Gov. Kathy Hochul holds a 10-point lead over Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman in the New York governor’s race, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll of likely voters released August 12 — the polling institute’s first survey of likely, rather than registered, voters this election cycle.
Hochul leads Blakeman 49% to 39% among the 811 likely voters Siena surveyed August 3–6, a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. That is down from a 20-point advantage, 52% to 32%, when Siena polled registered voters in June, and from a 16-point lead in an April survey of registered voters.
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, is the Republican nominee after Rep. Elise Stefanik withdrew from the primary in December 2025 and endorsed by President Trump. New York has not elected a Republican to statewide office since George Pataki won reelection as governor in 2002, and Hochul, who ascended to the governorship in 2021 after Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, won a full term in 2022 by six points, 53% to 47%, over Lee Zeldin.
Hochul leads Blakeman 49% to 39% among likely voters — half the 20-point advantage Siena measured among registered voters in June.
What the poll found
Siena’s crosstabs show a race with sharp geographic and partisan divides:
- Party bases: Hochul leads among Democrats 80% to 8%; Blakeman leads among Republicans 84% to 9%.
- Independents: Likely independent voters favor Blakeman by five points, 45% to 40%.
- Region: Hochul holds a 64%-to-19% lead in New York City but trails Blakeman by eight points, 49% to 41%, in the downstate suburbs. The candidates are running about even upstate.
- Favorability: Hochul’s favorability rating is 46% favorable to 49% unfavorable, with a 48%-to-49% job approval split. Blakeman’s favorability is 33% favorable to 26% unfavorable, though 40% of likely voters say they don’t know enough about him to have an opinion.
- Issues: Likely voters say Hochul would do a better job than Blakeman on affordable housing (51% to 35%) and on New York’s energy future (47% to 42%), and give her a narrower edge on affordability generally (48% to 41%). Voters were more closely split on public safety (Hochul, 47% to 44%) and on addressing undocumented immigrants living in the state (Hochul, 45% to 44%).
Likely independent voters favor Blakeman by five points, 45% to 40%.
Siena pollster Steven Greenberg noted the current margin roughly tracks the same point in the 2022 cycle, when Hochul led Zeldin by 14 points in August before winning by six points in November. Blakeman, in a statement provided to Fox News Digital, pointed to the tightening trend across recent polls as evidence of momentum, while Siena’s own release cautioned that Hochul has not yet cleared 50% support among likely voters.
DSA and AI questions, asked for the first time
The same survey asked likely voters, for the first time this cycle, for their opinion of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and of artificial intelligence. Voters gave the DSA a net-negative 30% favorable to 47% unfavorable rating. The group’s support is concentrated in New York City, where it polled favorably, and considerably weaker in the downstate suburbs and upstate. Democrats viewed the DSA favorably by a 50%-to-21% margin, while 82% of Republicans and 57% of independents viewed it unfavorably. Voters also gave artificial intelligence a net-negative 29%-to-52% favorability rating, a view shared across party lines.
Voters gave the DSA a net-negative 30% favorable to 47% unfavorable rating.
Neither Hochul nor Blakeman is a member of the DSA, and the organization is not on the gubernatorial ballot; Siena’s release did not draw a direct connection between the DSA numbers and the governor’s race, though the questions were fielded in the same survey.
Ahead
New York’s general election is set for November 3, with roughly three months remaining in the cycle.
Forty percent of likely voters still say they don’t know enough about Blakeman to have an opinion.
Siena has not yet indicated when it will field its next likely-voter poll; Election Desk will track subsequent surveys as they’re released, along with any independent polling that emerges from other outlets. Additional context on the statewide race, including down-ballot contests, is available on Election Desk’s New York page.
Sourcing note: Topline and crosstab figures are drawn from the Siena College Research Institute’s August 12, 2026 release and from contemporaneous reporting by Spectrum News NY1 and The Hill, both of which independently confirmed the same topline numbers. Historical 2022-cycle comparisons and Blakeman’s primary background are drawn from Siena’s release and Wikipedia’s election summary, cross-checked against prior reporting. Blakeman’s statement responding to the poll was reported by Fox News Digital; Election Desk was not able to independently confirm the full text of that statement and has quoted only the portion characterized in that outlet’s report. Coverage characterizing the DSA favorability results should be read as describing Siena’s own findings; framing choices in some outlets’ headlines linking DSA sentiment directly to the governor’s race go beyond what Siena’s release itself states.
Election Desk 
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