Antonio Delgado, Hochul’s No. 2, will challenge her in governor’s race

By Jeffery C. Mays

When Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York chose Antonio Delgado to be her lieutenant governor in 2022, she had nothing but the highest praise for her new No. 2.

She said Delgado, then a rising Black political star who represented a competitive House district, was a “battle-tested campaigner.” She praised his work ethic and said that his ability to “unite communities” would serve her administration’s goals.

Three years later, their partnership has completely disintegrated. After months of open political warfare with Hochul, Delgado said Monday he would challenge her in next year’s Democratic primary.

“People are hurting and New York deserves better leadership,” Delgado said in an interview. “There’s an absence of bold, decisive, transformational leadership.”

That phrase has become the theme for Delgado’s campaign, the first official challenge to Hochul, and a message he repeats in a video announcing his candidacy.

He never mentions Hochul by name in the video, but he suggests that everyday New Yorkers deserve a governor with a vision to fight for them as they face unaffordable housing, child care and health care costs.

“Listen, the powerful and well-connected have their champions,” Delgado says in the announcement. “I’m running for governor to be yours.”

There had been widespread speculation that Delgado, 48, planned to mount a primary challenge to Hochul. When he announced in February that he would not seek reelection as her running mate, few raised their eyebrows, because the pair had been at odds for months.

It is rare for a lieutenant governor to run against a sitting governor, but Delgado is known for taking an unconventional path, including with his decision to leave Congress, where he represented a House district in the Hudson Valley, to become Hochul’s No. 2.

While polls do appear to show that Hochul may be vulnerable — 55% of registered voters in a Siena College poll last month said they would prefer to elect someone else as governor — Delgado is still considered a long shot. Hochul is a fundraising behemoth who raised a record $60 million during her last election.

The governor’s poll numbers have also begun to rebound, and Delgado remains relatively unknown. Almost 60% of voters in the Siena College poll had no opinion of him. He would lose to Hochul 46% to 12% in a primary contest held now, the survey found.

The response from some of Delgado’s colleagues in Albany, New York’s capital, and Washington was less than enthusiastic.

Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., whom Delgado supported when he ran successfully for his former seat, praised Hochul and said on social media that he was “all in” for her. Carl Heastie, speaker of the state Assembly, said Democrats needed to unite to face the “serious harm New York is facing from Republicans in Washington.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who challenged Hochul in the 2022 Democratic primary, wrote on social media of Delgado’s announcement, “Based upon my experience this may not be the most well thought out idea!” And Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said it wasn’t Delgado’s time.

“He would be good for the state in the future,” Espaillat said.

Delgado said he was undeterred by the polling and naysayers and believed that by running for governor, he was demonstrating his commitment to the people who elected him.

“I haven’t seen a vision,” Delgado said of Hochul. “I haven’t seen a decisive leadership that is clear-eyed.”

His relationship with the governor began to fray last year as Hochul was serving as a surrogate for then-President Joe Biden. Delgado called on him in July to drop his reelection bid after a poor debate performance. The governor responded that she disagreed with Delgado but that he had a right to voice his opinion.

In February, Delgado publicly veered away from Hochul again to call for the resignation of Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, who was facing federal corruption charges and accusations that he engaged in a quid pro quo with the Trump administration to have his indictment dismissed.

Hochul, facing pressure to remove Adams from office, issued a sharp rebuke, saying through a spokesperson that Delgado “does not now and has not ever spoken on behalf of this administration.”

The schism reached its low point in late winter, when Hochul took Delgado’s office space and most of his staff. She stripped him of his role as chair of the state’s regional economic development councils, and confiscated his state-issued electronic devices.

Delgado said in the interview he first realized that he would not be part of Hochul’s decision-making process months after he became lieutenant governor, when she nominated Justice Hector D. LaSalle as the first Latino to lead New York’s highest court.

Left-leaning state Democratic leaders worried that LaSalle was too conservative, and they warned Hochul that his nomination likely faced insurmountable opposition. He went on to become the first nominee for chief judge to be rejected by the state Senate.

“The conversation was more or less, here’s who we’re going with,” Delgado said.

Aides to Hochul, meanwhile, felt as if Delgado did not put in the work needed to be a full governing partner, turning down opportunities to travel statewide and make public appearances.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, has also indicated he might challenge Hochul in the primary. Potential Republican challengers include Reps. Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik, both of whom have signaled that they may run. In a statement, Stefanik said Delgado’s announcement showed that Hochul had “lost support” from her own party.

Delgado, a married father of two, is a former hip-hop artist and Rhodes scholar who graduated from Harvard Law School.

He has crisscrossed the state in the lead-up to his announcement. On a recent Sunday, he traveled to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn to attend services at Epiphany Church, where much of the congregation lining up for three packed services were of color and in their 20s.

Assembly member Stefani Zinerman, who accompanied Delgado, said voters seemed interested in hearing “what he’s been doing and what he wants to do.”

At the Michelle Obama Community Democratic Club in Harlem, Cordell Cleare, a state senator who founded the club, gave Delgado an encouraging introduction, though she did not endorse him.

“We can pick our candidates,” Cleare said.