New York’s Red Warning: 2022 Was the Blueprint, 2026 Must Be the Breakthrough

There is a dangerous word in politics: momentum. Everybody wants to claim it. Consultants love talking about it. Candidates put it in fundraising emails. Party leaders use it to convince donors victory is around the corner. But momentum does not win elections. Votes do. As Republicans look toward the 2026 midterms, we have an opportunity in New York, but we cannot afford to believe our own hype. New York Republicans must overperform in November. We need the kind of statewide performance we saw in 2022, when New York became one of the few bright spots for the GOP in an otherwise disappointing national midterm. That year should be our blueprint. In 2022, Lee Zeldin came within roughly six points of defeating Kathy Hochul in a state Joe Biden had carried by more than 23 points two years earlier. Mike Lawler defeated Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Sean Patrick Maloney. Republicans swept all four Long Island congressional seats. I was one of those four Republicans elected from Long Island. Those victories mattered nationally. While the red wave failed across much of America, New York Republicans delivered seats that helped make Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House. A state Democrats treat as their political property helped deliver a Republican majority in Washington. That is the standard for 2026. Bruce Blakeman is taking on Governor Kathy Hochul, and the latest Siena College poll has Hochul ahead 49 percent to 39 percent. That is a significant deficit. Republicans shouldn't pretend otherwise. But at roughly the same stage in 2022, Hochul's Siena advantage over Zeldin was larger than her eventual Election Day margin. Blakeman is leading in the suburbs and running even with Hochul upstate, while Hochul's enormous New York City advantage remains the biggest obstacle. The governor's race is neither won nor hopeless. Republicans have work to do. The congressional map is just as important. Mike Lawler's NY-17 seat is the kind of suburban battleground Democrats need to control the House. Republicans currently hold seven of New York's 26 congressional seats, leaving little room for complacency. Even traditionally Republican territory deserves attention. The race to succeed Elise Stefanik in NY-21 has produced polling suggesting a competitive contest. Republicans would be fools to assume any seat belongs to us simply because Donald Trump carried it comfortably. That is why 2022 matters. The lesson was not simply that Republicans could win New York. It was that Republicans could win when we gave voters something to vote for. Crime mattered. Affordability mattered. Taxes mattered. Public safety mattered. Education mattered. Albany losing touch with ordinary families mattered. Those issues have not disappeared. This election should be about the New Yorker trying to pay the mortgage, the senior watching property taxes eat away at retirement, the small business owner buried in regulations and the family wondering whether leaving New York would make life easier. Those voters do not care about Republican Party cocktail receptions or which consultant controls which county organization. They want to know whether Republicans can make their lives safer, cheaper and more prosperous. We need to answer yes. But we also need to recognize political reality. Democrats have an enormous registration advantage statewide. New York City remains overwhelmingly Democratic. Republicans cannot win simply by running up the score with voters who already love us. We need independents, working-class Democrats and Asian, Hispanic and Jewish voters who may not consider themselves Republicans but are uncomfortable with the direction of the Democratic Party. We need suburban parents who might dislike Donald Trump's personality but agree with Republicans on taxes, crime, immigration or education. President Trump demonstrated in 2024 that the Republican ceiling in New York is higher than many assumed. He won approximately 44 percent statewide, substantially improving on 2020 while making gains in Long Island, Queens and the Bronx. Republicans need to build upon that coalition rather than assume it automatically transfers to every candidate with an R next to their name. Candidates matter. Campaigns matter. Organization matters. Turnout matters more than all of them. Bruce Blakeman needs Nassau and Suffolk Republicans to vote in enormous numbers. He needs to dominate the suburbs and win upstate. Republicans need to protect Nick LaLota, Andrew Garbarino and Mike Lawler and hold NY-21. If a Democratic-held district becomes competitive, the national party needs the courage to invest. Playing defense is not enough. If Democrats are forced to spend money defending New York seats, that is money they cannot spend defeating Republicans elsewhere. That is what happened in 2022. New York became a battlefield. It needs to become one again. For decades, Democrats have benefited from the assumption that statewide Republican candidates are sacrificial lambs. Donors don't invest. Volunteers don't organize. Republicans stay home because they assume their vote doesn't matter. Then 2022 happened. Suddenly everybody discovered New York wasn't quite as blue as the political establishment told us. We came close to the governor's mansion. We flipped congressional seats. We proved Long Island could become a Republican fortress. And we helped determine control of the United States House. Now comes the harder part. Doing it again. The 2026 Republican message cannot simply be, "Democrats are terrible." Voters need to hear what comes next. Lower taxes. Safer streets. Affordable energy. Housing policies that encourage ownership. Schools focused on excellence. Support for police. Government that treats taxpayers like customers instead of ATMs. Make New York a place where families want to stay instead of somewhere they spend their retirement planning to escape. Nobody should underestimate Kathy Hochul or the Democratic machine. Nobody should assume Bruce Blakeman will magically close a polling deficit because Republicans are enthusiastic. Nobody should assume congressional incumbents will survive because they survived before. This is New York. Republicans have to overperform just to compete. So let's overperform. In 2026, matching 2022 should be the minimum objective. Hold our Republican congressional seats. Put Democratic seats into play. Drive turnout through the roof on Long Island and upstate. Compete for independents and disaffected Democrats. Make the governor's race a fight until the final ballot is counted. No victory laps. No complacency. No excuses. New York Republicans shocked the country in 2022. In 2026, we need to prove it wasn't a fluke.