Even as New York Democrats work to send Kamala Harris to the White House, Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying feverishly to score a second victory closer to home: winning back suburban congressional districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but elected Republicans in the 2022 midterms. Taking back these downstate pro-Biden seats from the GOP represents a chance for Hochul to win a little more respect – and a lot more power – here in New York and on the national stage.
“I’m more behind the scenes. I don’t get credit for things,” Hochul told New York Post columnist Cindy Adams recently. That’s putting it mildly. No less a figure than Nancy Pelosi, the ex-Speaker of the House, has publicly blamed Hochul for running a gubernatorial campaign in 2022 that opened the door for Republicans to flip four congressional districts that had supported Biden in 2020.
At a Politico forum at the Democratic National Convention, columnist Jonathan Martin asked Pelosi whether it was California or New York where losses of congressional seats led to the Republican takeover of the House in 2022. “New York, I think, mostly,” said Pelosi. “Five seats in New York. I think it related to the gubernatorial race.” That reflects a widely-held view that Hochul’s 2022 run, in the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic, did not sufficiently address rising crime, creating an opening exploited by suburban GOP candidates who flipped four seats.
Pelosi began heaping blame months earlier, telling the New York Times in early 2023 that Hochul should have been........