New York · Governor
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Kathy Hochul
Who is running?
Kathy Hochul (Democratic), Bruce Blakeman (Republican). The margin below is Kathy Hochul minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, who took office on August 24, 2021 after Andrew Cuomo resigned, is seeking a second full term in New York. She won in 2022 with 53.1%, the closest New York gubernatorial election since 1994, and Republicans have not won statewide in New York since 2002. The text gives no presidential results for the state.
Hochul's primary challenger, lieutenant governor Antonio Delgado, ended his campaign on February 10, 2026, after Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Hochul and she took 85% at the state convention. Her running mate is former New York City Council speaker Adrienne Adams, and the Working Families Party nominated the pair on August 21 after first choosing a placeholder. The Republican and Conservative nominee is Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, with Madison County sheriff Todd Hood as running mate; Elise Stefanik withdrew on December 19, 2025 and President Trump endorsed Blakeman the next day. As of July 11, 2026 Hochul had raised $16,594,119 with $3,610,232 on hand, Blakeman $13,445,025 with $2,989,839 on hand.
All seven raters listed, including The Cook Political Report (September 17, 2026) and Sabato's Crystal Ball (September 29, 2026), put the race at D. The text's polling average is Hochul 51.7%, Blakeman 40.4%. Quinnipiac (September 17–20, 2026) has Hochul 58%, Blakeman 39%; Siena (September 11–17) has Hochul 50%, Blakeman 41%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Incumbent Democratic governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election to a second full term.
Incumbent Democratic governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election to a second full term.
On August 21, the Working Families Party nominated Hochul and Adams.
Hochul will face Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican and Conservative nominee, in the general election.
Governor Kathy Hochul took office on August 24, 2021, upon the resignation of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.
Bruce Blakeman was re-elected to the post of Nassau County executive by a double-digit margin in November 2025.
Hochul was elected to a full term in 2022 with 53.1% of the vote in the closest New York gubernatorial election since 1994.
On December 19, Stefanik announced she was withdrawing her candidacy. President Trump endorsed Blakeman's candidacy on December 20.
Sabato's Crystal Ball D September 29, 2026
|Bruce Blakeman (R) $13,445,025 $10,455,186 $2,989,839
Average |51.7% 40.4% 7.9% |Hochul +11.3%
Quinnipiac University September 17–20, 2026 1,026 (LV)
She was soon endorsed by the New York Democratic Party after securing 85% of support from party members at the state convention
The New York Working Families Party declined to nominate Hochul or Delgado, instead opting for a "placeholder candidate" to appear on their ballot line.
The New York State Board of Elections rejected all petitions for non-qualified party ballot access in May 2026.
Not in the source: The facts carry no forecast basis.; The text gives no June 23 primary results for either party.; No presidential results for the state are given.; facts.candidates marks Hochul as incumbent: false, although the text names her the incumbent.; Ratings are given only as 'D' with no Lean/Likely/Safe.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as 4edef2db696f; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | D+24.1 | D+23.5 | D+15.8 |
A shift of 8.3 points toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 39.6% | 34.0% | +5.5 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 53.4% | 66.3% | -12.9 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 13.6% | 10.1% | +3.5 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 19.6% | 12.9% | +6.8 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 8.8% | 4.4% | +4.5 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 22.6% | 9.6% | +13.0 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 39.6 | 39.1 | +0.52 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $84,578 | $77,633 | $+6,945 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $403,000 | $314,132 | $+88,868 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 54.3% | 67.4% | -13.0 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 6.2% | 4.8% | +1.4 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 1.9% | 3.0% | -1.1 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 13.3% | 12.3% | +1.1 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 15.0% | 11.1% | +3.9 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 31.9% | 32.1% | -0.2 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 4.0% | 2.6% | +1.4 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 1.4% | 2.9% | -1.4 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.52 | 0.47 | +0.05 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 4.2% | 4.0% | +0.2 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -0.6 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.4 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -0.5 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.4 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $85,552 | $70,662 | $+14,890 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 28.7% | 32.4% | -3.6 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 18.1% | 19.4% | -1.3 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 4.7% | 6.1% | -1.4 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 3.9% | 4.4% | -0.5 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 5.6% | 3.8% | +1.8 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.6% | +0.1 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.3% | 0.3% | -0.1 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 0.3% | 0.9% | -0.6 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.9% | 1.5% | -0.6 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 0.4% | 1.2% | -0.7 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.1 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between +1.3 and +20.4 points. Election day: +1.1 to +24.3. The election-day interval is 4.0 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 7.33 points, made of race-specific polling error 46%, drift to election day 30%, latent opinion 13%, correlated polling error 11%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
23 polls, most recent 2026-09-20. 61% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Kathy Hochul ahead of Bruce Blakeman. Over 13 stored forecasts the central estimate moved +0.8 points. There were 6 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.
Since 2026-10-01: margin +0.00 points, win probability +0.0 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run 62ef4f60-404c-4abb-89c4-6a384893819d and election-day run 1b533ce2-5c5e-4649-8b62-6e203b3ad43f, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.