Michael Henry, the Republican challenger for New York attorney general, is running on a plain message: crime is out of control and everyday life is becoming unaffordable under the current administration. He argues the attorney general’s office has been used to push a far-left agenda that chokes the economy, weakens public safety, and sidelines local law enforcement. Henry draws on his 2020 run and connects policy choices to real pain for families and businesses across the state. This piece follows his direct, outsider pitch and the specific complaints he lays at the feet of Letitia James.
When Henry talks to voters, he says the concerns are simple and urgent. “Two things,” Henry told Fox News Digital when asked what voters in New York tell him they are most concerned about. “Crime and affordability.” Those two items drive his stump speech and shape the contrast he wants to draw with the incumbent.
Henry points to how regulatory enforcement from the attorney general’s office ripples across the economy and families’ budgets. “It’s really put a hamper on economic growth in the State of New York, how her and her bureau chiefs, deputy bureau chief, and the attorneys in the office, who all serve under the discretion of the attorney general, have really crippled the New York State economy,” Henry said. He frames the office as a lever of policy that has been pulled against, not for, ordinary people.
Energy is a big part of Henry’s affordability argument, and he doesn’t shy away from naming who he thinks is enabling it. “We see a Democrat governor in Josh Shapiro, who’s encouraging New York energy companies to work in Pennsylvania right across the line, where you could literally throw a rock and hit a truck on the Pennsylvania border. But then the 100 years worth of energy under our feet in the southern tier of New York State, which would not only revive the economy, but the people in places like Manhattan would see probably about a 60% cost of energy go down,” Henry said. He paints a picture of resources sitting idle while people pay more at the pump and on their electric bills.
That same frustration translates to day-to-day life, he says, where policy decisions have consequences most voters never connect to the attorney general’s office. “And Letitia James has been wreaking havoc on the daily lives of New Yorkers, and in many instances they just don’t even realize it, and this is something I’ve been trying to shine a light on, letting them know how much damage she’s doing to them and their ability to just be able to afford to live here.” Henry is pushing to make that link obvious in debates and door-knocking conversations.
Henry’s background gives him a standard outsider pitch. He ran against James in 2020 and received 45% of the vote, a rare Republican showing in recent New York politics. He says he lived comfortably as an attorney and did not plan on another run, but he felt compelled by what he sees as mismanagement and political weaponization of the attorney general’s office.
Local infrastructure and clean-energy rollout are part of his criticism for how Albany handles projects. “You travel to upstate New York, you see these wind fans that don’t work, you see solar panels that break in the winter, yet we’re not allowed to use all options when it comes to energy development,” Henry said. He argues selective policy choices lock communities into failure instead of offering practical, diverse solutions.
Henry also raises concrete examples of people affected by policy decisions, especially in upstate communities that rely on government and agriculture jobs. “Three thousand correctional officers, which is a huge employer in upstate New York, were fired by Letitia James and Kathy Hochul, three thousand families that relied on that income to take care of things like tuition or put food on the table, and they were blocked from going into other civil servant employment. You just see the war on agriculture, war on dairy farmers. There’s a 62-county drug crisis that’s been exacerbated, and if you had told me in 2022, all these issues would have happened or been this bad, I never would have believed you.” Those are the stories he brings to voters when he wants to show tangible harm.
On the tone and role of the attorney general, Henry is blunt about priorities and accountability. “Look, let’s be honest, she wakes up every day focused on three things: targeting the president of the United States, weaponizing her office against political opponents, and ignoring the issues that matter most to hardworking families,” Henry said. “And she’s forgotten that the New York state attorney general is the people’s lawyer, and it’s not the enforcer for the Democrat National Committee.” That argument fuels his pledge to refocus the office on local priorities if elected.
Henry doesn’t let ethical questions slide, and he pushes back on the idea that charges against the incumbent are merely political theater. “People have seen her awkwardly stumble through these press conferences off the cuff, and now we’ve seen her ethical issues, where apparently she’s not only multiple times signed documents saying she’s married to her father, she doesn’t even know what state she lives in, apparently.” He adds a sharp critique of the mortgage paperwork, saying, “And Letitia James can’t have it both ways. She can’t say I’ve been trained by the best and then have these discrepancies on numerous occasions in her mortgage applications. It’s either that she knew what she was doing or she lacks the basic reading comprehension skills of a middle schooner, because I could walk into a middle school and put a mortgage application on any child’s desk, and they would say to me, I’m not married to my daddy,” Henry added. “So she cannot have it both ways, and she’s going to be held accountable this time, and we’re seeing it on a daily basis.”
Darnell Thompkins is a Canadian-born American and conservative opinion writer who brings a unique perspective to political and cultural discussions. Passionate about traditional values and individual freedoms, Darnell’s commentary reflects his commitment to fostering meaningful dialogue. When he’s not writing, he enjoys watching hockey and celebrating the sport that connects his Canadian roots with his American journey.