Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) launched her 2026 gubernatorial campaign Friday, pledging to “clean up Kathy Hochul’s catastrophe” and make New York “safe and affordable” if elected to Albany.

“The Empire State has fallen,” the narrator states in Stefanik’s dramatic campaign kickoff video, obtained exclusively by The Post.

Imagery of Hochul juxtaposed with bleak headlines describing New York’s high tax rates, migrant crime and the “exodus of middle-class” residents mark the first 60 seconds or so of the two-and-a-half-minute video.

“Kathy Hochul’s failed policies are to blame,” the narrator continues, arguing that the Democratic incumbent has made New York “the most unaffordable state in the nation, crushing families with sky-high taxes, unaffordable rent, soaring energy costs and record-

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