ELECTION 2022
Kathy Hochul for President? New York Governors & Presidential Ambitions
Hochul wins a close gubernatorial race to become New York’s first elected female governor.
Kathy Hochul, in many ways, is not your typical New York governor. For one, she’s a woman. With her election victory on November 8, Hochul became the first woman ever elected to serve as governor of the state of New York.
She actually became the first female governor of New York in August 2021 when she ascended to the governorship after Andrew Cuomo resigned the office amid accusations of sexual misconduct. But, with the November 8 election Hochul won a full four-year term as New York’s first female governor. Second, she’s a Western New Yorker. Hochul, who comes from Hamburg, NY (a suburb of Buffalo) becomes just the eighth New York governor outside of New York City and the Hudson Valley. The last time a governor came from outside the NYC or Hudson Valley region was 1910 when Horace White, born in Buffalo, served as governor for 86 days.
None of this, of course, means Hochul is going to run for president. In fact, she has not mentioned any presidential ambitions whatsoever.
My clickbait-y title simply serves to draw attention to the fact that New York governors are regularly looked to as potential presidential candidates. And for good reason.
While Ohio and Virginia can debate which of these two states rightfully owns the nickname “the Mother of Presidents,” New York can boast the fact that of the governors elected president, it has produced the most. The states of Ohio and Virginia each claim a total of eight U.S. presidents (eight presidents were born in Virginia while eight were elected from Ohio), while New York has produced five. Of these five presidents, four served as New York governor: Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt. The one president from New York that didn’t serve as governor? Donald Trump.
While the U.S. has elected four former governors of New York to the presidency, many more have sought the office. In fact, many look to the New York governorship as a potential stepping stone to becoming president. Governors, in general, tend to be well positioned to become president given the executive experience they gain by leading a state. Of the 44 different Presidents the U.S. has seen, 17 of them (or 39%) have served as a state governor, while 16 of the 48 vice presidents we have had have come from governorships. The full list of presidents who had previously served as a governor (along with the state they governed) are listed below.
Since Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure in the White House, several New York governors have sought the presidency and several more were talked about as presidential contenders but never entered the race.
Mario Cuomo, nicknamed “Hamlet-on-the-Hudson” was seen as a presidential front-runner in 1988 and 1992, but never entered the race, citing his obligations as Governor (though many people believed there was more to the story).
Andrew Cuomo — Mario’s son — also was discussed as a presidential candidate. Cuomo was seen in sharp contrast to Trump in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, praised for his leadership and daily press briefings on the state of the pandemic during this time period. Two years later, things have drastically changed, but throughout the early days of the 2020 Democratic nomination season, Andrew Cuomo was discussed as a potential front-runner if he were to jump into the race.
George Pataki, a popular three-term Republican governor (1995–2007), attempted to use his popularity in a reliably blue state to build a presidential campaign. He debated a run in 2008 and 2012 before officially announcing a bid in 2016. Given his age and liberal stance on several social issues (abortion, gun control, environmental protections), his campaign never gained much traction.
Then, of course, there is Nelson Rockefeller who sought the presidency three times while serving as governor of New York from 1959–1973, when he was appointed Vice President of the United States by Gerald Ford and confirmed by Congress to the position after Nixon resigned the presidency in response to the Watergate fiasco. Rockefeller unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, each time as the preferred candidate of the more liberal wing of the Republican Party. Prior to Rockefeller, Thomas Dewey — who served as governor from 1943 to 1955 — was the Republican nominee for president in 1944 when FDR bested him to win his fourth term as president. Notably, this election pitted two New York governors — one former, one current — against each other.
So, given this history of New York governors seeking the presidency, the question of Hochul’s future ambitions is a legitimate one, while quite premature and largely tongue-in-cheek at this point.
Hochul won a close election against a surging Republican candidate, Lee Zeldin, by roughly five points (at least at the time of this writing). Compared with the 2020 presidential vote, Hochul underperformed Joe Biden and Zeldin overperformed Trump, though overall turnout was down from 2020 (an unsurprising trend in Midterm elections).
In the weeks leading up to this election, polls showed the race tightening, leading to an uptick in spending and a flurry of campaign ads. Zeldin focused on crime. He painted Hochul as soft on crime, citing her support for bail reform. Hochul also suffered as a city “outsider” — she isn’t from NYC and doesn’t have the connections previous gubernatorial candidates have enjoyed.
And finally, New York State is not as deeply blue as New York City. So, if NYC Democrats failed to show up, the election easily could have gone the other way. However, that was not the case. NYC Democrats turned out and helped make Kathy Hochul the first elected female governor of New York.
Whether or not Hochul harbors any presidential ambitions is unknown and, again, largely meant to be tongue-in-cheek. What will be most interesting to watch moving forward is whether she is ever included in discussions of potential presidential contenders like the many male governors that came before her. Several of her male predecessors have run, or at least thought about running. Many of them have even been encouraged to run. Given the political science literature noting a lack of support and encouragement of females seeking office, it is worth keeping an eye on Hochul to see if she is ever viewed as a potential presidential contender.
