Editor’s note: This story is part of CNY Decides, a collaboration between Central Current and WAER Syracuse Public Media to demystify the political process and bring you the stories and information you’ll remember in the voting booth in 2026. Click here to read, watch and listen to other ins tallments in the collaboration. Gov. Kathy Hochul will be on the ballot seeking a second term as New York’s top executive this November.  Hochul, a Democrat who first rose to power in 2021 as the lieutenant governor to the disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will face Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman. Blakeman has been the Nassau County executive since 2022.  Hochul first won re-election in 2022, becoming the first woman to be elected governor in the history of New York. That race was the closest gubernatorial contest in New York since 1994. Results of that gubernatorial race left Onondaga County elected leaders and local party officials on both sides of the aisle somewhat perplexed. Despite Hochul’s win, Democrats’ underperformance helped Republicans flip key Congressional seats. Republicans retook the House of Representatives, in part because they picked up three New York Congressional seats. In this year’s election, her office, local elected officials and economic development experts say Hochul’s case in the region this year is undergirded by her ability to attract and keep on track the historic opportunity promised by the arrival of Micron Technology.  Micron, an Idaho-based semiconductor manufacturing company, announced in the fall of 2022 that it will build a $100 billion, four-fab semiconductor “megafab” campus in the Town of Clay.  The company’s arrival could set the stage for transformative economic prosperity in Central New York, economic development experts said. Company officials have promised that the project will create 9,000 direct high paying jobs and around 40,000 “community jobs” over the next 20 years that it will take to build the campus.  Matt Janiszewski, Hochul’s upstate press secretary, said Micron’s investment could return “growth to the region at a rate not seen since the 1950s.” Preparing CNY for Micron Hochul has seeded the ground for Micron to grow by signing legislation critical to incentivize Micron to establish its manufacturing campus in Clay, Janiszewski said. She has also directed state agencies to fund critical investments in housing, infrastructure, education, and workforce development to prepare region residents to maximize the economic benefits of the Micron project, he said.  These actions have swayed some of the biggest local critics of the governor within her own party. Democrat Maurice Brown, a progressive county legislator who represents parts of the city, said he views Hochul as a conservative Democrat. Micron, however, is a “net positive,” he said. “We are going to be able to offer our young people opportunities for jobs making more than we’ve ever been able to offer them,” Brown said. “And I think that’s worth pursuing.” To make that happen, investments in the millions from the state in the workforce will need to make a difference, Brown noted.  Some of the largest and most detailed list of workforce development strategies tied to Micron comes from the Green CHIPS Community Investment Fund. The fund is part of the Green CHIPS bill, a foundational piece of legislation shepherded by members of the county’s legislative delegation in Albany and signed into law by Hochul in 2022.  The bill would give Micron $5.5 billion in refundable tax credits, and it would also establish a community investment fund of $500 million. Half of that will come from Micron, and the rest from the state and other local and private partners. Some of the funds will go toward creating a bus line from Syracuse to Clay. Several million dollars will go toward building capacity for STEM fields and jobs related to semiconductor manufacturing at education institutions and expansions of pre-apprenticeship programs in the construction trades at Onondaga Cortland Madison (OCM) BOCES.  Additionally, the state has covered $80 million for the ON RAMP flagship workforce development center in the county. ON RAMP stands for One Network for Regional Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships, and will help connect workers with accessible and cutting edge training for the jobs of the future, as well as connect them with employers.  The state also funded the creation of the Syracuse STEAM School, which opened its doors last fall and is in part meant to serve as an incubator for students seeking careers in high tech fields and semiconductor manufacturing. Other state investments include footing the bill for a third of the costs of the $15 million Micron Cleanroom Simulation Lab at OCC, and $14.7 million in workforce program grants from the Office of Strategic Workforce Development. Kevin Schwab, an economic development expert in the county, said the state and the governor’s office have been thorough about the community’s list of needs. He added that the governor has been pragmatic about what the needs of the region are with Micron on the way. “Her staff is good at saying ‘okay, how do we attack the next issue?,’” Schwab, the senior vice president of strategy, policy, and planning at CenterState CEO said. CenterState is a nonprofit overseeing and promoting economic development in 12 counties in Central New York and the North Country.  “We as a region have benefited from that kind of a partnership,” he added. Schwab said some of the state’s initiatives, paired with county and city resources for workforce developments only stand to improve encouraging job creation numbers.  According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by CenterState a four-county region including Onondaga, Madison and Oswego counties added 2% to 3% more jobs in 2025 compared to the numbers from 2024. In their analysis, CenterState officials wrote that the area hasn’t seen sustained gains in the job market of this level since the late 1990s, a period defined by a nationwide jobs boom. The jobs are primarily in education, health care, leisure, and hospitality, retail, and business services areas.  Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens said the collaboration with the state and county to prepare the area’s workforce can help address mistakes of the past. Owens said the city did not appropriately prepare for industrial shifts in the 1990s, when jobs began to require wide adoption and understanding of technologies like basic computer functions and internet usage. New and better jobs should be able to lift city residents out of poverty, Owens said. “We cannot make that workforce mistake again,” Owens said. ‘Syracuse and every other municipality in this region needs to look at housing’ As CenterState and other elected officials contemplated the housing needs that would arise from Micron’s arrival, they saw something alarming, Schwab said.  The number of private housing permits authorized in Central New York were likely below the number of units needed to keep pace with the potential demand that would stem from the Micron project. In 2023, CenterState estimated that the growth anticipated due to Micron’s promise of economic prosperity would demand 2,500 additional housing units per year for the next two decades.  Schwab said developers had only been able to secure around 350 permits in 2022.  “It was a scary, scary, bad number,” Schwab said. “How are we going to put our arms around this, and how are we going to move the needle on this?” Schwab said the state, county and city have since mobilized to increase the number of permits. Building more housing and incentivizing developers to do so, has been a goal of Hochul’s since she started her first term. It then escalated in 2024, when she proposed her housing compact, a goal of building and preserving 800,000 housing units throughout the state in a decade using public money to stimulate development. Though he would like to see the state take on an even bigger role in developing, controlling, and funding affordable housing, Brown said the housing compact is a great idea. “I think that incentivizing municipalities to do better around housing is a net positive,” Brown noted. “We have to build housing now.” The state’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal has invested $600 million on more than 4,600 affordable housing units in the region under Hochul’s leadership, Janiszewski, the governor’s upstate press secretary said.  In Syracuse, Gov. Hochul has helped provide funding to turn old industrial buildings and unused structures into new housing, Owens said. She listed as an example the Chimes Building, which will be redeveloped into a mixed-use and mixed-income building with 152 residential units. The state has provided $1.25 million for the development of the building. The biggest investment made by the state so far has been the $150 million Housing CNY Fund, an effort to double regional housing production and provide attainable homes for the tens of thousands of workers and their families as Micron arrives in the county. The fund is meant to help incentivize the development of 2,500 units for the next seven years. “As Central New York prepares for unprecedented growth, the Housing Central New York Fund will help to ensure families, workers and communities can afford to live and grow where the opportunities are and build their future in New York State,” Hochul said in a press release. Support for CNY Decides is brought to you in part from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. More information about our policies on support and transparency can be found here. The post Gov. Kathy Hochul’s case for re-election is intrinsically tied to Micron and housing, local leaders say appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less