Can two women lead New York? Hochul and Adams say ‘Yes’

Gov. Kathy Hochul has selected Adrienne Adams, New York City’s first Black woman City Council speaker, as her running mate in the 2026 gubernatorial race. Although having two women on the same ticket is not unheard of in other states, it’s unprecedented for New York.

Hochul is currently the leading Democratic candidate for governor since her former lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, announced that he was suspending his campaign on February 10. On the Republican side, Bruce Blakeman is running against Hochul. Congressmember Elise Stefanik, who was shaping up to be a serious contender to Hochul, also dropped out of the race.

In New York, the governor and lieutenant governor candidates run together on the same ticket, unlike in other states where the two run separately and are both nominated, as well as elected, by voters. While the overwhelming majority of these have been men in U.S. history, currently there are at least four states that have had all-woman gubernatorial tickets and were successful.

“What happens initially is … there’s this huge flurry of stories about how this is so unusual, and then you have to think back on the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of same-gender tickets that we’ve seen that are men,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. “And no one writes a story about that.”

In the 2022 Iowa governor’s race, both major party candidates for governor were women, with Republican incumbent Kim Reynolds defeating Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear. In Arkansas, Republicans Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Leslie Rutledge were nominated and ran separately but won their races for governor and lieutenant governor in 2022. In that same year, Democrats Maura Healey, who made history as the first out lesbian governor, and Kim Driscoll ran separately in the primary, but as a joint all-woman ticket in their general election in Massachusetts. Lastly, Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Ghazala Hashmi made history when they won in Virginia in 2025.

“The discussion is will voters vote for two women to lead their state. I would like to just comment that Massachusetts, Arkansas, Virginia, and Iowa have women leading their state in both of those positions and they have managed to survive,” said Walsh.

There are also numerous instances where all-woman teams who were candidates, either together or ran separately, over the last 32 years, but the Illinois race in 1994 was one of the first instances where two women, Democrats Dawn Clark Netsch and Penny Severns, were together on the ballot going into the primary.

In New York State, the primary will occur on June 23, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026.

Gender and governance
“My first day in office over four years ago, I took a little liberty and adapted Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech,” Hochul said at the New York State Democratic Convention in Syracuse on February 6. The state delegates formally voted to nominate Hochul and Adams as the Dem candidates — an historic designation. “It’s not the critic who counts, but the critic goes to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust, sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly. And I said then, well, for the first time, New York had a woman in the arena.”

Hochul became New York’s first female governor after former Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned due to several sexual harassment scandals in 2021. She was his lieutenant governor at the time. She went on to run for and win her first full term as governor in her own right in 2023. However, she has not had great luck with her running mates, both of whom were Black men.

Harlem’s Brian Benjamin served as her first lieutenant governor, but was forced to resign as he battled federal fraud charges in court in 2022. Those charges were later thrown out by a federal judge later that year, but the damage had been done to his political career. To replace Benjamin, Hochul brought former Congressmember Antonio Delgado from Schenectady. He was the state’s first Afro-Latino in the role and served with Hochul until 2024. The first rift between him and Hochul became apparent when Delgado called for former President Joe Biden to end his presidential campaign against then-candidate Donald Trump.

* Former NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (left) and Governor Kathy Hochul (right) in Syracuse on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.
(Photo credit: Contributed by Hochul’s campaign)

Clearly, Hochul’s attempts to pick a conventional man of color who appeals to downstate New York City voters weren’t working.

“I’m not saying she’s doing it for altruistic reasons,” said Walsh. “I’m saying she’s making lots of political calculations here, but she is pushing back on a very conventional wisdom and political strategy, which is if you’re a woman candidate running for chief executive, you don’t pick a woman as your running mate.”

Adams said in a statement that she was “honored” to be chosen. During her brief run for mayor of New York City last year, it was also rumored that she was interested in being Hochul’s running mate.

“As NYC Council speaker, I spent every day working to find common ground on affordable housing, child care, and lowering costs for New Yorkers struggling to get by,” said Adams. “We made progress, but there’s more work to do — and with Governor Kathy Hochul’s leadership, we’re going to get it done together.”

Hochul and Adams are receiving much support from political allies. They have been endorsed by heavy hitters like state Democratic Party Chair Jay S. Jacobs; New York State Attorney General Letitia James, a long-time friend of Adams’s; and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

In an op-ed for The Nation, Mamdani praised Hochul’s financial support for universal child care and working together to defend democracy. “New Yorkers deserve leaders who believe in transformation,” he wrote.

“Governor Hochul couldn’t have picked a better running mate than Adrienne Adams, a proud daughter of Southeast Queens who’s worked hard to lower costs for New Yorkers, protect their health care, and keep our communities safe,” said Jacobs in a statement. “As Donald Trump and Bruce Blakeman spend every day attacking the state of New York, our ticket will be led by two moms who’ve spent their careers fighting for affordability — and with Governor Hochul and Adrienne Adams’s leadership this year, we’re going to build the movement necessary to take back the House and get Democrats elected up and down the ballot.”

There also has been plenty of unexpected resistance to Adams in the lieutenant governor position.

Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn pushed the Brooklyn County Dems to endorse Hochul for re-election early on February 3, but as soon as Adams was announced as her pick, the Kings County (Brooklyn) Democratic County Committee executives immediately tried to rescind the endorsement without all voting parties present.

They called Adams as Hochul’s running mate a “political miscalculation on the part of the Governor’s campaign and their failure to engage or consult Brooklyn Democratic leaders.” The chaotic coup of sorts was short-lived, though. Bichotte Hermelyn was very visibly at the convention in Syracuse in support of Hochul and Adams. The Brooklyn Dems party changed their tune and put out a statement also endorsing them.

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