If Hochul’s cooked, Torres might be the chef

Israel and the fight against antisemitism are not the only things Rep. Ritchie Torres has on his mind.

Torres, whose Bronx district includes Riverdale, is one of Israel’s staunchest defenders in Congress. Now he’s defending New Yorkers against a criminal justice system some say is broken; in doing so, he’s set himself up to challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026.

Torres, a progressive gay Latino Democrat, this week attacked the “complicity of the State and City in the murder of three New Yorkers who were savagely stabbed to death in a homicidal rampage.”

The alleged killer is a 51-year-old homeless man with numerous encounters with law enforcement who was released from Rikers early despite having assaulted a corrections officer.

The New York Post featured Torres’ criticism on its cover on Monday (photo).

Torres called Hochul “the new Joe Biden.” He said she’s “a Democratic incumbent who is less popular in New York than Donald Trump” and may lose to a Republican in 2026, “an outcome not seen in 30 years.”

“Waiting until it’s too late gave us a Republican President in 2024 and could give us a Republican governor in 2026,” he added.

“With few exceptions, nowhere was there a greater swing toward Donald Trump than in New York, which was a vote of no confidence in the leadership of New York state,” he said.

The largest swing of any county in New York towards Trump occurred in Torres’ Bronx county, driven by a significant shift towards Republicans among Latino voters.

A poll in September showed that Hochul had just a 34% job approval rating, and in 2022 she defeated then-congressman Lee Zeldin by just 6 percentage points, the worst performance by a Democrat in a statewide race in two decades.

Though Torres has not directly criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams by name in the way that he has called out Hochul, pundits suggested Torres could also make a run for Gracie Mansion in the 2025 election as Adams fights federal bribery charges.

At a press conference on Monday, Hochul said “it’s more fun to have a big headline, something splashy, but there’s no substance behind it. … Look at the real record of what we’ve done. … We’ve come a hell of a long way from where we were when I took office three years ago.”

Asked if she was upset that Torries “is using this crime as sort of a springboard to a gubernatorial campaign,” she responded: “I actually don’t care what he’s doing.”

Since taking his seat in Congress in 2021, Torres, 36, has been widely lauded by the Jewish community for his vocal support.