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Coming soon to a campaign stop near you: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Kathy Hochul on the same stage.
The moderate Democratic governor said she’ll be out on the trail with Ocasio-Cortez, the darling of the left who is kicking off a statewide tour this week ahead of the November midterm elections.
“ I will be with her at different events,” Hochul said during an interview with WNYC.
Hochul’s interview is part of the very first edition of “Who’s Running This Place?,” a brand-new politics pop-up show hosted by WNYC senior politics reporter Brigid Bergin. The debut show — including Hochul’s full conversation — airs at 1 p.m. Thursday.
The governor didn’t say whether she’ll be with Ocasio-Cortez when she begins her tour Thursday in Buffalo. But Hochul made clear she’ll appear with Ocasio-Cortez at multiple events before Election Day.
“ I think she brings a lot of energy to the process, engages young people in particular,” Hochul said. “I’ve encouraged this. I have asked her and others to go statewide to create the momentum we need, the energy around this next election. So I think she'll be very well-received.”
Hochul’s interview touched on everything from childcare expansion to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the governor makes her case to voters for a second full term. She’s squaring off against Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, in the November election. (We’ve invited Blakeman to appear on a future episode of the show.)
Ocasio-Cortez has previously campaigned for Hochul, albeit briefly. That came during Hochul’s 2022 campaign, when the two Democrats chatted with voters at the Woodside station in Queens on Election Day.
Blakeman has made clear he wants Ocasio-Cortez — a lightning rod for criticism from those on the right — to campaign for his opponent.
“The more she campaigns for Kathy Hochul, the greater chance of my election,” he said at the state Capitol on Tuesday.
A pair of new polls painted drastically different pictures of the current state of the governor’s race.
One of them — released Wednesday morning by Siena University — had Hochul with a relatively slim 50%-41% lead over Blakeman among likely voters.
The second poll, from Quinnipiac University a few hours later, had Hochul with a far greater lead: 58%-39%, a more-than-comfortable 19-point margin.
The Siena poll could make Democrats nervous.
A handful of congressional races scattered across the state will help decide control of the House of Representatives, and Hochul’s party is counting on her to run up the score at the top of the ticket.
“The fact that [Blakeman’s] only down by 9 points with six weeks to go shows that this is a real race,” Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said.
If they choose to believe the Quinnipiac poll, a 19-point margin of victory would have downballot Democrats breathing a sigh of relief.
For her part, Hochul brushed off both of them during her interview with WNYC.
“ I think there's just something about polling these days that leads one to wonder,” she said.
