Gov. Kathy Hochul started the summer months by dropping a bomb: halting congestion pricing.

She’s since found herself as a key defender of an embattled President Joe Biden. Now she’s pledged support for his heir apparent — Kamala Harris — and promised to help elect Democrats in vulnerable congressional districts.

“How does a governor spend her summer?” Hochul asked on July 18, during an interview with the Times Union’s Dan Clark at Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan.

Adding that she’s busy reviewing over 800 bills passed by the state legislature between January and June, deciding which ones she will sign into law or deny.

Hochul's summer has been anything but relaxed: starting with her bombshell announcement on June 5 that implementing congestion pricing system “risks too many unintended consequences for New Yorkers.”

It was slated to take effect on June 30. Hochul says there’s an “indefinite pause” on the program.

Marist College Institute of Public Opinion Director Lee Miringoff told NY1 in a Zoom interview Tuesday that the governor needs to strategize better when it comes to making big, controversial policy decisions and then selling them to the public.

“Like on congestion pricing, she sort of has gotten to where she ended up, but it was not a smooth process,” he said.

Since May, Hochul concentrated on a full court press selling a major crackdown on social media’s harmful impacts through two pieces of legislation.

“She is the first mom governor. This is smart. People want their children to have a positive, bright future, people are protective of their children — go on offense! This is a real accomplishment, campaign on this,” Trip Yang, a political consultant, said.

Although the bills passed both chambers of the legislature before session ended on June 8, Shontell Smith, now a partner at Tusk Strategies who served as state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins’ chief of staff, told NY1 those successes were “overshadowed” by the congestion pricing debacle.

The governor is now taking her interest in protecting New York kids a step further: exploring banning cell phones in schools through an extended summer tour.

“So, if I were the governor, or what I think the governor is doing right now, is coming up with hopefully plans so when [the] session starts in January, this is how she’s gonna restart the conversation and show New Yorkers that she has an actual plan to deal with congestion as a whole,” she said.

Hochul now finds herself in the national spotlight. For weeks, she was a chief defender of the embattled commander-in-chief.

“Her summer has been dominated by the politics and making sure that New York plays a role on the national stage at the [Democratic National Convention],” Yang said.

“Now I think she’s realizing she’s got to step up and become more of a leader and directing things,” added Miringoff.

But she’s battling poor polling, including record low favorability ratings just last month in a Siena College poll.

“She had wins this year. She had first in the nation social media bill. She had a really good budget where she tackled housing and other things that were priorities for her,” Smith said. “I think she takes on the tough issues, she just doesn’t allow enough time for her to celebrate those issues.”

Meanwhile, Hochul said on Monday during a press conference at her Midtown Manhattan office that she’s overseeing campaigns in the half dozen battleground congressional districts.

“Incumbent members of Congress like Pat Ryan,” she said, name checking the freshman Democratic congressman representing New York’s 18th District.

“I look forward to helping all of them with the resources, the boots on the ground. The fact that we opened up 35 — or will soon have — 35 offices, campaign offices, unprecedented for a governor to be involved at that level,” Hochul continued, describing efforts she’s spearheading with the New York state Democratic Party.

She headlined a virtual meeting Monday night where approximately 260 New York delegates, who voted unanimously to back Harris as Biden's replacement at the top of the Democratic ticket, attended.

“She wants to kind of get better positioned, become more of a player in politics generally. Not just in New York. But I think she’s trying to elevate her profile,” Miringoff said.

Yang said Hochul is worried about not making gains and even losing seats come November.

“Focusing in and prioritizing these half a dozen or so New York congressional seats is going to make or break the house of representatives for the Democrats,” Yang said.

Democrats have less than a month before their national convention in Chicago, which is slated to begin on Aug. 19.