UPDATED: 03 MAY 2022 05:25 PM EST
ALBANY, N.Y — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday named Rep. Antonio Delgado as New York’s next lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy left by her former second-in-command, who was arrested on federal bribery charges and resigned last month.
Hochul called Delgado “a rising star with a resume to match” during the official announcement in Albany that was attended by his wife, Lacey, and their twin 8-year-old sons, Maxwell and Coltrane, who offered occasional commentary on the proceedings in matching gray blazers.
Delgado said he is “beyond excited to get out there and connect with the people of New York,” specifically pointing to work he’s done to send economic development funds to local communities and link agricultural markets upstate to markets downstate.
“As we embark on this journey together, I look forward to connecting with diverse communities all across New York,” he said. “I look forward to building meaningful relationships, to tapping into the goodness of our collective power. “
The move gives Hochul a proven vote-getter and a minority candidate from upstate New York, where she has been vulnerable. It also pulls Delgado out of a potentially competitive House race in New York — a seat that could run across the Hudson Valley and into central New York, depending on how the lines are drawn.
“We're going to continue to work to make sure there's a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and even the Senate, because those are the individuals who deliver to us. … But also we have to have the best team here as well,” Hochul said. “I said I would find the best and we found the very best: someone who understands the power of government to do good for people, and he is the partner I want to have.”
Hochul said the exact timeline of Delgado’s resignation from Congress is still to be determined, but he will make the transition at some point this month. She also said it’s not yet clear when a special election might be held to elect an individual to fulfill the remainder of his term through the end of the year, but “we'll be happy to announce that as soon as we figure out what that looks like.”
A special election would likely need to be held within 50 days of Delgado’s resignation from Congress.
The selection comes less than a month after Brian Benjamin — whom Hochul picked for the job last summer — was arrested on federal bribery charges and resigned. And it comes the morning after state legislators approved a bill that would let Hochul’s selection appear on the ballot instead of Benjamin’s in the primary that is currently scheduled for June.
Hochul said she understands there are concerns about her judgment following what many saw as a lax vetting process in selecting Benjamin, but that she is confident in the all-clear on Delgado from her team of political veterans and lawyers.
“We brought outside individuals together to begin a very, very thorough vetting process,” she said. “Obviously it involves state police, disclosure forms, and it was a deep dive into the background. So yes, that is something that we took very, very seriously. And I know we got it right.”
It could be argued that Delgado is as vetted as any politician in New York. His race against Republican Rep. John Faso in 2018 was one of the country’s most competitive, and the GOP clearly sunk massive amounts into opposition research.
The best dirt they could find was that he once made a brief attempt at a rap career under the name “AD The Voice.” Republicans drowned out the television airwaves with ads highlighting this fact, but that seemed to have earned them as many accusations of dog whistling as votes.
(“I’m expecting to see a lot of that on the campaign trail,” Hochul said Tuesday of Delgado’s rapping.)
Delgado, who describes himself as African American and Cape Verdean, is in his second term representing a sprawling district that includes his home in suburban Poughkeepsie. He attended Colgate University, earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford and received a law degree from Harvard Law School. He is also a member of the Upstate New York Basketball Hall of Fame (a detail Hochul said she found out only Tuesday) thanks to his career in high school in Schenectady then later at Colgate University.
His political future became a bit more uncertain last week after a state court tossed out the congressional lines and let a judge take over the process. It’s yet to be determined what his swing district will look like in this year’s elections.
Delgado will now be on the primary ballot for the lieutenant governor contest, currently scheduled for June 28, in which he’ll seek a full term. He’ll be running against former New York City Council Member Diana Reyna and activist Ana Maria Archila.
Archila — New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ running mate — has gained a growing list of endorsements in the weeks since Benjamin’s departure. Now, she’ll have to face off against an experienced official who will likely have access to many millions more dollars than anybody else in the contest. Already she has begun to attack him as a moderate, sending out a list of 14 questions about topics such as his “support of Donald Trump’s move to send troops to the southern border.”
Delgado’s elevation also adds to the upheaval in the race for his congressional seat, which has spent the past decade as the state’s most competitive.
He had been poised to face off against Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro in a district redesigned by Democrats earlier this year to be friendlier to Democrats than the one he won in 2018.
“I think it says more about his lack of confidence running against Marcus Molinaro that he prefers to become lieutenant governor for seven months,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin, who has GOP leaders’ backing in that party’s gubernatorial primary. “But one way or the other, this was a decision that he chose to make that is going to result in the end of his time in elected office come the end of 2022.”
Democrats have started eyeing Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan as a potential candidate.
But it remains unclear what the district will wind up looking like. A Steuben County court is currently redesigning the congressional district lines after the Democratic-drawn ones were tossed last week, and it’s far from clear what the new lines will look like.
A map that connects Dutchess County with places near Albany could be a lock for Democrats, one that captures more of upstate could be safely Republican, while one that moves further south could place it in the same seat as somebody like Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.
Joseph Spector contributed to this report.
