Kathy C. Hochul

Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas

Hochul, 68, of Buffalo, is a registered Democrat and is running on the Democratic and Working Families party lines in the general election. She has been governor since August 2021.
She served seven years as lieutenant governor and 18 months in Congress after winning a special election in 2011 but getting defeated in 2012. She also was clerk of Erie County for 13 years.
Hochul earned a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and a law degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Hochul said she has focused her agenda as pushing back against the Trump presidency, especially on mass deportations, Canadian tariffs, green energy, vaccines, abortion rights, funds for anti-terrorism and guns.
She has resisted raising income taxes, putting her at odds with more liberal state legislators and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But she has steered more state funding to the city to quell the push for tax hikes.
She angered environmental groups by delaying the target dates for New York’s green energy goals but sided with them on a new moratorium on large-scale data centers.

Bruce Blakeman

CRVA