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Socialists are moving immediately to squeeze Gov. Kathy Hochul on taxes — even as political insiders argue her re-election on Tuesday was owed more to anti-Trump backlash than to a surging left-wing in the Empire State.
The Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter — which saw a record-number of its members win election to the state Legislature — will turn up the heat on Hochul over hiking taxes on the wealthy and other issues, including expanding free childcare and raising the minimum wage.
“I’m hopeful that Hochul has seen the energy, the excitement that can come from the masses of people who want and deserve a better government, and she takes those lessons and brings them to Albany, and is braver than she has been in past years in terms of standing up for working class New Yorkers,” NYC-DSA co-chair Grace Mauser told The City Reporter on Wednesday.
Jasmine Gripper, co-executive director of the lefty Working Families Party, echoed the NYC-DSA’s demands, telling the outlet it would take the fight to Albany during the upcoming budget season.
“We will only accept a budget that is equitable and taxes the ultra-rich so that working families can thrive and children have what they need,” Gripper said.
Hochul ran on the WFP line in addition to being the Democratic standard-bearer, but was never endorsed by the NYC-DSA, which has long needled her to “tax the rich.”
The far-left group even broke with its de-facto leader Mayor Zohran Mamdani after he endorsed Hochul’s re-election bid, accusing her of siding “with her billionaire donors while offering working class New Yorkers crumbs.”
Mamdani still attempted to rally his base to back the moderate incumbent, stumping with her in New York City and even crowing that Hochul “has embraced new ideas” during state Democrats’ election night watch party.
The crowd at the NYC-DSA watch party in Astoria, Queens, meanwhile, started chanting “tax the rich” after Hochul’s definitive 20-point win against Republican Nassau Country Executive Bruce Blakeman was announced. according to a report from CJS Politics.
Newly elected state Sen. Aber Kawas, a Mamdani-backed DSA member and the first Palestinian-American Muslim woman in the state Legislature, told attendees, “we have always understood that people deserve universal healthcare, fast and free buses, and free education.”
“We have always been able to imagine that world. And this year, folks, is the year where we get to get into the fore and build that world together,” she said, according to Dazed.
NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo added, in reference to the nationwide blue wave, “what comes next, it’s up to us, it’s up to all of you … 2028 is ours for the taking,” the magazine reported.
But political insiders told The Post Hochul owed her win more to President Trump than to Mamdani or the local DSA chapter.
“Voters turned against the Republican Party,” said pollster Bradley Honan, noting Blakeman suffered from low name recognition, and the voters who did get to know him tied him to his ally, Trump.
“Kathy Hochul benefited from the backlash.”
O’Brien “O.B.” Murray, a strategist who has worked for both parties, said Democrats “showed up like President Trump was on the ballot.”
“Unfortunately for Republicans, local issues were overshadowed by national issues, an affordability message that Democrats delivered to voters, and a President’s second term midterm,” Murray said.
Hochul’s showing was a sharp turnaround from 2022 when she won her first full term by only 6 points against then-Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin.
“This was a personal and political triumph for Governor Hochul, who established herself not only as the ultimate power broker in New York, but a force to be reckoned with even nationally,” said Lawrence Levy, dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies.
None of that is likely to stop the NYC-DSA from pushing the governor to enact the group’s aggressive tax agenda, political insiders said.
“New York Socialists smell blood in the water. The state is going to have real activism,” Ryan Adams, a managing director at the consulting firm Actum, said. “With this kind of victory secured, expect a much more pronounced civil war among Dems.”
Hochul, in the final days of the campaign, evaded questions about whether she’d owe Mamdani for his support, such as in the form of the tax hikes he has been seeking.
Answering a reporter’s question during a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Mamdani said the blue wave election results meant leftists should put their “foot on the gas.”
“Foot on the gas. This is the moment where we are seeing people across this country vote for a politics that will mean something,” Mamdani said. “I think it’s a time for delivery.”
But he largely dodged a question about whether or not he would begin pressing Hochul to “tax the rich” — the centerpiece of his political agenda.
“I think what it does is show that the constituency that is fighting for working people is only growing, and we’re excited to grow that coalition every single day,” Mamdani said.
