State Assemblymember Didi Barrett is facing a Democratic primary challenge in New York’s 10th state\u00a0Assembly District.<\/p>\n
First elected in a special March 2012 contest, Barrett is the first woman and Democrat to represent the district, which consists of portions of Columbia and Dutchess counties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud to have helped educate both my colleagues and the leadership in the state about how important our Hudson Valley is, and what our needs are,\u201d Barrett said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her opponent, Sam Hodge, is an attorney who served as Columbia County\u2019s Democratic Committee chair from 2021 to 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe registered thousands of Democrats and we turned Columbia County, which was a red county, into what\u2019s now kind of royal blue,\u201d Hodge said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both candidates told Spectrum News 1 their top priority is affordability, from childcare to housing and utility bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur constituents are really struggling with utility bills that are out of sight. I mean, we\u2019re seeing [that] obviously at the gas pump too,\u201d Barrett said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s affecting people in Poughkeepsie, and it\u2019s affecting people in New Lebanon and Hudson and everywhere else,\u201d Hodge said. \u201cSo we have to meet the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hodge said he launched his campaign partly due to disappointment in Barrett, pointing to utility and fossil fuel PAC contributions to her campaign while serving as chair of the Assembly\u2019s Energy Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy votes have never been for sale,\u201d Barrett said, adding she\u2019s passed legislation to protect ratepayers.<\/p>\n
Hodge thinks it\u2019s time for new voices in Albany with \u201cbold solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be that person,\u201d Hodge said.<\/p>\n
Whoever wins will face Republican Gregory Campus in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York’s primary elections will be held Tuesday, June 23. Early voting runs from June 13 to June 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Assemblymember Didi Barrett is facing a Democratic primary challenge in New York’s 10th state\u00a0Assembly District. First elected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[206,109,102157,38490,199,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,108,87,3476,200],"class_list":["post-263484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-camille-delongis","tag-decision-2026","tag-hudson-valley","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-state-assembly","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}