New York

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, won a second full term, 59.8% to 39.9%, over Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive.^{1, 2} Kamala Harris carried the state by 12.7 points in 2024. Democrats Letitia James and Thomas DiNapoli won new terms as attorney general and comptroller, and Hochul’s running mate, Adrienne Adams, won the open office of lieutenant governor, so no statewide office changed party.² Democrats held 19 of the state’s 26 U.S. House seats before the election and Republicans seven; Democrats won 20 and Republicans six. The one seat that changed hands is the 17th District, which Harris carried by 0.6 points. Democrat Cait Conley beat Republican Mike Lawler there by 6.0.

Set against the 2024 presidential vote, the governor’s race moved 7.2 points toward the Democrats. Hochul drew 79 votes for every 100 Harris won here; Blakeman drew 68 for every 100 of Donald Trump’s. The vote for governor came to 103% of the 2022 total and 74% of the 2024 presidential vote.

Most of the movement was in one region. The New York metro area, which casts 59% of the vote, went from D+21.6 to D+33.1, a move of 11.5 points. In the other large metro areas the change was small: 4.9 points in the Albany area, 2.5 around Rochester and 1.3 around Buffalo, which finished at D+6.5. The smaller metro areas, with 14% of the vote, crossed from R+0.3 to D+3.2. The small towns and rural counties moved the other way, 1.8 points toward the Republicans, to R+21.4.

Of the four counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Hochul this year, Suffolk County, in the New York metro area, is the largest. It went from R+10.0 to D+0.8 on 538,227 votes. Rockland County crossed over by more, from R+11.8 to D+7.1. Within the metro area, Queens County moved 19.6 points and Bronx County 21.1, while New York County finished at D+64.6, almost exactly where it was. Across the state, 31 of the 62 counties moved toward the Republicans. Among the larger ones Oneida County, around Utica, moved furthest, from R+21.3 to R+24.3. One county that voted for Harris voted for Blakeman.

Democrats kept the governorship and both chambers, with larger majorities in each. Before the election they held 41 of the 63 Senate seats and 103 of the 150 in the Assembly. They unseated six Republican senators, among them Jim Tedisco in the Capital Region, who had served 34 years in the Assembly before joining the Senate, and have won at least 47 seats. Our count, which includes a seat now headed to a recount, has 48.^{2, 3} In the Assembly our count has 111 Democrats and 39 Republicans. Bob Turner, who chairs the political science department at Skidmore College, told WAMC the Democratic total would be 111 or 112, which he called the largest majority in state history.³

The constitution lets the Legislature pass a bill over a veto with two-thirds of the members elected to each house.⁴ A law firm’s election summary puts that at 42 senators and 100 Assembly members, so Democrats regained the margin in the Senate and kept it in the Assembly, and the two chambers can now override a governor of their own party.^{1, 5, 6} Lawmakers have never tried to override one of Hochul’s vetoes, MultiState reports.² “I think our conference will flex its muscles in the budget negotiations,” state Sen. Shelley Mayer, a Democrat, said in WAMC’s report of November 10. Assemblymember Sarah Clark of Rochester said lawmakers should raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers to help offset federal cuts; WAMC reported that Hochul resisted such increases when the Legislature proposed them before.⁵

Two-thirds is also the number that governs the next maps. An independent redistricting commission prepares the state Senate, Assembly and congressional plans every ten years and sends them to the Legislature, and what the Legislature approves goes to the governor. When the Assembly speaker and the Senate’s temporary president belong to the same party, approving the commission’s legislation takes two-thirds of the members elected to each house.⁷ Democrats have the majority in both chambers. Elections are administered by the State Board of Elections, a bipartisan agency in the executive department.⁸ No office that runs elections was among the statewide offices on the ballot.

New York City voters approved all five proposals on the city ballot. They cover outdoor dining, city contracting, street safety work, construction permits and the city’s rainy-day fund, as NY1 describes them.⁹ No seat on the Court of Appeals was on the ballot: the governor appoints its judges, with the advice and consent of the Senate, from candidates a nominating commission recommends.¹⁰

Republicans kept six of their seven U.S. House seats, three of them narrowly. Anthony Constantino won the 21st District by 1.8 points where Trump had won by 20.2, and Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino held the 1st and 2nd by 2.2 and 2.3. Blakeman carried 41 of the 62 counties, and the small towns and rural counties gave him a wider margin than they gave Trump. In the Legislature, Republicans held the open Senate District 7 by about 4 points and gained one Assembly seat, the open District 119, by about 5.²

The Senate seat held by Democrat Charles E. Schumer is the next one on the ballot, in 2028, in a state that voted D+12.7 for president in 2024 and D+19.9 for governor this year. The governor serves four years, so the office Hochul won comes up again in 2030. Senators and Assembly members are chosen for two years, which puts every legislative seat, and the two-thirds majorities, back before the voters in 2028.^{11, 12}

One state Senate seat is unsettled. In District 43, which takes in Rensselaer County and parts of Albany and Washington counties, Democrat Devin Lander said on November 12 that he led Republican Sen. Jake Ashby by 335 votes of more than 121,000, and declared victory. State law requires an automatic recount when the margin is under half a percent. Ashby has not conceded, and some Albany County mail ballots can still arrive in the week of November 16.³ MultiState’s tally showed Democrats leading two Republican Assembly members, in Districts 49 and 126, in races still being counted.²