A top Republican has set her sights on the New York governor’s mansion as incumbent Democrats grapple with the newly-elected mayor of New York City. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) announced Friday that she will be running to replace New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D), who the congresswoman labeled “the Worst Governor in America.”

“Under her failed leadership, New York is the most unaffordable state in the nation with the highest taxes, highest energy, utilities, rent, and grocery bills. When New Yorkers were looking for leadership from our Governor, she bent the knee to the raging Defund the Police, Tax Hiking Communist causing catastrophe for New York families,” Stefanik declared in a social media post. “I am running for Governor to make New York affordable and safe FOR ALL. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents will unify to save our state.”

In a campaign ad accompanying her announcement, Stefanik faulted Hochul for a crippling affordability crisis, soaring taxes, a surge in illegal immigration and related crime, and the rise of socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Ugandan-born Muslim who was just elected mayor of New York City on the Democratic Party ticket. “But from the ashes of Kathy Hochul’s failed policies, New York will rise, like we always do,” the ad’s voiceover narration said, over a montage including footage of firefighters raising the American flag in the rubble of the World Trade Center following the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. “The spirit of the Empire State cannot be broken. All we need is a courageous leader ready for the fight. Elise Stefanik will make New York affordable and safe.”

Meanwhile, Hochul has been struggling to counter socialist policies proposed by Mamdani. One such proposal would make Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) free in New York City. “We will make buses free by replacing the revenue the MTA currently gets from buses,” Mamdani explained in a mayoral debate last month. In order to do so, Mamdani said that he would increase taxes by two percent on the wealthiest one percent of New Yorkers, which he claimed would net $4 billion, more than enough to fund the $700 million MTA system. He also suggested raising New York’s top corporate tax rate, which he said would generate $5 billion. “Making buses free doesn’t just provide economic relief, but also public safety,” Mamdani asserted.

In a press conference over the weekend, Hochul rejected Mamdani’s plan, while still touting a need to make public transportation “more affordable.” The governor stipulated, “I cannot set forth a plan right now that takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the buses and the subways. But can we find a path to make it more affordable for people who need help? Of course we can.”

Stefanik’s campaign ad noted that many New York residents have fled the state under Hochul’s policies, but Mamdani’s mayorship is reportedly sparking a mass exodus, adding to the Democrats’ woes in the Empire State. According to the New York Post, a “surge of officers” have been “quitting” the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in the weeks before the mayoral election as Mamdani soared ahead in the polls. “The NYPD saw a 35% hike in cops of all ranks leaving in October — 245 police officers compared to 181 in the same month last year, according to Police Pension Fund data,” the Post reported. “You have a person who is supposed to be running New York City that does not believe in law enforcement,” said Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro, a 30-year NYPD veteran. “Morale is down because everyone is concerned about the policies Mamdani wants to put in place.”

However, Mamdani said that he is “not worried about the backlash” from New York City law enforcement and the mass exodus his NYPD may soon face. “What I’m worried about, frankly, is the continuation of a retention crisis that we’ve seen only deepen during the course of this campaign,” he continued. Instead of addressing concerns over his policies, Mamdani attributed the hemorrhaging of NYPD officers to asking police “to do far more than just police work, we’ve asked them to be responding to the mental health crisis and the homelessness crisis, and that’s why we’re going to create a department of community safety…”

Police aren’t the only ones abandoning the Empire State, though. Bankers and Wall Street financiers are reportedly fleeing New York City’s incoming socialist administration in favor of Texas and other red states. “It’s hard to remain a financial capital when you despise capitalism. Cities run by people who have never run a business or met a payroll are killing their own proverbial golden goose,” said Texas Bankers Association chief executive Chris Furlow. Philip Blancato, chief executive of Wall Street firm Ladenburg Thalmann, agreed. “Suddenly you’ll have an exodus of folks who are generating quite a bit of profit,” Blancato quipped. In 2010, New York was home to nearly 13% of America’s wealthiest citizens, but that share had fallen to 8.7% by 2022. “It’s already happening, this is just going to accelerate it,” Blancato said of Mamdani’s rise. “The root cause is the high cost and expensive tax in New York City.”

In an interview Monday, Stefanik pointed out that Hochul is responsible for encouraging and permitting Mamdani’s socialist agenda. “Kathy Hochul will bend the knee to Mamdani. She did that in the primary — she didn’t have to,” the GOP congresswoman said. “There is not a single issue over the course of the campaign that she condemned, whether it was calls for tax hikes, whether it was defund the police, or some of his antisemitic comments,” she continued. “Mamdani was correct to identify affordability as the top issue, but [New York] is single-party Democrat[ic] rule, and it’s been that way for two decades.”