She’s a centrist Democrat and newly minted grandmother born and raised in Buffalo whose first childhood home was a trailer by a steel plant. 

He’s a Democratic socialist and a newlywed, born in Uganda and raised mostly in New York City by a renowned film director and a Columbia University professor.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York City, are an unlikely political pairing in many ways. But what brings them together is a shared interest in affordable child care — specifically the idea of making it universal for New Yorkers. 

It’s a policy Hochul has stressed while talking about her support for Mamdani, who is likely to be named the winner of the city’s mayoral race after polls close Tuesday. 

“I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal child care. I believe we can. I believe that,” Hochul said this month at an event with Mamdani at the Boys & Girls Club of Queens in Astoria.  

Experts in child care policy and the politics around it see the shared ground for these two politicians — even if they don’t agree on all the details — as emblematic of how critical the issue has become to many voters, particularly younger ones. It’s especially true in New York City, which is heavily Democratic, and the state, which is solidly so. 

Reshma Saujani, the founder and CEO of Moms First, a national group organizing on paid leave and affordable child care, said that she’s seen a shift in the past two years and that “universal child care is quickly becoming a platform issue on every single Democratic platform.” 

Amanda Litman, the president and co-founder of Run for Something — which recruits and supports young, progressive candidates to run for local and statewide office — said affordability is the issue defining millennial candidates’ races right now, as evidenced in the Mamdani campaign. The fact that child care figures so prominently is no surprise, she said, since for many millennials, struggling to afford child care is part of their lived experience. 

“Politicians who want to win and who want to be seen as fighting both for families but also for the future of the economy will position themselves accordingly,” Litman said.

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Enter the unlikely partnership of Mamdani and Hochul. 

“I think we’re at a turning point,” Hochul said in a phone interview with The 19th. “There’s a larger narrative around this now.” 

But for her, the issue is nothing new. 

“I’ve been talking about this long before there was a mayor’s race with this position, and I’m glad we have other people who are supporting my position,” Hochul said. “As a mom-governor, this is personal and it’s something I raised in my first budget and I raised again this year. I love that people are talking about it through an affordability lens as well.”

Hochul said that years ago she had to leave a job she loved on Capitol Hill because she couldn’t find affordable child care. She’s concerned about how little has changed since — she’s now watching her own children, who have begun having children of their own, encounter the same issue.

As governor, she tripled the child tax credit in the state, giving families up to $1,000 per child under the age of 4 and up to $500 per child from 4 to 16. This spring, Hochul also announced a $2.2 billion investment in child care, including $110 million for new child care facilities, repairs to existing sites and new home-based programs. She also raised the eligibility threshold for child care assistance so that families of four making up to $108,000 are eligible for child care that costs just $15 per week. 

According to the New York City Comptroller’s Office, the average annual cost of child care in 2024 for infants and toddlers in family-based care was $18,200, up 79 percent since 2019; for  center-based care, it was $26,000, up 43 percent since 2019. 

In her State of the State address in January, Hochul expressed her desire to create a roadmap for universal child care for New York state, forming a task force and considering revenue streams outside of raising taxes. 

Mamdani has proposed no-cost child care for New York City children six weeks through 5 years old and has discussed raising taxes on the highest income brackets to do so. But the mayor of New York City does not have the power to raise taxes — to fund his proposal, he needs the assistance of the governor’s office. 

However, raising taxes is something Hochul has not expressed support for: Even after her appearance at a rally with Mamdani on Sunday was met with chants of “Tax the rich!,” she said in an interview on a Fox News podcast the following day: “I will say one energetic rally does not get me to change my positions. I assure you.”

Hochul told The 19th that it would take approximately $7 billion — more than the city’s police budget — to fund universal child care in New York City and close to $15 billion to implement it statewide.

In a statement, Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec told The 19th, “After rent, the number one cost facing families is child care — it’s driving working families out of this city, which is why Zohran Mamdani has made universal child care a cornerstone of his affordability agenda. Zohran is grateful for Governor Hochul’s partnership on the issue and looks forward to making universal child care a reality for all New Yorkers alongside her.” 

Hochul said she is happy to see that the conversation about child care has been shifted out of the realm of “women’s issues.”

“It’s about time that we have more than just the moms,” she said. “Having a mayoral candidate like Zohran Mamdani embracing this as well shows that this is not a gender-specific issue at all, and I think that’s the progress we’ve been needing.”

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The Mamdani-Hochul alliance speaks to politicians’ belief that action on child care is critical to winning Gen Z and millennial voters who are feeling shut out of the promise of economic mobility.

“I’ve always said this, but whoever basically fixes child care will win the ballot box. … It is such a pain point and such a deciding factor for so many families and the trajectories of their lives,” Saujani said.

Rebecca Bailin founded New Yorkers United for Child Care two years ago when the city’s universal preschool program for 3-year-olds was under threat of budgetary cuts.  Since then, she has organized over 10,000 New York City parents around the issue of universal child care in the city. 

“In all my years of organizing, I’ve never seen something so resonant. People were ready for this because it really hits home. Yes, we care about our children and all the benefits of child care in terms of their development. But also this is about being able to work. This is about living our lives without totally going broke,” she said. 

Bailin pointed to recent data that shows that parents with children under the age of 6 are 40 percent more likely to leave New York state. 

She said her coalition includes low-income and middle-class parents who are feeling the financial burden of child care, but also those watching this struggle and seeing the toll it takes — something that is now reflected in Mamdani’s campaign. 

“This is aunties. This is friends who are sick of seeing their friends leave the city because they want a more affordable city and want to keep the community that they’ve come to love and not lose people when they start families. This is employers who want their employees to be able to afford the city,” Bailin said.

She credits Hochul for understanding this dynamic — and early. 

“Governor Hochul is hearing what people are saying. She’s understanding that this is a real crisis moment, not just for the city, but the entire state and the entire country,” she said.

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Mamdani’s embrace of universal child care as an issue has laid bare an interesting gender dynamic. 

“I have been saying that for way too long, this was a ‘women’s issue’ — that people would say, ‘You made a choice to have children. This is your problem. Figure it out,’” Hochul said. “I think we’re seeing this transition from ‘It’s a you problem’ to ‘It’s a collective, societal problem.’ And that’s a very positive dynamic and one I’ve been working for for a long time.”

Political experts echoed the importance of Mamdani embracing the issue.

“It is rare that you see a young, childless dude talking about this issue. I think that he’s a really good messenger for this because it is not built into his bio — the way that most of his campaign is not built into his bio — but about what he’s hearing from voters,” Litman said. 

She said this is why the Mamdani-Hochul alliance on this issue is a strong one. “It’s not just, ‘The woman is trying to get it done,’ but they can send the message of, ‘It’s the public servants who are trying to get things done.’ I hate this reality, but this is the reality and this is the reality that gets us to a place where we don’t have to spend some $30,000 a year on child care.”

Saujani stressed that getting universal child care in New York City would have a huge impact nationwide. Seeing a city of this size — and a state this diverse — funding and implementing this would be a strong signal that child care is not just a personal problem for a family to fix, but an economic problem that the government can and should manage. 

“Voters are drowning. They’re being priced out of the American dream,” Saujani said. Reducing the cost of child care is “not just a sound bite, but a real reality that people are looking for when asking, ‘Have you changed my life? Have you helped me thrive, not just survive?’”