Kathy Hochul won big — now can she govern as New York needs?
New Yorkers voted against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, giving a decisive win to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul over Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman.
Congratulations to her.
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Yet Hochul’s campaign consisted of little more than opposing Trump, and voters who wanted change bought the message.
That’s no plan for governing. And while Democratic Socialists may feel emboldened, they had nothing to do with the results, so Hochul has no reason to suddenly fold to their demands.
Above all else, voters’ bottom-line message was little more than: Any friend of the president, as is Blakeman, has no hope of becoming governor in Blue York — no matter how bad things here get.
And make no mistake: New York voters think things are bad.
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Barely two in five think the state is heading in the “right direction,” per last week Siena poll; a Marist poll found nearly half say they’re financially worse off than a year ago.
So now the question is: How much further will Hochul go to satisfy the socialists and antisemites?
Can she keep “governing” on an anti-Trump agenda?
Or, having won decisively, will she now stand her ground against emboldened uber-leftists — and hold back taxes, costly utility bills, metastasizing antisemitism and crime rates that continue to top those from 2019 (i.e., before the pro-criminal criminal-justice reforms)?
Hochul has never been a profile in courage, but New York needs to stop getting worse if it’s ever to start getting better.