In her fourth State of the State address, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul laid the groundwork for her re-election message, hoping to connect with disaffected Democrats who voted against the party in the last presidential election and win them back as she faces a tough fight for a second mandate.
During a roughly 54-minute speech on Tuesday, Ms. Hochul appeared to tie her policy agenda to the state’s changing political environment, where voter frustrations over rising costs and immigration have helped Donald J. Trump deliver his best performance in the state. She unveiled a series of plans to cut costs for renters and parents of young children, while pledging measures aimed at improving public safety, particularly on New York’s subway trains.
The governor has repeatedly vowed to fight for those policies, comparing her efforts to those of the New York Liberty basketball team, which won the WNBA title in 2024. She said she wants to build on the policy achievements of Democrats in the state legislature since she took office in 2021.
Here are the main takeaways from her speech:
Affordability was a top priority.
Many of Ms. Hochul’s most recent policy pledges have focused on reducing the cost of housing and child care. On Tuesday, she outlined a handful of savings measures, including statewide tax cuts for residents making less than $323,000 and rebate checks from excess tax revenue.
The governor also revisited her $1,000 child tax credit plan, which she announced in early January and could apply to nearly 3 million children statewide. She promised to work toward universal child care in New York, while investing $110 million in renovating child care facilities and building new ones.
“This is how we make New York more accessible,” she said. “And we’ll never stop finding ways to put money in your pockets.”
The policies amount to roughly $5,000 in annual savings for a family of four, Ms. Hochul said. It is unclear how they will be funded and whether they will take effect with enough time to influence voters before they return to the polls next year.
Dealing with crime and the mentally ill was second.
The remark could easily have come from Mayor Eric Adams or perhaps former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
“We cannot allow our subway to be a mobile homeless shelter,” Ms. Hochul said Tuesday.
She proposed updating the standards for who qualifies for involuntary hospitalization under state law. The goal, she said, is to help people who “don’t have the mental capacity to take care of themselves, such as refusing help with basic things: clothing, food, shelter, medical care.”
She also wants to change laws related to court-ordered outpatient treatment for people with mental illness. Lawmakers and advocates following the issue said her comments were not specific enough to understand how the changes would work.
“We have a mental health crisis to deal with,” said Carl E. Heastie, Speaker of the Assembly. “But this is another one I always tell you: Hell is in the details.” He supports the effort, but said many Democrats will not want to infringe on the civil rights of the homeless.
State lawmakers have applauded the governor’s efforts in recent years to expand housing and services for people dealing with psychosis. But some also said such an effort could be coercive unless there are enough beds and support available.
“We’re really rushing to roll out policies without considering what the overall system looks like,” said Luke Sikinyi, director of public policy and public engagement for the Alliance for Law and Recovery, which opposes Ms. Hochul’s efforts on this front.
Ms. Hochul’s proposals came amid a broader debate about crime and homelessness in the subway. She pledged to support the deployment of more than 1,200 police officers on New York City trains between 9pm and 5am over the next six months.
Representative Emily Gallagher, Democrat of Brooklyn, said Ms. Hochul’s public safety proposals were “politically satisfying” but that she did not think they would “achieve any real public safety.”
“Anyone who actually rides the subway knows that the whole time the cops are on the train they’re just looking at their phone and not doing anything,” she said.
The 2026 midterm primaries cast a shadow.
The specter of electoral politics loomed over Tuesday’s address, and not just from the governor’s position.
Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican who has not shied away from talk of challenging Ms. Hochul in next year’s election, appeared in Albany to denounce the governor’s record and policy proposals during a news conference before her speech Tuesday, arguing that her spending-cutting plans would contrary.
“Taking thousands of dollars out of New Yorkers’ left pockets and putting $500 in their right pockets is not a tax break. It’s an insult,” he said. “And that’s exactly why millions of New Yorkers headed for the exits.”
Mr. Lawler, who was re-elected in his Democratic-leaning Hudson Valley district last November, said policies the governor has supported, such as congestion pricing, have increased the financial strain on New York commuters. Joining more than two dozen state Republican lawmakers, the congressman criticized Ms. Hochul’s tax cuts and called her “a reckless and failed governor who should be replaced in 2026.”
New York’s old towns can expect a much-needed cash infusion.
Ms. Hochul didn’t have to look far from the State Capitol and the Executive Mansion to find a city in need of state government help.
Problems in her adopted home of Albany include a pandemic-induced exodus of state employees from downtown, a woefully outdated New York State Museum, and incidents of crime and homelessness that continue to scare downtown visitors.
On Tuesday, Ms. Hochul proposed spending $400 million to turn things around downtown, including $150 million to transform museums and $200 million to “deal with public safety and quality of life.”
She also plans to “temporarily supplement” Albany’s public safety efforts with the help of state police.
Elsewhere, Ms. Hochul wants to speed up plans to reinvent highways that have long divided communities and “perpetuated inequality for decades,” according to her written proposal.
In Albany, Ms. Hochul will advance work to realign Interstate 787 to reconnect Albany with the Hudson River, and in the Bronx, officials will consider options such as closing parts of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
There was no mention of Trump’s second term.
New York will bear the brunt of much of Trump’s second-term agenda, from promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants to promises of retaliation against political enemies. Ms. Hochul promised to protect access to abortion in her policy proposal, but on Tuesday she made no mention of the president-elect’s pledges or her plans to oppose them, despite Mr. Trump’s return to office in less than a week.
Instead, the governor doubled down on plans to cut costs and “fight” for families. And she had a conciliatory tone in her remarks.
“New Yorkers are struggling,” she said, citing a myriad of causes that have contributed to New York’s poor state and her party’s political fortunes: “Inflation. Sky high rent. Wages I just can’t keep up with. A changing economy. An influx of unexpected arrivals who have great needs in a disordered world.”
