Here was the good news for Gov. Kathy Hochul from the last six months: She was able to secure her preferred changes to New York's controversial cashless bail law, giving judges more discretion, and setting aside an issue that dogged her during last year's campaign. She won a minimum wage increase in May, linking future raises to the rate of infaltion. 

The rest, political observers say, is a bit of a muddle. Her sweeping housing proposal fell flat with lawmakers, inflaming suburban officials from both parties. In the state Senate, Democrats rejected her initial nominee to lead the state Court of Appeals on the grounds his rulings were too conservative. 

Now with lawmakers more or less gone for the year (the state Assembly is potentially coming back later this month), Hochul can use the bully pulpit to her advantage, or the Democratic supermajorities could very well continue to assert themselves. 

Democratic strategist Jack O'Donnell pointed to Hochul's successes with bail, a key public safety issue that resonated especially with downstate voters last year. 

"Certainly there were pieces of this that were hard for Gov. Hochul and her administration," O'Donnell said. "I think there’s been a learning process."

There are still items on her original to-do list that can get done. Hochul began the year calling for measures to address New York's increasingly unaffordable housing with measures meant to address buying home as well as aid struggling tenants. 

But proposals like allowing the state to override local zoning officials to fast-track qualified projects as well as develop around commuter rail stations led to a backlash from state and local lawmakers.

A deal could not be reached by the end of the legislative session, and Hochul has indicated she will be working through her own executive authority to address the housing issue. 

In Albany, state lawmakers announced they had been working toward a housing deal only for Hochul to signal her opposition to elements of it. Hochul's team pointed out a bill was never actually printed. 

"It's incredibly challenging to find an agreement," O'Donnell said. "I think we saw that at the end of session when we saw the announcement, the Senate and Assembly couldn’t get on the same page, either."

But now Hochul will have some leverage, with hundreds of bills – many of them pet issues for state lawmakers – will be crossing her desk.

"All these bills that passed the Legislature that include local and individual legislatively priorities, those have to go through the governor now,"  O'Donnell said. 

Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar takes a less rosy view.

"She seems to be enjoying a governorship that is missing one essential item: Leading the state of New York," he said. 

Lawmakers were able to get largely what they wanted over the last six months, running roughshod over Hochul along the way, Kassar said. 

Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature – giving them the numbers to flex their muscle in negotiations.

"She seemed to be almost superfluous to the entire legislative process this session which I’ve never seen in the many years I’ve been involved through various administrations," he said. "The Legislature had complete control – they could move left, right, center, anyway they wanted to go. And of course, they moved completely to the left."