Congress

Kathy Hochul is trying to hold the center in a disruptive political age

Published

1 month ago

September 7, 2026

ALBANY, New York — In a time of massive political upheaval, Gov. Kathy Hochul is selling herself as a conventional politician.

Thrust into the job five years ago, Hochul is running for a second full term without the baggage of Andrew Cuomo, her scandal-scarred predecessor. She has a package of policy wins to tout — like banning cellphones in schools, no-cost child care and an effort to lower car insurance rates. A prodigious fundraiser, Hochul also has a mammoth cash advantage over her Republican rival, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Yet there are nagging worries among New York Democrats.

Frustrated voters are rejecting incumbents and establishment-backed candidates. An ascendant left is putting centrist Democrats on their back foot and providing a convenient foil for Republicans to exploit. Sweeping affordability woes and the perception that people are less financially secure than prior generations are driving voters to embrace populist, charismatic candidates.

And then there’s New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has formed a steady, pragmatic relationship with the governor, but is nevertheless highly polarizing to moderate Jewish voters and the business community. Blakeman has sought to leverage that by frequently blaming both Hochul and Mamdani for crime and high taxes.

Ratcheting up the pressure is Hochul’s need to perform well at the top of the ticket and help push down-ballot Democrats over the finish line, including those in moderate suburban enclaves. Success would enable the governor to reverse the perception — stoked by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi four years ago — that her 2022 campaign’s weak showing against Republican Lee Zeldin kept the House in GOP hands.

Hochul’s campaign referred Blue Light News to an ally, Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, for comment.

“Voters are increasingly calling BS on the sort of typical politicians and the establishment is not delivering,” he said. “The reason why Gov. Hochul is in such a strong position is because she’s so ruthlessly focused on delivering and she has delivered.”

New York is home to a handful of contested House districts that will potentially determine which party controls the chamber and the course of President Donald Trump’s final two years in office. Those stakes have led Hochul to significantly expand the New York Democratic Party’s infrastructure — long a political fiefdom solely meant to aid a governor — to support local candidates.

To win reelection by a comfortable margin — her supporters believe it should be by at least 10 points — Hochul must hold together an increasingly fraught Democratic coalition, riven by debates over socialism, Israel and how aggressively to fight Trump.

“Kathy Hochul has prided herself on being a mom governor and you see those motherly attributes coming out in how she runs the government,” said former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Hochul ally. “She’s someone who keeps all the balls in the air at one time, but simultaneously unites everybody. It’s about the grind and moving forward. It’s not about giving grand speeches or winning over the media with flashiness — it’s about getting it done.”

Hochul, a 68-year-old moderate who has spent much of her professional life in elected office, would appear to be an unlikely fit for this tumultuous moment. The mild mannered Buffalo-native does not lean on bombast. And she can appear purposefully hokey, like in her recent video with actor Kevin Bacon to promote the repeal of an anti-dancing regulation in bars.

This sedate public persona hasn’t lit voters aflame. A Siena Research Institute survey last month found her drawing only 49 percent of the vote to Blakeman’s 39 percent. Just 48 percent of voters in this deep blue state have a favorable view of her, even as many of her policies — like attempts to curb Trump’s deportation campaign and a data center moratorium — are popular.

Republicans want to capitalize on her so-so polling and persistent voter fears over public safety. They have hammered the governor over the cost of living in a deeply expensive state, blaming her for rising utility costs. Blakeman’s light-on-policy campaign has pledged to cut utility bills in half and significantly reduce taxes without explaining how he would accomplish either task.

The 70-year-old Republican nominee has hugged Trump tightly during the campaign, showing no daylight with the president even as gas prices have soared due to the war in Iran and upstate farmers have decried the impact of his tariff regime. Blakeman hosted Trump at an August campaign-style rally in which Republican speakers blasted Democrats over public safety with cheering police officers behind them.

Hochul’s campaign is eagerly highlighting the Trump-Blakeman dynamic: One of her first TV ads concludes with Blakeman declaring “peace, love and Donald Trump.”

“Everyone wants to talk about individual issues, but this is still an election on where Donald Trump stands with voters in New York — whether Democrats perceive the governor will be a voice in opposition to Donald trump or if Bruce Blakeman is going to be in lockstep with his policies,” said Jay Martin, a strategist who is working on a pro-Hochul super PAC. “That’s really the question that’s going to be answered.”

