Over the last several months, political pundits in New York have been focusing most of their attention on the sinking poll numbers of Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul and her weak campaign for re-election. However, Hochul isn’t the only Democrat in the state facing an uphill battle in 2026.
Attorney General Letitia James is quickly discovering that the prospect of being re-elected isn’t as secure as she or other members of her party thought.
New York is, without a doubt, a deep blue state. However, the 2024 election proved that’s not set in stone. The political climate is less favorable toward Democrats than it has been in previous years, and President Donald Trump saw a massive vote-share improvement in 2024.
Trump managed to pull in a higher percentage of the vote in NYC than any other GOP presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush. He even nabbed high gains in super Democratic boroughs such as Queens and Brooklyn.
Republicans have also brought in an impressive number of votes from other cities and towns outside of NYC. Long Island, featuring Nassau and Suffolk Counties, has solidified its status as a GOP stronghold. Republicans are now controlling the legislatures in both counties and their nonjudicial offices.
Democrats still outnumber Republicans across the state, but the GOP managed to close the gap during the Biden administration. Making matters worse for James is recent polling data that shows New York voters have an unfavorable view of her.
A poll conducted by Siena College Research Institute from earlier in 2025 discovered that while James is generally scoring higher favorability than Hochul, her 40-33 favorable-unfavorable numbers are much worse than you would expect from a Democratic attorney general in a liberal state like New York.
But, as City Journal points out, voting trends and poll numbers aren’t the only challenge James may have to overcome. One thing that could derail her attempt at a second term as attorney general is former governor Andrew Cuomo, who could be the next mayor of NYC.
Those familiar with New York politics know well that Cuomo and James aren’t members of one another’s fan clubs. Cuomo believes he was unjustly forced to step down from office in 2021 and blames James for it.
If Cuomo were to win the Democratic Party mayoral primary, he would, according to the report, be the favorite to win the election. There’s little doubt, according to the experts, that Cuomo would use his political office to undermine James’ campaign for re-election.
“Historically, Democrats in New York need at least 65 percent of the vote in the city to win a statewide race. Kathy Hochul and Kamala Harris, respectively, met this magic number in 2022 and 2024. Their wins in New York City, however, were much narrower than Joe Biden’s in 2020. A Mayor Cuomo might have the motivation and—by simply telling Democratic allies not to help James’s campaign—the ability to prevent James from getting that all-important 65 percent of the New York City vote in her 2026 reelection bid,” the article said.
Another huge obstacle for James is the mortgage fraud scandal that has been busted wide open this year. On the first day of April, investigator Sam Antar leveled accusations at the attorney general of falsely claiming a home in Virginia as her main residence, which he said enabled her to get better mortgage loan rates.
James brought charges of mortgage fraud against President Donald Trump in 2024, so naturally, when this scandal broke, it caught the administration’s attention. After the allegations came about, the head of Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency claimed James also made false claims about a multifamily property she owns in Brooklyn, and the DOJ is now investigating.
