Antonio Delgado Ascends
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Antonio Delgado, a congressman from the Hudson Valley, to be her lieutenant governor, three weeks after her running mate resigned due to his indictment by federal prosecutors.
As I reported last week in The Wall Street Journal, the appointment caps a period of political turmoil for the Democratic governor who faced a barrage of attacks after former Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin was charged in a bribery scheme. (He has pleaded not guilty.)
Delgado was first elected in 2018. Democrats took back the U.S. House of Representatives that year, fueled by anti-Trump sentiment. Delgado won in the 11-county 19th District, which covers the Hudson valley and Catskills. Barack Obama carried the district twice, but Republicans Chris Gibson and John Faso held the seat since its creation in 2012.
Delgado got an unexpectedly easy ride in 2020, and the area was shaping up to be competitive in November. I say area instead of district because the seat’s exact contours are still being drawn by a state court, because the initial lines were ruled unconstitutional. (See how all these stories are different pieces of the same puzzle?)
“The House’s loss will be New York State’s gain,” U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and member of the House leadership, said in The New York Times. That’s both a statement of praise and an acknowledgment that Delgado leaving the field will complicate Democrats’ efforts to hold the seat.
It initially seemed that Hochul could be stuck with a running-mate who was openly critical of her administration. Under New York’s election laws, a person can only be removed from the ballot if they die, move out of state or are nominated for another office. This is why candidates who lose primaries are put forward as candidates for quixotic judgeships, or in the case of Cynthia Nixon, a state Assembly seat.
It took some maneuvering, but what are laws when all your friends make them? Hochul successfully pushed the state Assembly and Senate to approve a bill last Monday that let Benjamin (or anyone who is charged or convicted of a crime) decline his nomination, even though the deadline had passed. That let the governor’s allies at the Democratic State Committee fill the vacancy.
“This ticket has what it takes to carry Democrats through November and build a stronger state for all New Yorkers,” New York State Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs said in a statement.
But the whole episode was at best an unwelcome distraction for Hochul, as Anna Gronewold writes in POLITICO. Or worse, as Hunter Walker wrote in New York Magazine, the latest sign that the honeymoon with the state’s political class is over. The legislation to jettison Benjamin passed by a narrow margin in both legislative chambers as Hochul’s progressive critics complained. The whole thing, primary challenger Jumaane Williams said, is the “kind of shenanigans that turn voters off.”
YAY MOMS: Happy Mother’s Day!
THE QUESTION: Antonio Delgado’s parents worked at Schenectady’s marquee employer. What is it?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: The NASCAR Hall of Fame is in Charlotte, N.C.