Tuesday, May 20`, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 38
NY1: A slim majority of New York voters would prefer someone else as governor rather than reelect Gov. Kathy Hochul next year, while her favorability and job approval ratings have changed little, according to a Siena College poll released Tuesday.
According to the poll, 36% of voters are prepared to elect Hochul to a second full term in 2026 while 55% want “someone else,” a net 10-point negative movement from April. That said, the poll found voters approve of the job Hochul is doing as governor 50-46%, up slightly from 48-45% last month. Her favorability rating stands at 44-46%, where it was 44-43% in April.
“After hitting year-long highs in both Hochul’s favorability and job approval ratings last month, those numbers largely held constant this month, although Republicans, already very negative toward Hochul, turned even more so on both measurements,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said. “And even more Republicans – 82% up from 68% last month – and independents – 64% up from 55% – prefer ‘someone else’ to be the next governor, while a small majority of Democrats, 51%, say they are prepared to reelect her.”
The governor still holds a commanding lead over potential Democratic challengers, the poll found, with 46% of Democrats backing Hochul compared to 12% for Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado and 10% for U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres. Neither individual has declared a candidacy for the state’s chief executive. “Two potential Hochul rivals for the Democratic nomination for governor next year – Delgado and Torres – remain largely unknown to a majority of voters and a majority of Democrats,” Greenberg said. “Not surprisingly, they both continue to trail Hochul by a large margin – and by virtually every demographic – when Democrats are asked to choose next year’s gubernatorial nominee.”
On the Republican side, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik’s potential candidacy leads other hypotheticals with 35%. U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler receives 22% and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman gets 11%. Lawler has said for some time he was considering a gubernatorial run while Stefanik recently expressed interest after she was dropped from her nomination to be the next ambassador to the United Nations.
“When asking Republicans who they want to see as their gubernatorial nominee next year, Stefanik is their early frontrunner, with a small double-digit lead over her downstate colleague, Lawler, and Blakeman, with barely double-digit support, trailing badly.
When Stefanik was not included last month, Blakeman had a narrow 6-point lead over Lawler,” Greenberg said. “While Lawler and Blakeman both have virtually break-even favorability ratings, they are both unknown to a majority of voters and Republicans. Stefanik, more well known, has a negative overall favorability rating, 25-35%, but a two-to-one, 45-22%, favorability rating with Republicans.”