Blakeman is considered by Republicans to be their best bet to bolster down-ballot GOP candidates, especially on bellwether Long Island, where Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen are trying to hold their suburban swing seats. Blakeman has touted his ability to twice win purplish Nassau County, where Mamdani remains a deep concern for suburban voters. Those vulnerable House Democrats, as well as upstate congressional contender Blake Gendebien, have kept Hochul at arm’s length — an indication they believe her presence would hurt their chances of winning.

The Republican’s campaign, meanwhile, has eagerly laced into Mamdani and his alliance with Hochul. Blakeman has churned out videos produced with artificial intelligence depicting a smiling mayor and governor walking together. He pledged to repeal a surcharge on costly second homes in New York City that was proposed by Hochul and enthusiastically cheered by Mamdani.

And Blakeman slammed the governor for appearing at an Islamic cultural center in a head scarf, calling her “Hijab Hochul.”

“Less than two weeks before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, this kind of political pandering is especially tone-deaf,” he posted on X.

(Hochul’s campaign was quick to amplify that Blakeman appeared in religious garb while attending a Sikh center.)

After Trump posted about the hard scarf photo, Hochul responded: “I’ll never apologize for treating people of any faith with dignity, no matter how Islamophobic you and your enablers are.”

While significantly lagging the governor in fundraising, Blakeman has deep-pocketed allies, including New York Knicks owner James Dolan, the top donor to a super PAC supporting the GOP nominee’s bid. And Republicans believe there is a path, given the Democratic Party’s factionalism and voters’ affordability woes that have proven troublesome to incumbents.

“He needs to raise more money to do the traditional ways of introducing him as a viable alternative to Kathy Hochul — I think he is, but obviously money is the next star that has to align,” former Republican Rep. Tom Reed said. “He doesn’t have to match her one to one. The path is aligning itself.”

Blakeman will also need to win over pockets of voters who have traditionally supported Democrats — moderates who are uncomfortable with the party’s leftward drift in the Trump 2.0 era and continue to be concerned with the cost of living. And while Republicans haven’t won a statewide race since 2006, public polling this year shows independent voters are consistently disgruntled with the direction of the state.

“The traditional red-versus-blue analysis is going out the door,” Reed said. “You saw Trump tap in with the African-American vote, the trades — it’s a reflection of that,” Reed said. “It’s an opportunity for those of the silent majority that are just sick and tired of the status quo, big party bosses, they think they can just phone it in and not listen to the people of New York.”

But Zeldin’s 2022 bid — conducted in the middle of Joe Biden’s single-term presidency — still had trouble making sufficient in-roads in Democratic-dominated New York City.

Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign last year signaled a different kind of political realignment. He knit together a coalition of mostly young voters upset with costs and highly skeptical of establishment politicians like his main opponent, Cuomo.

But Mamdani’s rise has also unnerved New York’s large Jewish population. Business leaders have been uneasy with his unapologetic battle cry to raise taxes on wealthy people and large corporations. And he has struggled to win over older Black and Latino voters — people who’ve traditionally been the backbone of the New York Democratic Party.

The governor sidestepped what stood to be a divisive primary fight when Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado dropped his long-shot bid after Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed her reelection. Hochul’s team purposefully declined to directly attack Delgado — a strategic decision that helped keep the party together. She’s been able to work well with the mayor, forgoing the historic tensions that arise between governors and mayors. Unlike some moderate Democrats, Hochul has not excoriated the hard left in her party while making clear she disagrees with them on issues like Israel and hiking taxes.

Hochul told Blue Light News in August that she expects Mamdani will be “helpful” to her campaign. But it’s an open question as to whether the mayor’s supporters can be sufficiently marshaled to support his Albany ally. At the same time, Hochul must delicately thread a needle to ensure that she does not alienate those within her own coalition who are disquieted by Mamdani’s success.

“Mamdani is a double-edged sword for the governor,” said Evan Thies, a Democratic strategist and former political adviser to ex-Mayor Eric Adams. “The numbers show he can turn out Democratic voters for her in the city — but also that he can hurt her elsewhere.”

Congress

A vulnerable Republican takes on both parties over immigration

Published

22 hours ago

October 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — One of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House is running on immigration — and taking on both parties over it.

Rep. Mike Lawler is hammering Democrats over “sanctuary” policies while criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive — and at times lethal — immigration enforcement tactics.

“Renee Good and Alex Pretti should not be dead. But neither should Sheridan Gorman, and neither should Laken Riley, and neither should the thousands of people who have been murdered by people who are in our country illegally and committing crimes,” Lawler said at a candidate forum earlier this month. “So yes, ICE needs reforms, but you know what? Sanctuary jurisdictions should not exist. Criminals should be deported.”

