For the US and its local allies in Yemen, the choice now is:
1. to increase the stakes,
2. or to fold.

The Hodeidah port and the surrounding area is a crucial location for receiving imports for the Houthis.
The coast is also essential for the prosecution of the Houthis’ campaign against shipping.

US air support would be vital for any such campaign.
In the past, specifically in 2015, Saudi Arabia and UAE backed forces performed poorly and without great success against the Houthis.

At that time, however, the US was ambivalent regarding the offensive and unconvinced at the danger of Iranian expansion represented by Houthi advances.
This time around, the situation would be different, with the US likely to play an active role supporting any such offensive.

It may well be that the forces associated with the official Yemeni government observed the rapid success of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, which derived largely from Israel’s prior weakening of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization.

Without this, Hezbollah would almost certainly have intervened to save the Assad regime, very possibly stopping the advance of HTS before Homs or Hama.

Still, weakened by US bombing or not, the Houthis are a force very different from the hollow army of the Assad regime.
Such an offensive, like actions of its type, would be something of a gamble.