New York has never had a Black woman as lieutenant governor. On Tuesday night it elected one: Adrienne Adams, the former City Council speaker from Southeast Queens, who ran on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s ticket and won with her.
The Associated Press called the governor’s race for Hochul as soon as polls closed at 9 p.m., and Republican Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, conceded by phone. The pair are also the first all-woman ticket New Yorkers have ever voted into the state’s top two offices.
“The people of New York, thank you for once again putting your trust in me,” Hochul said in her victory speech.
For Black New Yorkers, the second name on that ticket is the one that carries the history. Adams was the first Black person to lead the City Council, from 2022 to 2025. She grew up in Southeast Queens, the borough’s Black middle-class heartland, and the job she now takes is a statewide one, with a seat at the table in Albany that Black women have been shut out of for as long as the office has existed.
The road there was not smooth. Adams ran for mayor in 2025 and finished fourth in the Democratic primary. Hochul recruited her as a running mate in February, and Adams now succeeds Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who challenged Hochul in the primary.
The lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate and is next in line if the governor leaves office. It is a small office by design. What it offers is proximity to a governor who has campaigned on affordability, child care and standing up to President Donald Trump, and a platform to push her on the issues that fall hardest on Black households.
Blakeman ran on the cost of living too, promising tax cuts that included eliminating the state income tax on the first $50,000 to $100,000 of earnings. Voters chose Hochul’s version of affordability by a wide margin in the early count, though final totals are still being tallied.
Tuesday also brought a third win for Attorney General Letitia James, and the re-election of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, whose party is on track to take the House.
A first is not a policy. The test for Adams begins in January, when the legislature returns and Black New Yorkers find out whether the woman from Southeast Queens uses her seat to press for child care money, housing and a state budget that reaches their neighborhoods. She should be held to it.
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