Welcome to Washington: Midterm Anti-Incumbency Comes for Democratic Governors, Like New York’s Hochul

The one blue state where President Trump has thus far campaigned is New York, where he held a rally at Syracuse with the GOP nominee for governor, Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive challenging Governor Kathy Hochul. Mr. Blakeman has fully embraced the president during his campaign, speaking on stage with him at the Syracuse rally, and echoing the president’s campaign rhetoric during Tuesday’s debate. The GOP candidate even joined Mr. Trump at an NBA finals game earlier this year, where the president was incessantly booed.Welcome to Washington, where the city has hollowed out in the final stretch of this year’s midterm elections. President Trump is campaigning in red areas across the country to aid some surprisingly endangered senators and Senate candidates, including in states like Alaska, Ohio, and Texas. Republicans are pouring in money through outside groups to save that Senate majority, including more than $200 million that is expected to be spent in Texas on behalf of the GOP nominee, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Mr. Trump’s decision to return to New York, however, seemed to be a personal favor to Mr. Blakeman. According to a recent New York Times–Siena poll, Mr. Trump’s net favorability is about 30 points under water in the state. Despite Mr. Blakeman wrapping his arms around an unpopular president, he has managed to make the race more competitive than one would expect. Mrs. Hochul is the favorite, given that she is leading Mr. Blakeman by about 12 points in polling aggregates, which is the same margin by which Vice President Harris carried the state in 2024. That same year, however, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives with a national popular vote margin of 2.6 percent, though according to polling aggregates from outlets like SilverBulletin, Democrats are leading in this year’s generic ballot by nearly nine points — a projected swing of more than 11 points in just two years. According to polling, though, Mrs. Hochul does not seem to be benefiting from a national swing toward Democrats at the same level, and is narrowly underperforming the generic congressional ballot in the state. The most recent Siena poll has Mrs. Hochul leading Mr. Blakeman by nine points, while New Yorkers prefer a generic Democrat for Congress by a margin of 11 points. Similar polls — one from Marist in October and another from Siena University in August — had Mrs. Hochul underperforming the generic Democrat by two and six points, respectively. During the debate between the New York gubernatorial candidates on Tuesday night, Mr. Blakeman echoed one of Mr. Trump’s famous lines from the 2016 campaign trail in making the pitch for himself. “What have you got to lose?” he asked viewers. In a statement to the New York Sun, a spokesman for the New York Democratic Party, Addison Dick, called Mr. Trump’s agenda “toxic” and declared that Mrs. Hochul will have no problem winning another term. “Bruce Blakeman and Republicans across this state are running on: raising costs, ripping away healthcare, and enabling Trump’s ICE agents as they terrorize our communities,” he said. Several of Mrs. Hochul’s fellow Democratic governors also seem to be underperforming. Governor Tina Kotek of Oregon, a state that has not elected a Republican governor in nearly 45 years, leads her Republican opponent by less than two points in a state Ms. Harris carried by nearly 15 points. According to a poll from the University of New Hampshire, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts has a significant lead, but appears to be underperforming Democrats running for Congress, where the primary motivation for Democratic voters is electing leaders who will stand up to Mr. Trump. Senator Ed Markey — the octogenarian progressive who faced a primary challenger this year — is leading his Republican opponent by 23 points, roughly on par with Mr. Harris’s 25-point margin of victory in the Bay State two years ago. Ms. Healey’s lead over her challenger is 16 points, even though Ms. Healey won her first gubernatorial election in 2022 by nearly 30 points in what was a redder year nationally.Where Republicans are really feeling their pain is in farm country — a region battered by high energy prices due to the war in Iran and by some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. In Iowa, the state auditor, Rob Sand, is strongly favored to flip the governor’s mansion to red from blue after more than a decade of trifecta Republican control of state government. In Kansas, where Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, is term-limited, many expected the governor’s office to fall into Republican hands. With voters pessimistic about the economy and, in the Reverend Adam Hamilton, a strong Senate candidate, Democrats now appear within striking distance of keeping the office. According to recent polling, a Democratic state senator, Cindy Holscher, now trails her Republican opponent, the state senate president, Ty Masterson, by only five to six points. With both parties facing crises of confidence from the American people, it’s easy to see millions wanting the control of Congress to change hands — though many also want to see change at their state capitals, even if it does not conform to the national “blue wave.”

Welcome to Washington: Midterm Anti-Incumbency Comes for Democratic Governors, Like New York’s Hochul

Welcome to Washington: Midterm Anti-Incumbency Comes for Democratic Governors, Like New York’s Hochul

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