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Kathy Hochul,<\/strong> almost three years into her job as New York governor, hadn\u2019t made a particularly strong impression. In some ways, this was a good thing, a welcome antidote to nearly 11 years of high-tension melodrama starring Andrew Cuomo.<\/strong> Hochul had largely come across as calm and sane since being elevated from lieutenant governor after Cuomo\u2019s scandal-fueled resignation. But she had been palliative without a defining political success or policy vision. Perhaps the single thing Hochul had become best known for was running an underwhelming 2022 campaign and flirting with defeat in her bid for a first full term.<\/p>\n Well, Hochul has a signature moment now. Last week the governor suddenly dispatched 750 National Guard members and 250 state troopers to patrol New York City\u2019s subways. Hochul scored big in the sense that she generated dozens of headlines and grabbed the attention of national cable news audiences. Yet most of the reaction was hostile\u2014from liberals, who saw the move stoking fear instead of reducing it, but also from more conservative observers like Bill Bratton,<\/strong> the two-time former commissioner of the NYPD. \u201cIt\u2019s window dressing,\u201d Bratton tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s overkill. Some people will welcome the increased visibility of law enforcement. But it\u2019s not addressing the root cause of crime in the subways, which is the criminal justice reform laws.\u201d<\/p>\n Bratton\u2019s view touches on the highly complicated context in which Hochul is operating. There\u2019s the presidential election, where Republican candidate Donald Trump<\/strong> will surely try to baselessly depict major Democratic-led states and cities as hellholes of lawlessness and depravity. There are November\u2019s congressional contests, where Hochul is trying to avoid a repeat of the 2022 midterms embarrassment, in which Republicans took key New York districts\u2014and helped the party cling to a Washington majority\u2014by hammering on fears of immigration and crime. She\u2019s also reportedly taking<\/a> a more active 2024 role as a surrogate for Joe Biden<\/strong>, making<\/a> a pitstop Wednesday on The View<\/em>. And there is, of course, the mostly local angle.<\/p>\n After spiking during the pandemic, subway crime statistics have basically returned<\/a> to 2019 levels, and major subway crime is down<\/a> about 15% in 2024 compared to one year ago. But subway ridership numbers have not rebounded to pre-COVID levels, a significant problem for transit revenue, office building owners, and the tourism industry. \u201cI think that part of her response, the highly visible presence of security in the subways, was in response to employer concerns,\u201d says Kathy Wylde,<\/strong> the president of the Partnership for New York City, a well-connected business interest group; some of its executive committee members have reportedly been donors<\/a> to Hochul\u2019s campaigns. \u201cShe heard that when we met with her at the beginning of March.\u201d Those worries accelerated after overall crime increased<\/a> by 45% in January compared with one year earlier. Increasing the pressure on Hochul were a flurry of gruesome attacks, particularly on transit workers<\/a>, including the late February slashing<\/a> of a subway conductor in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n Hochul is also trying to navigate her relationship with Mayor Eric Adams.<\/strong> He responded to the January surge by adding 1,000 officers underground, and the crime stats dropped<\/a> again. The two have been cordial, and Adams has publicly welcomed the deployment of the National Guard. \u201cWe\u2019re fighting a perception issue that our system is not safe,\u201d the mayor said at his first City Hall press conference since the National Guard arrived. \u201cIf you\u2019re on the subway and all of a sudden you come upstairs and you see that state trooper, that police officer, that National Guard, you have a feeling of safety. That uniform means a lot to people. And when I speak to New Yorkers, they say we love seeing the uniformed presence.\u201d (Adams added, for good measure, that he finds the state troopers\u2019 uniforms \u201ccool as hell.\u201d)<\/p>\n But the mayor, a former transit cop, was elected in 2021 on an aggressive public safety agenda. The governor sending in the military seemed to implicitly criticize Adams and the NYPD. He missed her press conference announcing the move, citing a scheduling conflict. Meanwhile, Adams has pushed<\/a> for more state money to pay for expanded police subway patrols on top of the department\u2019s more than $5 billion budget<\/a>. \u201cThe city needs a lot of money from the state,\u201d says Kathryn Garcia,<\/strong> the governor\u2019s director of operations, who in 2021 narrowly lost the Democratic mayoral primary to Adams. \u201cYou want money on migrants, or you want money on cops? You want money for schools, or do you want money for health care? There are a lot of money asks. But he\u2019s also doing better in revenue, and some of his costs look lower. Maybe there\u2019s a balance where he has enough funding to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n The governor\u2019s allies emphasize that while the National Guard and its guns drew the bulk of press attention, a show of force was merely one part of a five-point plan<\/a> to improve subway safety, including adding $20 million to a mental health outreach program. \u201cShe has pledged additional supports for people who are on the street and in the subways. I think that\u2019s significant,\u201d says Jennifer Jones Austin,<\/strong> an anti-poverty and social justice advocate who has worked inside both state and city government. \u201cIt\u2019s a good start.\u201d Voters have been meh about Hochul, her job approval numbers hovering<\/a> in the mid-40s. \u201cNew York is a blue state for a reason,\u201d says Siena College pollster Steve Greenberg,<\/strong> citing the Democrats\u2019 more than two-to-one registration advantage. \u201cAnd despite all of that, Kathy Hochul, never once in two and a half years, has hit 50% favorability.\u201d If the past week is the beginning of a sustained Hochul engagement with improving the subways, the National Guard stunt could be excusable. Hochul would earn a higher profile, policy credibility, and potentially higher poll numbers. In the short run, she might also help Democrats neutralize Republican election attacks this fall. But there\u2019s a reason why New York\u2019s governors have traditionally been wary of involvement with the city\u2019s transit system: \u201cOnce you\u2019re publicly connected with the subways,\u201d an Albany veteran says, \u201cyou own the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n