BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the final day before New York will officially have its first woman serving as governor, one of the state's other most powerful women offered her support to Kathy Hochul.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, said she's very familiar with Hochul from the incoming governor's time in Congress.

"She is extremely capable and prepared to lead this state in a very difficult time, emerging from the COVID crisis and the economic impacts associated with it," Gillibrand said. "She is a strong and well-prepared leader and I have 100% faith that she'll be able to lead us in this tough economic time."

Gillibrand spent Monday morning in Buffalo to discuss portions of the federal infrastructure bill. Western New York leaders are pushing to secure funding to cover part of the city's Kensington Expressway and Gillibrand said Hochul's congressional background will help with that and other projects.

"She is uniquely positioned to be extremely effective in working with her federal counterparts to get resources into the state and I have every faith in her ability to get that done," she said.

Hochul has already announced she will run for governor in 2022. Gillibrand said she has no plans to challenge her for the job.

"No, I'm not but we have great leaders and I look forward to supporting our next governor over the next year as she governs," she said.

In the meantime, the senator's focus remains on federal issues including the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. As a member of the Armed Services Committee she said she does support congressional review.

"I support hearings but I know the answer," Gillibrand said. "We have had years of intelligence and information and understanding of Afghanistan and the one piece that we didn't know for sure is whether the Afghan people would fight for their own country. Sadly, they did not."

Gillibrand said in some places the Afghan armed forces did fight bravely, but in others they quickly gave up their posts to the Taliban.