NEW YORK — The idea of Kathy Hochul stepping in to replace Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a hypothetical scenario — for now — but not one without precedent.

In 2008, after a prostitution scandal led Eliot Spitzer to resign, Lieutenant Governor David Paterson assumed the office.

Now, some are wondering if history could repeat itself.

Should the current firestorm of overlapping controversies force Cuomo from office, Hochul would become the state’s first female governor. As lieutenant governor, she’s spent the past five years as Cuomo’s surrogate, criss-crossing the state to promote his agenda, with a particular focus on economic development.

She hails from the Buffalo area, where she was county clerk before running for Congress in a 2011 special election. She scored an upset win in one of the state’s most solidly Republican districts, before losing narrowly the following year.

Then the governor tapped her as his running mate in 2014, a move that helped shore up his support upstate. But as a moderate Democrat who was once endorsed by the NRA, Hochul drew a challenge from the left in the 2018 primary. She ultimately held off then-City Councilman Jumaane Williams by a surprisingly close margin of less than seven points.

“To my core, I’ve always been a public servant. I believe in serving the people,” she said during her victory speech on election night.

If Hochul became governor, she would serve the remainder of Cuomo's term, which runs through the end of 2022, and could appoint her own lieutenant governor.

If she wanted to seek a full term as governor, she'd have to run next year against what could be a competitive primary field.

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