Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado is running for governor, challenging the very person who appointed him to statewide office in 2022: Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Delgado formally launched his campaign on Monday with a video that touts his upstate roots and calls for “ bold, decisive, transformational leadership.”
His entry into the race sets up a Democratic primary clash with Hochul, who is running for a second full term in 2026.
“ Listen, the powerful and well-connected have their champions,” Delgado, the former congressional representative from the Hudson Valley, said in the video. “I'm running for governor to be yours.”
Hochul hand-selected Delgado for the No. 2 role in 2022 before winning a full term alongside him the same year. But the two quickly had a falling out over Delgado’s role — or lack thereof — in the governor’s administration, which spilled into public view when the lieutenant governor broke with Hochul to call on then-President Joe Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee.
In February, Delgado announced he wouldn’t run alongside Hochul again in 2026, all while flirting with a gubernatorial run of his own.
Delgado served in Congress from 2019 until he was appointed lieutenant governor, representing a district that included his hometown of Rhinebeck. A Schenectady native, Delgado attended Colgate University and Harvard University, both of which he highlighted in his launch video.
In recent weeks, Delgado appeared at town hall meetings across parts of New York in what was a clear precursor to his gubernatorial run.
Hochul’s poll numbers have been middling for much of her time in office, with a Siena College poll last month finding 44% of New York voters have a favorable opinion of her, compared to 46% with an unfavorable view.
But Delgado still faces an uphill climb. Hochul, a Democrat, is a prodigious campaign fundraiser, and that same Siena poll showed 58% of voters did not know who Delgado was or had no opinion of him.
It’s not the first time a lieutenant governor has run against a governor in New York.
In 1998, then-Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey ran against then-Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, on a third-party line. Pataki easily won re-election.
Hochul’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
A Hochul foe-turned-ally, however, had words of caution for the lieutenant governor.
“Antonio, you are a talented guy, with a great future,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat whom Hochul trounced in a Democratic primary in 2022, wrote on social media. “Based upon my experience this may not be the most well-thought out idea.”
Aside from Delgado, Rep. Ritchie Torres of the Bronx has also flirted with a potential Democratic primary run against Hochul.
Among the Republicans who have been mentioned as potential candidates are Rep. Elise Stefanik of northern New York, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Rep. Mike Lawler of the Hudson Valley.