Lawler is betting his self-described “common sense” approach can win him a third term in a suburban Hudson Valley district Kamala Harris carried in 2024. His race against Democrat Cait Conley, an Army veteran and first-time candidate, could help determine control of the House.

Immigration has helped Republicans win elections, but broad dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s policies has made it a less certain advantage this year. Lawler is pressing it anyway.

He’s run paid media on the topic and held multiple events decrying Democrats’ immigration policies. In a recent interview with a panel of local reporters, he even brought it up himself: “We did not touch on immigration, and I want to raise this because this is a real problem,” he said.

“Fundamentally, when you look at the challenge, I think most people want common sense, not extremism, on the issue of immigration,” Lawler told reporters after a debate with Conley earlier this week.

Whether that emphasis matches voters’ priorities is another question. A recent Emerson College poll found immigration ranked far behind the economy and threats to democracy among the district’s most important issues. And Trump, whose approval ratings are abysmal in New York state, is often at the center of the immigration debate.

Lawler has been able to criticize Trump without drawing the backlash other Republicans have faced. He repeatedly highlights his fight with the president to raise the cap for the state and local tax deduction, which Trump ended up praising him for at a rally earlier this year.

Other Republicans who’ve sought to create distance with the president haven’t fared nearly as well. Rep. María Elvira Salazar is just one. Trump eviscerated the Florida Republican after she released a campaign ad challenging his immigration crackdown.

Yet even Lawler’s leverage with Trump has limits.

He’s highlighted his support for extending Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians, thousands of whom live in his district. When the Trump administration announced it would be ending those protections for Haitians earlier this year, Lawler made his opposition known, warning it was not safe to send people back to the country.

He said he’s been working on individual cases to support Haitians in his district. Jean Bernard Charles, who lives in Rockland County, told Blue Light News that Lawler’s office was helpful in getting his wife to the country and he recommended his friends facing the same situation to go to the office for help.

Lawler also cosponsored legislation to extend TPS, which is stalled in the Senate. He argued that he’s fulfilled his role by passing a bill through the House and has blamed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for not moving it along. (In response, Schumer’s office said in a statement that the leader “moved to extend Haitian TPS on the Senate floor by unanimous consent and was blocked by Senate Republicans and President Trump, who Lawler constantly supports.”)

“I’ve explained this to the White House, repeatedly, that ending TPS was a stupid decision,” Lawler said at the forum. “I am opposed to it, and I will continue to fight back against it.”

The administration hasn’t budged, though. Community leaders in Rockland County, where the district’s Haitian community is based, say many immigrants are too scared to leave their homes. Some are growing frustrated that more isn’t being done.

“If there was the help, our folks would not be wearing ankle monitors,” said Nicole Hines, the NAACP’s mid-Hudson and Westchester regional director.

Renold Julien, the executive director of Konbit Neg Lakay, a Haitian community center in Lawler’s district, pointed to Lawler’s close relationship with Trump, including the president coming to the district earlier this year and Lawler appearing at a meeting at the White House with Jewish leaders, some of whom are from the district.

“I feel bad for Mike Lawler,” Julien said. “Friends don’t treat friends like that. … His friend Donald Trump is doing his best to create a problem between him and the dark-skinned immigrants here of Rockland.”

Conley has also questioned his work regarding Haitian TPS.

“He can have enough capital to get Donald Trump to fly out here and visit the district in May, to go to Dallas at Trump’s midterm convention and be a keynote speaker, but he can’t get Donald Trump to actually take care of people in the Hudson Valley and protect our Haitian community by extending TPS?” she asked.

Democrat Cait Conley and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler participate in a debate hosted by News 12 on Sept. 28, 2026.

When asked how she would advocate for Haitians if she wins — especially since she won’t have Trump’s ear like Lawler does — Conley said she thinks Democrats will win the Senate, clearing the way for the bill to extend TPS to get to the president’s desk.

Lawler has repeatedly bashed Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent law that ended cooperation between local police departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on civil immigration cases, and questioned why the state is not honoring the Department of Homeland Security’s detainer requests, as the agency has stated. The parents of Sheridan Gorman — a teenager from Lawler’s district who was killed earlier this year in Chicago, allegedly by a Venezuelan living in the U.S. illegally — have appeared on the trail with him a handful of times to criticize Democrats’ immigration policies.

