Incumbent Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo won re-election to a third term, defeating Republican Marc Molinaro and several minor party candidates.

Governor Kathy Hochul, beat New York City councillor Jumaane Williams in the Democratic primary for the lieutenant governorship.

Dutchess County Executive and former New York State Assemblymember Marc Molinaro was the Republican, Conservative, and Reform Party candidate.

3rd-party gubernatorial candidates appearing on the general election ballot included Howie Hawkins, repeat candidate for the Green Party; former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, running on the newly created Serve America Movement line; and Larry Sharpe of the Libertarian Party, who was the runner-up in the 2016 Libertarian primary contest for Vice President of the United States.

Cuomo won New York City itself by 81.51 percent to Molinaro's 15.2 (including a plurality in the somewhat conservative Staten Island borough).

Deputy Senate Majority Leader John A. DeFrancisco ran for the Republican nomination,[84] but withdrew his candidacy on April 25, 2018, after party leaders—who had initially given him their support—threw their support to Molinaro instead.

[131] On July 12, 2017, Larry Sharpe, business consultant and runner-up in the 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential primary, officially announced that he would run for governor of New York in 2018.

[135] On June 18, 2018, former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, after expressing informal interest in the Working Families and Reform nominations,[138] entered the gubernatorial race as a third-party candidate.

[139] Miner "plans to run under the banner of an upstart new group, the Serve America Movement, which calls itself SAM, formed by people disaffected by the existing party structure after the 2016 elections.

[140] Persons tied to the Cuomo campaign, after reviewing the petitions, failed to find enough specific objections to challenge their validity.

[145] Aggregate polls with Cynthia Nixon as WFP nominee with Cynthia Nixon as Democratic nominee with John DeFrancisco with Carl Paladino with Rob Astorino with Chris Gibson with Donald Trump Jr. with Harry Wilson On November 6, 2018, the Cuomo-Hochul ticket defeated the Molinaro-Killian ticket by a margin of 59.6%–36.2%.

[263] He would resign from the governorship on August 10, 2021, following sexual harassment allegations and a nursing home scandal that plagued his third term.

On May 27, 2019, Cox announced that he would not run for another term as chair that year, choosing to join Donald Trump's reelection campaign instead.

[266] Stephanie Miner also lost her ballot access for the Serve America Movement as of New York State election law of December 2021.