For years, Debra Messing was one of Hollywood’s fiercest voices against Donald Trump.

New York Democrats figured they could always count on her.

And the Will & Grace star just made a move in the New York governor’s race that nobody in Kathy Hochul’s camp saw coming.

A Manhattan Fundraiser With a Surprise Guest

The scene was a Manhattan fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman. Dietician Tanya Zuckerbrot hosted the event.

Blakeman carries President Trump’s backing in his race against incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul (D).

And standing in the room, praising the Trump-backed Republican to his face, was Debra Messing.

The New York Post broke the story. According to the Post, Messing didn’t just show up and smile for photos. She endorsed Blakeman outright.

“I am so grateful you are running. You are what we need more than anything,” Messing told him.

She kept going. Messing described the city’s decline over the last four years as “so exponential and devastating,” hitting New Yorkers “economically, socially and on every level.” She said the city had lost a lot of business and that people were leaving.

Then came the line that probably stung the most for the Democrats running New York.

“It’s not the city I love anymore,” Messing said.

Affordability Hits Home for a Hollywood Star

Messing framed her support around the cost of living, the issue squeezing working families from Buffalo to Brooklyn.

“I believe in all my heart that you are the answer. You are the affordable campaign, candidate,” she told Blakeman.

She talked about utility bills. “People are just really struggling. They need their utilities to be lower,” Messing said.

The actress also took aim at the $9 congestion pricing toll drivers now pay to enter Manhattan, according to the Post. That toll is a tax on anybody who has to drive into the city to earn a living, from plumbers to delivery drivers to nurses working the night shift.

“It’s just too expensive to live in New York City, and I love the fact that is at the top of your mind,” Messing said.

It’s hard to overstate how unusual this is. Hollywood stars don’t usually notice what a gallon of milk costs, much less a utility bill in Queens. But Messing lives there, and apparently the bills have gotten too big to ignore even from where she sits.

The Same Messing Who Wanted Trump Donors Named

Longtime readers will remember Messing from 2019.

Back then, Trump supporters in Hollywood held a fundraiser for the President. Messing wanted every name made public.

“Please print a list of all attendees please. The public has a right to know,” Messing wrote at the time.

The demand sparked outrage on the Right and drew jabs from Trump himself. Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner compared Messing’s call to expose Trump donors to the “early days” of Nazi Germany.

Plenty of conservatives saw that episode for what it was. Publishing a list of private citizens who donated to a candidate has one purpose, and it isn’t civic education. It paints a target on people’s backs for holding the wrong opinion. Free speech includes the freedom to support a candidate without having a Hollywood star organize a public shaming campaign against you.

So it’s a little remarkable to watch that same Debra Messing walk into a room full of Blakeman donors and tell the Trump-backed candidate he’s the answer.

People change. Sometimes the city around them changes faster.

What Pushed Her Over the Edge

Messing didn’t wake up one morning as a Blakeman fan. The road started with New York City’s mayoral race.

She opposed Zohran Mamdani (D), the self-described democratic socialist who now runs the city as Mayor, and backed Andrew Cuomo in that race, according to Mediaite.

That tells part of the story. When a party lurches so far Left that even a lifelong Democrat activist from Hollywood can’t follow it anymore, the problem probably isn’t the activist.

Mamdani ran on a promise of sweeping government-run solutions to the cost of living. Free buses. City-owned grocery stores. Rent freezes. Those ideas sound nice on a campaign flyer. History hasn’t been kind to them in practice. Government control over what people pay and what stores stock has a long record of producing shortages, higher costs, and businesses packing up for friendlier states.

And Messing’s own words line up with that warning. She said the city has lost business. She said people are leaving. Those are exactly the symptoms that follow when politicians treat the private economy as an ATM.

The Hochul Camp Fires Back

Hochul’s campaign didn’t take the endorsement quietly.

Spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki told the Post that New Yorkers across all 62 counties were standing with the Governor. He touted an average online donation of $22.38 and said Hochul was fighting to bring down the cost of housing, childcare, and car insurance.

He also went after Blakeman directly, calling him the “MAGA all the way” opponent and accusing him of wanting to let Trump “attack New York, jack up prices, and threaten public safety.”

But there’s an awkward problem with that pitch. Hochul has been Governor since 2021. If housing, childcare, and car insurance cost too much in New York, voters might reasonably ask who has been in charge while those prices climbed.

The congestion toll Messing complained about didn’t come from Trump, either. New York’s own leaders put it in place.

Why This Endorsement Matters Beyond One Race

None of this means a single celebrity endorsement decides a governor’s race. Voters in Nassau County and Niagara Falls aren’t waiting to hear from the cast of Will & Grace before they head to the polls.

Still, the signal matters.

For years, Democrats treated Hollywood as a permanent fundraising base and a megaphone for every cause on the Left. Now one of the loudest voices from that crowd is standing in a Manhattan living room praising a Republican with Trump’s backing, and the reason she gives has nothing to do with culture wars.

It’s the bills.

That’s the same message working-class voters across the country have been sending since 2016. High taxes, high tolls, high utilities, and politicians who seem more interested in lecturing people than lowering their costs.

And if that message has reached the Upper West Side, it’s probably reached everywhere else in New York, too.

Whether other Democrats in Messing’s circle follow her lead remains an open question. A lot of them would rather pay the higher bills than be seen in the same room as anyone tied to Donald Trump. But Messing just showed that for at least some New Yorkers, the price of staying loyal to the Democrat Party in Albany has finally gotten too high.

Sources: Mediaite, “Actress and Prominent Trump Critic Endorses Trump-Backed Candidate Over Democrat In NY,” Alex Griffing, October 5, 2026; New York Post reporting on the Blakeman fundraiser, as cited by Mediaite.