“The sanctuary policies being pushed by Kathy Hochul and Democrats killed our daughter,” Jessica Gorman, Sheridan’s mother, said in an advertisement for Lawler. At an event last week, she accused Hochul and Conley of not caring about protecting families.

Hochul has waved off such criticisms, saying that law enforcement is still permitted to work with federal officials to remove violent criminals.

Even if immigration isn’t voters’ top concern, it’s a topic Lawler can own, said Sarah Chamberlain, the head of the Republican Main Street Partnership, of which Lawler is a member. The economy is a harder sell to frustrated voters, she added. Focusing on Hochul’s policy also taps into her middling popularity as she runs for reelection. Hochul’s opponent, Bruce Blakeman, has similarly been hammering the issue.

“He’s been extremely successful finding middle ground on it,” Chamberlain said of Lawler, praising his focus on deporting immigrants who have committed crimes and noting the district’s proximity to New York City. “He uniquely can do it because it’s very specific to his district and to where he lives. Some other members couldn’t be doing it the same way.”

Not everyone is convinced his approach will work.

“Mike Lawler is reading the tea leaves and realizing what we have been saying is true — that the vast majority of Americans across this country and in this state are against Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of NYIC Action, the political arm of the nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition. “While he may be doing a couple of vibes-oriented things to illustrate he’s not 100 percent MAGA and mass deportation, his actions actually speak louder than his words.”

Awawdeh said that even though Lawler has made some moves on Haitian TPS, that “doesn’t erase the horrors that he’s cosigned to date” in supporting increased funding for ICE. And while Lawler does back the Dignity Act — the bipartisan immigration reform bill that would create a vehicle for potentially millions of immigrants who entered the country unlawfully to gain work permits and remain in the U.S. legally — some immigrant advocates argue it doesn’t go far enough in creating a pathway to citizenship. The bill has yet to reach the House floor for a vote.

“Immigrant families are not props for his moderate image,” Awawdeh said.

When asked if he thinks his immigration message is getting muddled, Lawler said he has “never wavered in my position” and that most Americans “want the border secure, they want criminals deported and they want cashless bail gone.”

Lawler has sought to cast Conley as too weak on the border and crime, pointing to her support for revoking partnerships between local police and ICE, known as 287(g) agreements.

Conley told Blue Light News she’s in favor of getting rid of those agreements because she wants “our local cops to be focused on protecting our local communities, not doing the federal government’s job.” While she said former President Joe Biden messed up border security, she criticized ICE under Trump for “violence against American citizens” and not “prioritizing violent criminals.” She said she does not support cashless bail, which Lawler has repeatedly pointed to as a catalyst of crime, along with sanctuary policies.

Conley, though, has focused more of her energy on voters’ top concern this cycle: affordability. She said she hears concerns about paying bills and affording gas and health care more frequently on the trail, as opposed to immigration. She accused Lawler of using the issue as a “distraction” to “shift focus away from where he is failing our communities.”

Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant, said it’s commendable that Lawler is finding balance on the issue but “the problem is no one’s making their voting decision based on this” and it “doesn’t cut through the headwinds on the economy.”

Lawler thinks voters are picking up on the nuance.

“I’ve been leading on this issue for years, saying that the immigration system needs to be reformed,” he told Blue Light News after a recent press conference slamming Hochul’s law. “These things are not in conflict. It’s recognizing how complex our immigration system is, but it’s also having common sense and applying it.”

Congress

No one wants to be on the Senate Ethics Committee

Published

1 day ago

October 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate could soon be in the market for a new internal cop. Nobody wants the job.

The top two lawmakers on the Senate Ethics Committee are poised to take over other panels next year, depending on the outcome of the midterms. Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the current chair, is in line to potentially lead the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, while the current senior Democrat, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, would chair the Foreign Relations Committee if his party flips the chamber.

Asked if he’d want to stay on as Ethics chair, Lankford laughed.

“No one asks to be on the Ethics Committee. No one — you can ask Chris Coons the same thing — no one asks to be on the Ethics Committee,” he said. “You’re asked to be on it and it’s a way of serving your conference.”

Coons was more diplomatic when asked if he wanted to serve on the panel again in any capacity, patting Lankford and himself on the back for their ability to “reach effective, swift, reasonable bipartisan resolutions to complex issues.”

“I enjoy the members of the committee,” he added.

Serving as chair of the Ethics Committee is an unenviable role — requiring lawmakers to lead investigations into allegations of misconduct against their coworkers and, in many cases, their friends.

