NEW YORK — Gov. Hochul said Tuesday she wants to work with Democratic mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani to achieve universal health care — although she stands opposed to the candidate’s plan to fund the program through tax hikes.

Among the various issues on voters’ minds, Hochul is perhaps most aligned with the democratic socialist on the issue of child care, which Mamdani has made a centerpiece of his affordability campaign.

But Mamdani plans to finance that agenda of freezing the rent for stabilized units, delivering free buses and offering free child care with tax hikes for millionaires, as well as through increasing the state corporate tax rate. Meanwhile Hochul, a moderate Democrat and the state’s first mom governor, has stood steadfastly against raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and on businesses.

But the governor said Tuesday she has found Mamdani to be “eminently rational” and willing to work with her on the funding plans in their conversations.

“We don’t have the details flushed out,” Hochul said at the joint appearance in Astoria, declining to go into specifics.

Mamdani has said the tax hikes could get through Albany, since he has both the Assembly and Senate leaders on his side. But he’s also signaled he could be moved on the issue if the governor won’t budge.

“If this money is funded by the additional taxes or it’s funded by a better-than-expected assessment or it’s funded by a pot of money that wasn’t previously spoken about, or savings that have come in, then the most important thing is that it’s funded,” Mamdani said at a press conference last week.

Mamdani and Hochul appeared together to announce a new $5 million grant for the Variety Boys & Girls Club in Astoria and the addition of 200 affordable housing units in the area. This was their first time in public together since the governor endorsed Mamdani for mayor.

“I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal child care. I believe we can,” Hochul said during her remarks, also thanking the candidate for putting a “special exclamation point” on making New York an affordable place for families.

In her New York Times op-ed endorsing Mamdani, Hochul highlighted their shared commitment to helping New York families afford the city. Hochul had previously announced in January — when Mamdani was still considered a long-shot candidate — that she would set a goal of securing universal child care in the state. To that end, she launched a group to study the issue.

______

(New York Daily News staff writer Cayla Bamberger contributed to this story.)

______

©2025 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.