Election Gives Hochul Upper Hand to Enact Housing Agenda

12 minutes read

Pessimists have been worried that after the election, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a larger-than-ever contingent of socialists would drag Gov. Kathy Hochul to the left on measures like statewide rent stabilization.

But the pessimists are wrong.

Hochul utterly crushed her Republican challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, by 20 points — 15 more than in her wobbly win four years ago.

She’s going into 2027 stronger than ever, with a mandate from voters and buoyed by moderate Democrats’ wins in congressional and other down-ballot races.

Hochul is not going to support the REST Act, which would create several paths for localities to adopt rent regulation, and Assembly and Senate leaders are not going to pick a fight with her by putting it on her desk. I don’t see her passing a third millionaires’ tax or mansion tax either.

Hochul and Mamdani are now even. She gave him his pied-à-terre tax and a few billion dollars to balance his budget. In return, he endorsed and campaigned with her in the Commie Corridor.

After the aid she sent Mamdani last spring, Hochul made a point of saying in the future the city would have to manage its budget on its own. Translation: no more bailouts. She’s not going to spend any more political capital for Mamdani’s sake.

At this point, Hochul owes Mamdani nothing. The lesson she will draw from Democrats’ sweeping victories and her destruction of Blakeman on Tuesday is that Americans want affordability, political moderation and a check on President Donald Trump, not tax increases, bathroom-policy battles and a return to the culture wars.

“Tax the rich” was not a theme in Democrats’ successful campaigns. Even a billionaires’ tax on the ballot in deep-blue California was losing by 11 points with 60 percent of votes counted, as of 3:00 p.m. Wednesday.

Hochul will aim to stamp out any move by socialists and progressives to reconvene the circular firing squad for which Democrats are notorious.

We saw an early sign of this last month when Albany’s Common Council passed a commuter tax that requires the governor’s consent and she said, essentially, “No f—king chance.” Albany’s mayor vetoed it, citing Hochul’s opposition.

So it is absurd to think that Mamdani and a dozen socialist legislators will bully a sitting governor riding high after a 20-point win and four years from her next race.

Instead, Hochul will look to boost housing production, a goal on which she and Mamdani agree. I predict they will sit down with the Building and Construction Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU and work out a reform of 485x, which has unfortunately capped multifamily projects at 99 units.

Their blueprint will be 467m, the state’s spectacularly successful program for office conversions in the city. It passed as part of the same housing package that included 485x, but somehow the construction unions didn’t undermine it with arbitrary wage thresholds, nor did progressives saddle it with unrealistic affordability mandates.

A 485x fix figures to be part of another housing affordability package that embraces abundance (new housing production) and rehabilitation of older buildings as its premise. I would bet a solution for the 57,000 (and counting) vacant, rent-stabilized apartments in New York City will also be advanced.

Assembly member Tony Simone has already introduced a “State of Yes” bill, including more protections for the nation’s most-protected tenants, but Hochul will be steering the ship next year in Albany. Not Simone, not Mamdani, and not the Democratic Socialists of America.

Mark it down.