There are also few rewards for the assignment: Unlike other committee leadership posts, sitting atop Ethics doesn’t provide a fundraising foothold or generate campaign ad-worthy headlines. It leaves little incentive for any lawmaker to take on the task.

“Nobody wants to be chair of the Ethics Committee. Period,” said Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the second-most-senior member of the panel who is also expected to continue leading Foreign Relations Republicans. “It’s very difficult when you have matters you have to deal with concerning your friends and colleagues.”

The third-ranking Ethics Committee Republican, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, noted she’s on tap to become Rules Committee chair next year.

As for whether she’d be willing to lead Ethics, too, she replied, “Deb Fischer is not going to do that.”

Unlike the House Ethics Committee, which has picked up the pace in recent months in holding members accountable, the Senate Ethics Committee has gone through long stretches of public inaction. It has issued just two public rebukes in the past decade: a letter of admonition to former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in 2018, and one to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2023. Aside from those instances, one would have to go all the way back to 2012 to find the next most recent public disciplinary action.

When Menendez was found by the panel to have improperly received gifts from a friend — then used his position of power to advance that person’s interests following a mistrial in his federal bribery case — the committee wrote him a letter of admonition requiring him to repay the gifts.

Menendez went on to be convicted in a subsequent federal corruption case on charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent, resulting in an 11-year prison sentence.

The Senate Ethics Committee slapped Graham with an admonishment in 2023 for “impermissibly conducted campaign activity in a federal building.”

Neither Senate Majority Leader John Thune nor Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — who are both focused on the Nov. 3 midterms — have spoken publicly about who they might put atop the Ethics panel if they find themselves needing a new chair.

There are also some unknowns. For Lankford to take over Homeland Security, for instance, current Chair Rand Paul of Kentucky would need to first decide whether to decamp for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy’s retirement will leave an opening.

Given the Ethics Committee’s distinction as a “select” panel, Senate leaders have more leeway over who they tap for a chair position, especially if they run into hurdles finding someone willing to take it.

It’s rare, but not unheard of, for a senator to lead both the Ethics Committee and a “standing” committee simultaneously. It’s happened on three occasions since the committee was given its name in 1977, according to data compiled by the Congressional Research Service and the Senate Historical Office.

That means Lankford or Coons could end up being asked to continue in their roles, even if they are also chairing another panel. If not, Senate leaders could struggle to find a replacement further down the committee rosterr, which would force them to bring in a senator not currently on the panel.

Democrats already need to recruit at least one new member to the panel: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is not returning for the next Congress, and Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii is expected to succeed outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin in the caucus’s No. 2 leadership spot.

As for Republicans, Risch said he’ll pass.

He burst into laughter and said he was confused why someone would ask if he wanted to serve as chair.

Congress

Bernie Moreno says GOP needs to prep for ‘Last Supper’ reconciliation bill

Published

2 days ago

October 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Moreno said Thursday he expects the Senate to move a party-line legislative package after the midterm elections — especially if Democrats flip one or both chambers.

“We will do a reconciliation bill — one way or the other we will,” the Ohio Republican told reporters at the Capitol, referring to the simple-majority budget process. “Obviously, if we lose control of Congress, it’ll be the Last Supper.”

Such a bill, he added, would be “giant” and would include “all the Republican priorities that we can get done.”

The House approved a framework for a party-line bill over the summer that includes war funding, farm aid and election integrity incentives. But the push has so far run aground in the Senate

Moreno said the threat of imminent Democratic control of either the House or Senate would jumpstart matters — and potentially push Republicans to include a debt-ceiling increase as well.

The borrowing limit is set to be reached sometime next year, and a Democratic majority could have significant leverage to demand concessions as part of any deal — something the GOP could forestall by acting in the lame-duck session.

“I mean, nobody wants to see a debt default,” Moreno said. “That would be 1929 on steroids.”

Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) also told reporters on Capitol Hill that a new reconciliation bill “has to happen” after the election but warned against expanding the scope of the House framework.

“I think you have to go with the one that we’ve got,” he told reporters. “The Senate needs to act and get the job done.”

A senior member of the Armed Services Committee, Wittman said the legislation is “key to restock our weapons magazine” and “should be the main focus when [members] get back.”

Moreno said if Democrats win control of both chambers, Republicans should stay in session nonstop to pass GOP legislation — which could be a tall order given worries about poor post-election attendance.

“If we lose the House and the Senate, we should be here from Nov. 9 until Dec. 31 with no break at all,” Moreno said. “Like, we’ll have turkeys here for Thanksgiving because we have to get this done.”