Gov. Kathy Hochul has selected her running mate as she prepares to face off against Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in November.
Who exactly the governor has chosen to replace current Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado remained a mystery Tuesday evening.
“There has only been one offer made and one person accepted,” Hochul told reporters at a Tuesday morning news conference.
The governor refuted reports emerging from the state Capitol in recent weeks that she is having trouble selecting a new number two and has faced multiple rejections.
Hochul insisted that while some potential candidates declined to be vetted and removed themselves from the running, her first formal choice is waiting in the wings for an official announcement later this week, ahead of the state Democratic convention in Syracuse on Friday.
“Before the end of the convention, all will be told— but I understand, people let us know that they don’t want to go through vetting for whatever reason,” she said.
NY1’s statehouse reporter Bernadette Hogan reported Tuesday that she has been told the choice is ‘likely none’ of the initial slate of potential running mates reported last week, including NYS Secretary of State Walter Mosley, Robert Rodriguez, the state dormitory authority’s president, Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez and Assemblymember Brian Cunningham.
Sources told Spectrum News 1 the campaign is doing a decent job keeping the decision quiet, but multiple individuals had heard potential chatter — including that the pick may be someone from outside of government.
It would be Hochul’s third lieutenant governor in five years. Before Delgado, her first LG, Brian Benjamin, resigned following a now-dismissed federal indictment. The governor’s LG troubles left few entirely surprised when she and the state legislature struck a deal as part of last year’s state budget to have the governor and lieutenant governor run as a ticket in the primary, rather than having a separate primary for both before running together in the general election.
Hochul will go into the convention on Friday with fresh poll numbers in her race against Blakeman, with a recent Siena University poll showing the incumbent leading 54-28%.
“Damn good,” Hochul said when asked to respond to the numbers.
Blakeman pointed to a different section of the poll, which showed that 51% of those surveyed would prefer someone other than Hochul, as good news for his campaign.
“This poll confirms that a majority of New Yorkers want a new governor because Kathy Hochul’s policies have caused taxes, electricity bills, and insurance premiums to soar, and New York to become unaffordable,” he said in a statement to Spectrum News 1.
Immigration and how the candidates respond to the Trump Administration’s crackdown is quickly becoming a key issue in the race.
Blakeman and Hochul have sparred publicly this week over the governor’s proposal to end agreements between local governments and ICE, known as 287(g) agreements, in the state budget — which Nassau County has.
Hochul’s campaign accused Blakeman of fighting “harder to protect Donald Trump than he ever has for New York families,” while Blakeman called Hochul the most pro-criminal governor in the country.
The governor expects the legislature to take the issue up before the rest of the budget, but she wasn’t prepared to say when that would happen on Tuesday, and there were no immediate plans for the legislative leaders to get the process off the ground this week.
“They want to work on it soon,” Hochul said of state lawmakers.
Hochul said Tuesday that she hasn’t spoken directly to Trump about the proposal, but she has a message for the White House.
“I have not spoken to the president,” she said. “This has been an epic overreach in the way they have conducted themselves, and it’s not just ICE agents, for some reason, Border Patrol— I’d rather they be up on the northern border making sure I don’t get drug traffickers from Canada.”
While Blakeman bragged on Monday that his county has the most comprehensive agreement with ICE in the country.
“We have it with our sheriff’s department and our police department, and guess what? We haven’t had any issues, we haven’t had any problems. Recently, 46 illegal migrants with criminal records were removed from my county,” he said.