To believe Gov. Hochul’s tiresome claim that she’s committed to making New York more affordable, you also have to believe she actively opposed the policies driving up the cost of living during her tenure.

Fat chance.

In fact, her high-tax and big-spending regime means she can’t have it both ways.

A prime example are the record prices for heating, cooling and electricity that New Yorkers pay.

No matter what she says now, Hochul has been a supporter of expensive green mandates and other impediments to increasing supply.

These include opposing natural-gas extraction and transportation, and blocking upstate pipelines.

Against that backdrop, Hochul cannot credibly claim the mess is not her fault and that she is committed to lowering household energy costs.

The incoherence of her stance practically drowned out her Tuesday statement that acknowledges the exorbitant cost of energy in the Empire State, but tries to shift the blame to remote bogeymen.

“As Washington Republicans keep driving up the cost of energy, gas and groceries, I’ll never stop working to help New Yorkers keep more money in their pockets,” she said.

Budget-bloating plan

Oh, please.

The act is part of her plan to expand a rebate program and send checks of up to $500 to millions of state residents to offset household utility costs.

She probably had to stifle giggles when she got to the part of the statement that has her saying “it’s just part of an ongoing, continuous effort to help New Yorkers realize that this is the best place to live and raise a family and have a business,” so “we’re helping do whatever we can.”

This is the same governor who in 2022, during her first gubernatorial campaign, dismissed her Republican opponent and critics of the state’s exorbitant cost of living by telling them to “jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong!”

Earlier this year, facing another election, she did a sloppy flip-flop as she complained that “our tax base has been eroded.”

Her loopy solution was a suggestion that those looking to help should “go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home.”

Shamelessness is sometimes a political requirement but Hochul is in a class of her own in demanding others solve the problems she and the leftist Legislature created.

It’s a gimmick that doesn’t pass the smell test.

If Washington is responsible, why does New York have higher energy costs than nearly every other state in the nation?

Data recently collected by the Empire Center for Public Policy shows that residential electricity prices in New York “exceeded the national average by 60.8%, compared with a 12.1% premium for natural gas.”

It adds that the state’s “average residential electricity price increased by 59.1% between June 2019 and June 2026, compared with a 37.7% average increase nationally.”

The data also show that the gap between New York’s electricity prices and the national average has been “widening noticeably since 2021” when Hochul took ­office.

That’s her record, and her desperate bid to buy votes with state cash and act as if utility companies and Washington are to blame is part of an effort to hoodwink voters in November.

If the state budget has collected billions in taxes and fees it doesn’t need for vital services, why doesn’t she just cut taxes?

The Blakeman factor

In fact, Hochul is tapping into state money for rebates only because her GOP gubernatorial rival, Bruce Blakeman, has focused intensely on sky-high energy costs since early this year.

With her rebates, Hochul hopes to undo some of the damage she’s done before voters cast their ­ballots.

In February, Blakeman summed up the list of cost-drivers of energy in a single sentence, saying: “It’s because almost 70% of your utility bill goes to fees like delivery charges, taxes and policy mandates.”

Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, also vowed to begin reducing household utility bills across the state by 50% on his first day in office.

He has made the issue a key plank of his campaign and raised it repeatedly round the state.

He believes too many power plants were forced to close and vows to “repower” them.

He also pledges to extract the state’s bountiful supply of natural gas, and return to taxpayers what he calls a $2.4 billion energy surplus Hochul is sitting on.

His focus on utility costs goes hand-in-hand with his emphasis on the overall impact of Hochul’s big-spending ways, with this year’s budget of $278 billion some $10 billion more than last year’s.

An analysis by the City Journal finds that in the five state budgets over which Hochul has presided, spending has grown by nearly 40%, which far outpaces inflation.

A large part of the problem recently can be traced to Hochul’s close relationship with Gotham’s radical mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Blakeman has blasted her for bailing out Mamdani’s budget- busting plans with a handout of $1.5 billion of state taxpayer cash.

As Blakeman put it, it’s unfair to taxpayers across the state to use their money because Mamdani is “inexperienced and incompetent.”

Blakeman kept up the drumbeat Tuesday, dismissing Hochul’s utility relief checks as a “transparent election-year gimmick that fails to fix the affordability crisis she created.”

Tying Kat to Mamdani

The criticism is part of the GOP nominee’s aims to tie the governor to Mamdani among voters who are not enamored of the Pied Piper of Socialism.

In effect, Blakeman is essentially running against both Hochul and Mamdani.

That makes perfect sense in that Blakeman needs to get above 30% of the city vote and build big margins in much of the rest of state if he has any hopes of winning.

Polls have shown a race that is far from settled.

Although Hochul has consistently held a lead, the margin has recently been as high as 10 points and as low as 4 points.

One thing in her favor is that President Trump’s standing among likely midterm voters is sagging, and his national approval is stuck at around 40%.

That’s where it is in New York, too.

Public unease over the war in Iran explains much of the drag, which is showing up in nearly all battleground states.

Overall, analysts at RealClearPolitics find that Dems nationwide have about an 8% margin in the expected party-line votes for House, Senate and other offices.

That is an obvious hurdle to Blakeman and other state Republicans.

But midterm polls are notoriously unreliable this far from Election Day.

And so the battle to save New York goes on.