has Kathy Hochul ahead. Every major poll also has her job approval underwater. She is the incumbent who keeps winning arguments against herself, defending a record she has had to revise, explain, and re-explain across five years in office. That is the paradox she is asking voters to look past on Election Day.
The record actually shows this.
The Record
Hochul took office on August 24, 2021, when Andrew Cuomo resigned, and won a full term in 2022 with 53.1 percent of the vote, the closest New York governor's race since 1994. She is running for a second full term with former New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her running mate.
The most-argued item on her record is congestion pricing. On June 5, 2024, weeks before the program's planned launch, she announced an indefinite pause on the Manhattan toll, calling the planned $15 charge too high. She reversed on November 14, 2024. The toll launched January 5, 2025 at $9 for most cars. Since then, the MTA reports traffic in the zone is down 11 percent, air pollution down 22 percent, and transit ridership up 7 percent. The program has generated roughly $550 million in revenue toward a $15 billion capital program, per the MTA. The toll is scheduled to rise to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031. The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to kill the program; federal courts have so far kept it in place. Her line on it now: "The cameras are staying on."
On housing, her more ambitious 2023 plan failed. The April 2024 housing package she did sign includes the 485-x tax incentive for affordable units, a modified version of good-cause eviction protection, $500 million to build up to 15,000 homes on state-owned land, and the lifting of Manhattan's residential density cap. Good-cause protections cap renovation rent hikes at the lesser of 10 percent or CPI plus 5 percent, with carve-outs for new construction and buildings under 10 units.
The FY2026 budget, enacted in spring 2025, included inflation refund checks of up to $400 to more than 8 million households, a middle-class income tax cut her office values at $1 billion, an expanded child tax credit of up to $1,000 per child for 1.6 million families, and universal free school meals.
On immigration enforcement, she signed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act on May 27, 2026, barring New York local agencies from federal 287(g) agreements and setting an August 25, 2026 deadline for termination. Her office and Attorney General Letitia James then sued the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office, the one agency of 12 that had not indicated it would comply.
On data centers, she imposed a one-year statewide halt on new discretionary state environmental permits for large-scale facilities. An October Emerson poll found 56 percent of voters backed the pause, with 26 percent opposed.
The Money
Hochul's campaign finance picture is, above all else, a cash-on-hand advantage. Transparency USA tracking of state filings shows she has raised $16,594,118.85 and spent $12,983,887.42, with no loans, though those figures update as filings arrive. She ended September with roughly $18.5 to $19 million in cash on hand.
The New York State Democratic Party transferred $10 million to her campaign in September and still held about $11 million of its own. That channel is legal: individuals can give up to $138,600 a year to a state party committee, well above the $9,000 individual limit for governor's races. Good-government critics have called for tighter limits; state Democratic chair Jay Jacobs defends it. Hochul declined to participate in the state's public matching funds program. Her opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, is participating.
The campaign reported about 17,800 individual donors in the latest period, with an average online gift of $22.38, per its own figures. Independent expenditure committees had spent about $13.2 million in the race as of October 9, more than double the comparable point in 2022, with the heaviest independent spending on her side.
The Claims, Checked
"I put money back in your pockets." The enacted items are real: refund checks of up to $400, the rate cut, the expanded child credit, free school meals. The checks are one-time, the amounts are modest per household, and her own FY2026 proposal initially promised checks of up to $500 before the enacted budget settled at up to $400.
On crime, she says rates are down and her safety investments are working. The Associated Press reports crime rates "have dropped significantly" since the 2022 race, a trend Blakeman's campaign does not dispute; the campaigns disagree on credit and on the state of specific places.
On congestion pricing, she calls it a success worth defending, and the MTA's reported numbers back the traffic and pollution improvements. But she paused the program for five months and relaunched it only after the toll was cut by $6. She has not committed to the scheduled increases to $12 and $15 (more on that below).
Her two biggest debate claims, including her use of the phrase "rogue agents" and her statements about fired corrections officers, were fact-checked in this series yesterday. Refer to that piece for the full analysis.
The Controversies
The congestion pricing reversal drew attacks from two directions: Republican officials accused her of pausing the toll before the November 2024 election to shield Democrats and reviving it only after the election was over. Transit advocates attacked the pause itself as a betrayal of the program. Her answer: it was a "temporary pause" that produced a lower toll. "I knew I'd get it back on."
The bigger live controversy is CDPAP. She consolidated New York's Medicaid home-care program from more than 700 fiscal intermediaries into a single statewide contractor, Public Partnerships LLC, with an April 1, 2025 transition that was widely reported as troubled, with caregivers reporting missed paychecks. In June 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state and PPL, alleging the bidding process was rigged to preselect PPL. These are allegations in a civil complaint, not findings. The state Health Department called the suit a political attack. PPL said it was chosen through "a transparent, competitive process." Hochul says the consolidation saved $1 billion in its first year, though that is her claim.
Within her own party, she faced a primary challenge from her own lieutenant governor. Antonio Delgado split with her in early 2025 and campaigned as a progressive challenger for eight months. She beat him 85 to 15 among state convention delegates, and he quit on February 10, 2026. "There simply is no viable path forward." New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backed Hochul, not Delgado.
Her job approval reflects that complicated standing: Emerson in October put it at 40 percent approve, 46 percent disapprove. Siena in September had it nearly even, at 48 to 47.
On position changes: at the debate, Blakeman noted she held an "A" rating from the NRA in her 2012 congressional race and opposed driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants in 2007. The New York Post's fact-check rated the claim true; both positions are the reverse of her current ones.
What She Has Not Answered
Three questions remain open heading into the final stretch.
First: the toll increases. Asked whether congestion pricing's early results would prompt her to stop the scheduled rises to $12 in 2028 and $15 in 2031, she would not commit. Her answer: "We're doing well and we'll continue to study where that is."
Second: the matching funds dispute. When Blakeman's campaign sued over a matching-funds decision and backed a cure-period bill, the governor's office said only that she "will review any bill that passes both houses of the legislature." Her campaign declined to comment.
Third: CDPAP accountability. Beyond disputing the DOJ suit's motives, the administration has not committed, in the sources reviewed by this desk, to a specific remedy or timeline for caregivers who reported missed pay in the PPL transition.
Where the Race Stands
No major pollster has Blakeman ahead. What they disagree on is the margin. Marist, surveying October 1 to 4, had Hochul up 11. Emerson/PIX11, surveying October 8, had it 52 to 40, a 12-point lead. Siena in September had her up 9. Quinnipiac in September had her up 19. One outlier, Pollfinity, surveying October 8 to 12 with a sample of 499, put the race at plus 3 for Hochul; that firm was founded in 2026 by a Libertarian activist, which matters when evaluating where it sits against the field. Attribute none of these as predictions: polls measure a moment, not an outcome.
No Republican has won a statewide election in New York since George Pataki's 2002 re-election. Democrats hold roughly a two-to-one enrollment advantage. Those facts frame the race; they do not settle it.
Tomorrow: a deep dive on Bruce Blakeman's record, claims, and silences using the same standard applied here. Early voting opens Saturday, October 24. The desk's complete guide to voting in Dutchess County, including deadlines and locations, is at rftuv.ai/news/voting-in-dutchess-county-the-october-24-deadline-and-everything-after. Yesterday's debate claims check is available on this site.
