Hochul predicts Mamdani will ‘be helpful’ in her reelection bid

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said she believes New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) will give a boost to her reelection campaign.

“I think he’ll be helpful,” Hochul said Monday after Politico asked about the chance of the New York City mayor stumping for her.

In a recent poll , Hochul led Republican Bruce Blakeman by 10 points in her race for a second term. The poll from Siena University found 49 percent of 811 likely voters backing Hochul, with 39 percent supporting Blakeman.

Last September, Hochul formally endorsed Mamdani in his own bid for Big Apple mayor, announcing her endorsement in a New York Times op-ed. Her endorsement of Mamdani was notable, considering Mamdani’s background as a democratic socialist and then-relative political outsider.

“The question of who will be the next mayor is one I take extremely seriously and to which I have devoted a great deal of thought,” Hochul said in her opinion piece.

In February, Mamdani endorsed Hochul for reelection , possibly helping to shore up the governor’s support among progressives.

“At its best, the Democratic Party has been a big tent not because it avoids conflict, but because it channels conflict toward progress. A party united not by conformity, but by a commitment to structural change — and to the work required to achieve it,” Mamdani wrote in an op-ed published in The Nation.

“I’ve seen a model of what that can look like in my collaboration with Governor Hochul: a relationship built on candor, a shared commitment to government that is equal parts competent and trustworthy, and results that working people can feel in their day-to-day lives,” he added.

The two New York politicians recently teamed up in proposing a new tax on property owners who have second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million. But a judge in Staten Island, N.Y., earlier this month temporarily blocked the rollout of the second-home tax.