New York Gov. Kathy Hochul — along with fellow Democrats Attorney General Letitia James and State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli — easily repelled her Republican challenger, a dominant performance that raises questions about her future relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Hochul, a moderate Democrat who has shown strong support for Israel, easily overwhelmed her Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, with the Associated Press calling the race moments after polls closed at 9 p.m. Blakeman, who is Jewish, sought to win moderate Democratic and independent votes by harping on the sitting governor’s close relationship with the democratic socialist Mamdani.

Yet early results suggest the governor won easy majorities in heavily Jewish areas in Manhattan and the Bronx, even as she struggled in Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and Queens. From the stage at the New York State Democrats’ election night party in Manhattan, Mamdani praised the governor, who controls state funds key to his left-wing agenda.

“She has embraced new energy, new ideas, and she has continued making your family her fight,” he told a cheering crowd.

Hochul embraced the popular mayor during his first year in office, even as she pushed back on his effort to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and maintained her firm support for the Jewish state. The two spent the last Sunday before the election in Queens with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), another member of the Democratic Socialists of America, at a time when candidates typically pivot to the center.

The governor, who hails from the area around Buffalo, drew uniformly strong support across New York City, including in areas where former Gov. Andrew Cuomo outperformed Mamdani in last year’s mayoral primary. Her victory places her in a strong position to push forward on elements of her agenda in the year ahead.

New York governors traditionally have tense relationships with the New York City mayor. Hochul was close with Mamdani’s predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, before their relationship soured in his second year in office.

Such a dominant performance, along with her office’s constitutional powers, gives Hochul the upper hand in the remaining years of Mamdani’s term.

Hochul also courted religious Jewish voters, and spurned Democratic allies, by opting the state into President Donald Trump’s federal scholarship tax credit program. She trounced Blakeman in suburban Rockland County, a more conservative area home to many Orthodox Jewish residents, whose leaders largely endorsed her reelection effort.

James, a progressive Democrat with strong ties to Jewish communities, also quickly ran up the score against Republican litigator Saritha Komatireddy. The incumbent attorney general, known for her legal clashes with Trump, also drew closer to Mamdani as the election approached. 

Early results indicate a similar result for James to Hochul’s: strong support in more liberal Jewish neighborhoods, and weakness among more religious communities in the outer boroughs. 

But like Hochul, early results showed her dominating in Rockland County.

DiNapoli, who manages New York’s vast pension fund and resisted calls from his party to divest from Israeli bonds and companies, also easily won reelection.