Stefanik leads Hochul in new 2026 poll

New York could have a Republican governor next year, a shocking new poll claims.

The Manhattan Institute poll released Tuesday shows North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) narrowly beating Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in a hypothetical 2026 matchup.

The unpopular incumbent governor trails her firebrand GOP nemesis by 1%, according to the statewide survey conducted by the right-leaning think tank.

It’s the latest in a series of polls showing Hochul’s controversial move to back socialist mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani hasn’t seemed to result in a boost in support.

The Manhattan Institute survey found Stefanik getting 43% support, compared with 42% for Hochul – a statistical tie with the poll’s 3% margin of error.

Nine percent of those surveyed said they would vote for “someone else” and 7% responded that they were “not sure.”

The poll showed Stefanik — who has said she will officially declare her bid after the Nov. 4 election — leading Hochul with those aged 50 and up and among critical independent voters, especially in the suburbs.

Stefanik leads Hochul 46% to 33% among independents and 54% to 37% on Long Island, the poll found.

But Hochul beat Stefanik in the Hudson Valley, 45% to 36%, according to the survey of 600 likely voters taken last week.

Her campaign dismissed the findings because the poll was conducted by a right-leaning think tank.

“You’ve got to hand it to Sellout Stefanik: when her own polls don’t reflect reality, she can count on Trump and his megadonors – like Betsy DeVos and Paul Singer – to repeat her lies,” Hochul spokesperson Sarafina Chitka said in a statement.

“Unfortunately for her, New Yorkers aren’t interested in letting an unhinged Trump enabler anywhere near the Governor’s mansion.”

But Stefanik’s team cheered the results, saying in a statement that “New Yorkers of all political parties are hungry for new commonsense leadership after decades of Hochul’s failed single party Democrat rule.”

“In a decision that she will come to regret, Kathy Hochul lives up to her title as the Worst Governor in America when she chose to bend the knee and put New Yorkers LAST by desperately endorsing the Defund the Police, tax hiking, raging Antisemite Socialist Zohran Mamdani who will destroy New York,” Stefanik spokesperson Bernadette Breslin said.

New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox added: “Under Kathy Hochul and one-party Democrat rule, New York has become the most taxed, most regulated, least free state in America. The message is clear: New Yorkers want change, and next year they’ll get it.”

Public polling has shown a wide range of polling gaps between Stefanik and Hochul. Siena College had Hochul 25 points ahead of Stefanik in its September poll and the governor 14 points ahead in August.

An internal poll released by Stefanik’s campaign earlier this month showed Hochul only five points ahead of the upstate Trump ally. 

ome pollsters raised eyebrows at the weighing of responses in the Manhattan Institute’s survey. For instance, asked to identify themselves as either more traditional liberal or democratic socialist, the poll said a weighted 73% of Democrats on Long Island went with the latter.

“I don’t know how or where they screwed this up, but they screwed this up and the data isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” Democratic pollster Evan Roth-Smith, of Slingshot Strategies, told The Post.