By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO — When Kathy Hochul took the oath as governor in 2021, Western New York gained something it had gone more than a century without: a governor who calls Buffalo home.
She has never let anyone forget it. “I’m the first Governor from Buffalo since Grover Cleveland,” Hochul said on 97 Rock’s “Shredd and Ragan in the Morning,” recalling the fight over the Bills stadium. “Someone has to speak up for Buffalo, for God’s sakes, and that was my job.”
Many in the region hoped a hometown governor would mean Albany finally paying attention. Five years on, with Election Day 16 days away, the polling suggests upstate voters are unconvinced. Meanwhile, the state’s largest infrastructure commitments under Hochul have gone to transit megaprojects in and around New York City.
What the polls show
No public poll this fall has asked Western New Yorkers directly whether the state has given their region its due, and Siena does not break out Western New York as its own region. But the regional numbers that do exist are rough for the governor.
In the Siena Research Institute’s survey of 1,144 likely voters, taken Sept. 11–17, 56 percent of upstate respondents disapproved of the job Hochul is doing and 41 percent approved. Asked whether “in touch with average New Yorkers” describes her, 54 percent of upstate voters said it does not and 30 percent said it does. Statewide, her job approval was nearly even, 48 percent to 47 percent.
“Hochul has a dominant lead in New York City, 61-27%, and the two are running neck and neck in the downstate suburbs – Hochul 48-46% – and upstate, Blakeman 47-44%,” said Steven Greenberg, the Siena pollster.
A Marist poll of 1,361 registered voters, taken Oct. 1–4, had Hochul ahead statewide, 53 percent to 42 percent, while Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, drew 51 percent upstate.
Closer to home, Cygnal, a Republican polling firm, surveyed 400 likely voters in the 23rd Congressional District, which takes in parts of Erie and Niagara counties along with the Southern Tier. It found 28 percent viewed Hochul favorably and 68 percent unfavorably. Cygnal released those numbers in a memo touting Rep. Nick Langworthy’s lead, and they should be read in that light.
Billions downstate
Critics say the contrast comes down to money.
In May 2025, Hochul signed legislation fully funding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $68.4 billion capital plan for 2025 through 2029. Her office called it “the largest investment in New York State’s transportation history.” That year’s budget included a $3 billion state capital appropriation for the plan and $8 billion in MTA operating aid. Much of the plan is financed by a higher regional payroll mobility tax on large downstate employers.
The plan sets aside $2.75 billion for the Interborough Express, a $5.5 billion light-rail line linking Brooklyn and Queens. Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway is budgeted at $6.968 billion, paid for with congestion-pricing revenue and $3.4 billion in federal money, and is advancing to its final construction contract.
This spring, Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced $4 billion in state “gap-closing” help for the city’s budget. The New York Post reported that much of it was short-term measures, including delayed pension payments and a new tax on luxury second homes.
“Hochul is buying votes $1 billion at a time,” said George Borrello, a Republican state senator from Jamestown.
Hochul defended the help. “Thousands of Long Islanders work in New York City,” she said on LI News Radio. “They don’t want New York City to be on unsound fiscal footing.”
Blakeman has built much of his upstate pitch on the comparison. “Hochul managed to find $1.5 billion in state aid for New York City — where billionaires and big shots enjoy massive tax breaks — yet left Western New York with a mere $40 million in aid,” he said this spring, as Buffalo weighed a property tax increase of more than 25 percent to close a $109 million structural deficit. He made that claim before the budget was finished. The final budget gave the city $70 million in direct aid.
What Western New York got
Hochul has delivered for her home region, and her office says she has delivered a lot.
The $2.1 billion Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park opened this year with $600 million from the state and $250 million from Erie County, a total of $850 million in public money. Hochul has said New York City media hammered her for the deal, accusing her of caring only about Buffalo.
Her 2022 State of the State address pledged $1 billion to cap the Kensington Expressway and reconnect East Side neighborhoods split by the Route 33 trench. That project is back at the starting line. A state judge ordered a full environmental impact statement, and last September the Department of Transportation reset the project. The new study is expected to take at least three years.
“As often happens with projects across the state, but it feels too frequent here in western New York that, people with a different opinion decide to go to court and to basically stop what I thought was going to be significant progress for the community,” Hochul said of the reset.
The governor’s office says the 2027 budget includes:
- $70 million in direct aid to Buffalo
- $111 million more in school aid for Western New York, bringing the region’s total to $3.3 billion
- $95.4 million in operating aid for the NFTA
- $26 million for Metro Rail
- More than $139 million for local roads and bridges
Her office also says state support for counties, cities, towns and villages outside New York City has grown by $4 billion, or 60 percent, since she took office.
“Buffalo is my home and I promised to always have my neighbors’ backs,” Hochul said at a June event in Buffalo celebrating the budget.
Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan, whose administration inherited the city’s deficit, credited the state’s help. “This additional State support gives Buffalo an opportunity to make our budget more stable, more responsible and more sustainable,” he said.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called the stadium “a win for Erie County taxpayers, a win for our local workforce, a win for our economy and a win for the greatest football fans in the NFL.”
A question of scale
Still, the numbers are of a different order. The Interborough Express alone is expected to cost more than six times the combined state and county stadium contribution. It is also more than five times the Kensington commitment, which remains unbuilt.
Some of that gap is structural. The MTA carries millions of riders a day, and downstate payroll taxes fund much of its capital plan. The Micron chip project often cited as proof of the state’s upstate commitment is outside Syracuse in Central New York, not here.
But for a region that hoped a hometown governor would change its standing in Albany, the question is whether it got a fair share or simply more than usual.
Pressed on her record during an Erie County stop this month, Hochul did not back down. “I’ll put my record up to anybody’s any time,” she said.
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Western New York voters will deliver their own verdict on Nov. 3. Early voting begins Saturday.
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