ALBANY, New York – Gov. Kathy Hochul will report Wednesday having raised $3.3 million for her reelection during the second half of 2024.
The New York governor — who has struggled with low approval ratings — raised another $6.7 million for the state Democratic Committee during that time, her campaign aide said.
Hochul has repeatedly set fundraising records during her time in office, but this is not one of them — predecessor Andrew Cuomo typically raised about $4 million at this point in the election cycle.
But the governor also dedicated much of last year to raising more money for the historically moribund state party, which has long functioned as little more than an appendage of a sitting governor’s reelection efforts. And that meant the numbers for that committee were much higher than normal – the $6.7 million compares to $813,000 under Cuomo’s leadership for the latter half of 2020.
Hochul’s campaign committee will report having $15.5 million cash on hand; the state party will have $2.6 million, the aide said.
That compares to $16.8 million reported by Cuomo’s campaign account in January 2021 and $513,000 in the Democratic Committee’s coffers.
Hochul raised $53 million for her campaign in 2022, which wound up being a much tighter race than New York Democrats are accustomed to. That marked a monetary record, despite the fact that she only gained the power of incumbency 15 months before the election.
Today, as she faces a roster of potential challengers for next year’s reelection, she’s operating in a new campaign finance landscape. Cuomo — who had access to loopholes that let him raise effectively unlimited sums from some donors — was able to easily raise up to $70,000 from each of them. Rules that took effect in 2023 cap donations at $18,000.
The state party, however, isnt bound by any new fundraising restrictions. It proved its muster through an unprecedented level of involvement in down-ballot races last year, and Hochul will face few restrictions if she wishes to use it to raise six-figure checks to bolster her own reelection efforts.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, one of her potential challengers, plans to report raising $856,000, a Delgado aide said. That’s in the same ballpark as the $832,000 Hochul raised when she was lieutenant governor in the second half of 2020, at a time when few people viewed her as likely to launch a higher-profile race in the immediate future.
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