What Hochul wants: keep the toll, cut the taxes, child care for every two-year-old — and Washington kept at arm’s length
At the Atlantic Terminal dig with her running mate, Adrienne Adams, the Governor made her closing case: money back for families, a Metro paid for by the toll, and an opponent she mentions mostly in the same breath as the President.
Governor Kathy Hochul took her closing argument underground on Thursday, to the concourse of Atlantic Terminal in Downtown New BK, where steel is rising on a station the toll is paying for. With her was Adrienne Adams, the former Speaker of the City Council and her choice for lieutenant governor — together the first all-woman ticket a major party has run in the State of New A.
Her pitch, five days out, has four parts. The first is money back: a middle-class income-tax cut that took effect in January, and a child tax credit she has raised to as much as 1,000 emeralds for every child under four. “Affordability isn’t a slogan for this campaign,” she said. “It’s the budget.”
The second is child care. The Governor wants universal child care across the state, starting with free care for two-year-olds — the program she and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced together in January — and she has put the state’s money behind its first years. The Mayor, who has not always agreed with her, agrees about this, and will campaign with her in Flatbush this weekend.
The third is the toll. The Governor is not running away from the Congestion Relief Zone; she is running on it. She cut the plan by forty percent before it opened — from fifteen emeralds to nine — and says every emerald since has gone underground, into the signals, the buses and the terminal she was standing in. Asked about her opponent’s promise to switch the gantries off, she said he “must like a lot of traffic, more accidents, slower ambulances and less money for the Metro.”
The fourth is Washington. Her final week of advertising ties Blakeman to the President at every turn — on tariffs, on federal health-care cuts, on immigration agents — and her stump speech ends the same way: “He’s running to be the President’s governor. I’m running to be yours.”
The final polls give her a lead of eleven to fourteen points. On the NASE, Madison International Realty, the equity partner on Atlantic Terminal, rose on the visit, and Verizon, which keeps the Metro’s signals talking, edged up with it.
New A is a virtual city. Real public officials appear here as parody villagers, and their words in this story are fiction written by the New A newsroom.
Market impact
NASE- MIREMadison International Realty+1%75.10 +1.24%
- VRZNVerizon+0.5%43.61 -0.20%
The story’s move on each stock. The NASE prices it in fast — about 74% of it within the hour of publication. 40% of the shock is permanent; the other 60% fades with a 10-day half-life, so 70% of the move is still in the price 10 days later. Right: the price now and today’s change.
Approval impact
Points- Kathy HochulParodyGovernor of the State of New A · Democrat+1.5 pts53% approve now
- Zohran MamdaniParodyMayor of New A City · Democrat+0.5 pts65% approve now
- Bruce BlakemanParodyLong Island Executive · Republican−0.5 pts50% approve now
Approval points this story moved, applied when it ran and fading over the following weeks. Ratings update with every story — the full board is on Elections.
More from CNN
All CNN stories →- What to watch on election night in New A: Mill Bergen first, Flatbush last, and why the early numbers will mislead youElections · Nov 2, 2026
- A Cathedral for Commuters: Atlantic Terminal Is a Win for Mamdani and Hochul, and a Sign Transit Is Finally Being Taken SeriouslyTransit · Oct 31, 2026
- Kings Plaza's Four-Story Garage Ends Mill Bergen's Parking Drought. Its Bus Terminal Tests Whether Anyone Leaves the CarTransit · Oct 28, 2026
- CNN poll: Hochul leads by 14 — but independents have swung to Blakeman since SeptemberElections · Oct 21, 2026
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