The observation that politics often makes for strange bedfellows is now offering an extra-strange New York example.

It features an unlikely gift from Gov. Hochul to her predecessor and perpetual tormentor, Andrew Cuomo.

Although she was his running mate and Lt. Governor for two terms, they were barely speaking by the time Cuomo was forced out of Albany nearly four years ago.

To this day, their mutual loathing is palpable.

So how then to explain that Hochul threw Cuomo a huge last-minute lifeline in his race for mayor?

To be sure, an obvious reason is to help herself in her re-election quest next year. But the immediate impact is a boost for Cuomo in his bid for City Hall.

You would assume the last thing she wants is to see him sitting in City Hall next year, badgering her and settling scores when she’s running for re-election. Yet that could be the result of her move.

Here’s the scenario: Cuomo is in a tightening race to be the Democrats’ nominee, with Election Day this Tuesday.

He leads in the polls but his chief rival, Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, has been gaining and the early-voting turnout has surged among young people, the core of Mamdani’s hard-left base.

Moreover, with the city using the ranked-choice voting system, Mamdani has an extra advantage and could ultimately get the votes of four additional lefty candidates in the race through a series of cross endorsements.

Hochul’s shocking help to Cuomo came in response to a question about Mamdani’s radical economic platform, which consists of a bunch of free giveaways —buses, child care, etc.

All of it would be funded by imposing even higher income taxes on the top 1 percent of New York City residents and hiking the corporate tax.

It’s part of the progressive playbook he’s been selling for months, and his climb in the polls has encouraged other candidates to promote their own expensive wish lists and tax proposals.

Hochul has been silent all along, but suddenly, and very late in the game, she decided to throw cold water on the proposals that are the heart of Mamdani’s eat-the-rich campaign.

Asked in a TV interview if she backed his tax plans, the Democratic governor flatly replied, “No.”

“I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue,” she said. “I don’t want to lose any more people to Palm Beach. We’ve lost enough . . . so let’s be smart about this.”

Whoa, Nellie.

Hochul’s answer was clearly prepared in advance, with her adopting Mamdani’s theme of an “affordability crisis” and turning it on its head to use it as a reason not to implement his agenda.

In doing so, she effectively kills his proposals because he would need her and the Democratic-controlled Legislature’s approval to put his taxes into law.

And given the timing, her answer could be intended to blunt his late surge by signaling to his supporters his ideas are dead on arrival in Albany.

Her answer also reveals the outline of Hochul’s 2026 campaign. She’s effectively taken tax hikes off the table, and if she were to flip-flop next year, she’d be toast.

So her answer on Mamdani is as much about her own campaign as his.

Besides, as troubling as Cuomo would be in City Hall, even worse would be the charismatic 33-year-old Mamdani, pushing her and the Legislature even further left.

There’s also the added baggage of his long trail of antisemitism at a time when Israel is fighting for its survival on several fronts and Dems already are home to Jew-hating Reps Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Having Mamdani, a Muslim, as the mayor of the city with the world’s largest Jewish population has some top Dems worried that his election would further damage the party’s troubled brand.

Politico reports that Third Way, a center-left Dem think tank, is “alarmed” by how Mamdani’s positions on Israel and other issues, past and present, would be a feast for Republicans in New York and nationally.

The outlet cites a Third Way memo that describes “defunding the police, closing jails, banning private healthcare and operating city-owned grocery stores as positions American voters would find beyond the pale.”

They got that right.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that Hochul’s rejection of new taxes also amounts to a reversal of her tenure so far.

Although she’s lately been prattling about “putting money in people’s pockets,” the happy talk follows years of hikes in fees and taxes on New Yorkers to feed the budget beast she’s created.

As the cost of living in New York continues to soar, she’s responsible for policies that have been driving a record number of New Yorkers out of the city and state, including to Palm Beach, Fla.

Recall that during her tight race against GOP nominee Lee Zeldin in 2022, Hochul at one point demanded that he and other Republicans “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?,” before adding: “You are not New Yorkers.”

The fact that the GOP is toothless in both Albany and City Hall has allowed her party to continually jack up the outrageously high costs of government and be tougher on cops than on criminals.

Hochul’s role in the disaster are certain to be the centerpiece of the GOP campaign against her next year, especially with New York moving rightward.

In the 2024 election, the Empire State had the biggest swing of any blue state toward President Trump, who carried 43 percent of the vote, against just 37 percent in 2020.

Hochul has made herself vulnerable with her implementation of congestion pricing, along with other taxes that are examples of her own drunken-sailor budgeting.

The fact that several tax measures were designed to fund the always-broke MTA is no excuse because she controls the agency and has done zero to reform its wasteful ways. Her only answer has been to throw more money at it.

Still, her response to Mamdani suggests she belatedly realizes there is validity and votes in the argument that the city and state have reached a tax-and-spend breaking point.

As I noted recently, just 6,000 wealthy families in a city of 8.5 million people pay 48 percent of Gotham’s personal income tax, which raises about $16 billion a year.

These families are the geese who lay the golden eggs for both City Hall and Albany, and with the quality of life declining as the cost of living soars, the last thing the politicians should be doing is giving people new reasons to leave.

In Hochul’s case, it’s relatively easy for her to say no to Mamdani, whose plans definitely would make the problems worse. The real test is whether she has any ideas that could stop the exodus already happening on her watch.