Last week, following Mamdani's win, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (pictured above) launched her long-anticipated Republican campaign for New York governor.
Stefanik, one of President Donald Trump's staunchest allies, is challenging Democrat incumbent Kathy Hochul, whom the Republican calls "the worst governor in America."
"I'm running for governor to make New York affordable and safe," she told Fox News.
Despite New York City's overwhelming approval of a far-left socialist and antisemitic Islamist, Gov. Hochul's popularity dropped last month when she endorsed him; a GrayHouse poll showed that a win by Mamdani would make 47% of independent voters less willing to vote for a Democrat for governor.
ACT for America founder and President Brigitte Gabriel says conservative voters in the state might be motivated to break the decades of single-party rule in The Empire State.
"I think once they start seeing the policies that he's going to start pushing against Israel and the Jewish people, they're going to open their eyes," she predicts. "They're going to realize we basically have Hamas running New York City."
Gabriel also thinks Stefanik will be able to pull a lot more Jews to vote for her this time around than if she had run for governor last year.
Meanwhile, Washington Times columnist Robert Knight points out that Republicans hold all of the areas outside New York City.
The "best-case scenario for Republicans," he says, is that the new mayor's leftist policies "so alienate people that it keeps the vote down in Democrat New York City so the rest of the state can overwhelm it."
"That almost never happens," Knight adds. "Then again, we've never seen a communist elected mayor of New York."
It has been more than two decades since a Republican last won a New York gubernatorial race. The last was former Gov. George Pataki's re-election in 2002.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Trump ally who was re-elected last week, may also be eyeing a run for governor.
