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Antonio Delgado ends bid to unseat Kathy Hochul as New York Democratic governor
By
Jimmy Vielkind
Published Feb 10, 2026
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By
Jimmy Vielkind
Published Feb 10, 2026
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Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado ended his insurgent primary bid against Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday, saying “there simply is no viable path forward.”
The 49-year-old former congressmember ran to Hochul’s left and criticized the moderate incumbent for not pushing to raise taxes on the rich or enacting measures to protect immigrants.
“Though my campaign has come to an end, I fully intend to do all I can in our effort to build a more humane, affordable and equitable state that serves all New Yorkers,” he said in a statement. “I will also support Democrats in our effort to hold the line against Trump and take back our democracy.”
In his statement, Delgado neither offered support for Hochul nor mentioned her by name.
The abrupt end of Delgado’s bid came after several days of setbacks, which were the culmination of months of concerted pressure by Hochul and her team. It further eases the path for Hochul after the candidate preferred by many Republicans, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, ended her campaign in December.
Delgado and his running mate, Buffalo nurse India Walton, received 14.7% of the vote of Democratic delegates at the party convention Friday and then failed to secure an endorsement from the progressive Working Families Party on Saturday.
A recent Siena University poll showed Hochul leading Delgado by 53 percentage points. The governor’s campaign has 20 times as much cash on hand as Delgado’s $1.1 million war chest.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed Hochul on the eve of the Democratic convention. So did major labor unions and every Democratic member of the state’s U.S. House delegation – including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Hochul had dismissed Delgado’s challenge as an ego trip. Her aides have said he was unwilling to hit the stump and sell Hochul’s agenda – the traditional job of a lieutenant governor. They also mocked his showing at the convention.
On Tuesday, Hochul campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said Democrats are now united in their campaign against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Republicans are convening on Long Island this week to formally nominate Blakeman.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat from Yonkers, said it was a “good idea” that Delgado ended his bid.
“Last week was very definitive,” she said. “Even the more progressive folks, whether it was the mayor of New York City or AOC – I mean, it was just very clear that there was nothing that defined him particularly, in a way that would make him catch on.”
Delgado said in a recent interview that he was undermined by Hochul and kept from having any substantive role in the cabinet. The friction between them became public in July 2024, when Delgado said on social media that then-President Joe Biden should end his presidential campaign after a meandering performance in a June debate. Hochul was still backing Biden’s continued candidacy at the time.
The governor then moved an initiative to encourage student volunteerism out of Delgado’s portfolio and instead launched it through SUNY. A person hired on Delgado’s staff was transferred away.
At the start of 2025, Delgado again broke with Hochul and said then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams should step down after the Trump administration pushed prosecutors to drop corruption charges against Adams so he could help enforce immigration laws.
Two weeks later, Delgado said he wouldn’t be Hochul’s running mate in 2026. He kicked off his gubernatorial campaign in June, working closely with progressive groups like Citizen Action.
He staked out positions to Hochul’s left on taxation and pushing for protection for immigrants. Delgado said in a recent interview that Mamdani’s win in the crowded mayoral primary was “proof of concept” for his own campaign and that the two have a relationship of “mutual respect.”
“I sensed that there was a hunger for a different type of energy,” Delgado said in an interview last week. “And I think that that's where he was able to tap into, that he was able to tap into that smoldering discontent.”
But it never translated into support. Just two state lawmakers from Brooklyn endorsed Delgado’s campaign. The Working Families Party opted on Saturday to put a placeholder candidate on its line, closing off another easy lane for Delgado to gain ballot access.
WFP Co-Director Jasmine Gripper said Delgado, who represented parts of the Hudson Valley in Congress, “isn’t well-known, especially to voters in New York City, which make up 50% of the electorate in a statewide election.”
Washington County Democratic Chair Jay Bellanca supported progressive insurgents in the last two gubernatorial campaigns, but said he wasn’t impressed with Delgado’s voting record in Congress.
“He’s selling himself as this progressive, but he’s not!” Bellanca said before backing Hochul at the convention. “He’s just telling people what they want to hear.”
And Hochul put her thumb on the Democratic establishment, which she has essentially controlled since becoming governor in 2021, party officials said.
Caitlin Ogden, who chairs the local Democratic committee in Otsego County, said Hochul’s team pushed every county party chair to sign a letter endorsing her candidacy last year and threatened to withhold support from a coordinated campaign that helps local parties.
“I was upset that … there were very thinly veiled threats made,” Ogden said before helping to nominate Delgado at the convention.
Democratic State Chair Jay Jacobs denied that Hochul and her team had made any threats. Just after Hochul’s overwhelming showing at the convention, he said Delgado should end his bid.
“A primary is not free,” he said. “A primary is going to cost the governor $6 million at least. That $6 million, in my judgment, would better be utilized in a coordinated campaign that helps re-elect some of our Democratic members of Congress and maybe even pick up seats.”
It’s unclear how Delgado will spend the remainder of his term as lieutenant governor. He has no official portfolio beyond presiding over the state Senate – something Stewart-Cousins said she hopes he continues to do.
Delgado now has just one person on his staff, payroll records show. Previous lieutenants, including Hochul, tend to have at least a half-dozen staffers, according to interviews with former officials and their aides.
Delgado was barred from using the governor’s office suite in Manhattan last year, he said, and payroll records show three people were terminated from his staff last spring.
Delgado said recently that he sees his current job as a “people’s advocate” – raising concerns and pushing the administration on policy. His description sounded indistinguishable from his role as a candidate, said former Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, who served from 2011 to 2015 before he was succeeded by Hochul.
“The job of lieutenant governor is not to be an independent liaison to the people. It's really to serve the administration,” Duffy said. “Perhaps it’s just my personal view, but to run against your boss, to run against the person who gave you the opportunity – I find it wrong.”
Tagged
Kathy Hochul
Politics
antonio delgado
new york state
Jimmy Vielkind
Jimmy Vielkind covers how state government and politics affect people throughout New York. He has covered Albany since 2008, most recently as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Jimmy led a team of reporters that won a New York Press Club award for coverage of Andrew Cuomo’s downfall and was on a team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for coverage of Amazon’s HQ2 process. A native of the Capitol Region, Jimmy has two degrees in urban planning. His position is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reach Jimmy at [email protected].
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