Who are New York's lieutenant governor candidates Adrienne Adams and Todd Hood?

ALBANY — Democrat Adrienne Adams, the former New York City Council speaker from Queens who spent two decades as a corporate management trainer, and Republican Todd Hood, a former gang investigator turned upstate sheriff, are running for lieutenant governor on the tickets of Gov. Kathy Hochul and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Whichever is elected will be a heartbeat, or a scandal, away from becoming the most powerful politician in the state.

Adams, 65, was council speaker from 2022 to 2025, the first Black council member to serve in that role. Adams said she brought an outer-borough perspective to the job.

Prior speakers had been focused on Manhattan, and it showed in the city's priorities, she said.

"Those of us in the outer boroughs, in my opinion, were underserved," she said.

One of her proudest accomplishments, she said, was helping pass zoning reforms that authorized the construction and conversion of approximately 80,000 additional housing units in New York City over 15 years.

Hood, 58, is a Madison County native who got his start as a county correctional officer. 

Hood said a childhood football coach and mentor was the reason he pursued a career in law enforcement. "Youth sports were so important for teaching those lessons in life, to get up off the ground, to get back in the game, determination," he said.

After successfully running for sheriff in 2017, he became a vocal critic of changes to the state's criminal justice laws, including to the state's bail reform.

"I'm amazed at how fast it changed everything in law enforcement for the worse, and I'm still amazed that they haven't done anything to correct it," he said.

To the top spot, twice

Being lieutenant governor of New York is a job that rarely matters until it does. Twice in the last generation, lieutenant governors have been vaulted to the governorship due to scandal, first when David Paterson succeeded Eliot Spitzer and then when Kathy Hochul replaced Andrew Cuomo.

Besides being first in the line of succession if the governor leaves office or is absent from the state, the lieutenant governor presides over the New York State Senate, a largely ceremonial role with the power to cast vote only if there's a tie.

Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said the choice of lieutenant governor candidate typically doesn’t have a major impact on a governor’s race itself.

"If there are constituencies that [a governor] is worried about reaching out to, then they may help with that once they're elected," he said. "But it doesn't really matter that much, I think, in the campaign itself."

And the job is rarely a political springboard.

In the last century, only five lieutenant governors have gone on to become governor. Only one of those, Mario Cuomo, was elected to the position. The other four all became governor due to the prior governor’s resignation.

Robert Duffy, who was Cuomo’s first lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2014, said if whoever is the next lieutenant governor wants to be successful, they need to go into the job with a clear-eyed view of what it entails.

"The governor comes first," he said. "Your relationship is derived from that relationship with the governor, and I think it comes down to trust."

The job, which is elected on a ticket with the gubernatorial candidate, has an annual salary of $220,000. The office has a budget of just over $1 million and a handful of staff.

But if a governor resigns or is removed from office, they are first in line to succeed them.

Hochul has run into her own issues with both of her lieutenant governors.

In 2021, she appointed State Sen. Brian Benjamin to the job, only to see him resign months later due to a federal investigation. Charges were dropped in 2025 after a key witness died. Hochul’s next choice, former Rep. Antonio Delgado, launched an unsuccessful primary against Hochul last June.

The friction with Delgado led Hochul to push for a new law ending primaries for lieutenant governor candidates, instead requiring them to be jointly nominated with candidates for governor. That means the candidates run on the same ticket as the governor, and don't have their own campaign committees to raise money.

In February, Hochul announced she had selected Adams as her running mate.

Blakeman, meanwhile, picked Hood after his first choice bowed out and several other upstate politicians declined the role, according to The New York Times.

Adrienne Adams

Before entering politics, Adams worked in the private sector as a management trainer. Adams got her political start by joining a local community board in Queens at the urging of a member she knew, and began advocating for more resources for public schools.

"I got a reputation for being that big mouth out there talking about kids," she said.

Voters responded, selecting her to represent District 28 on the council in 2017. In January 2022, her colleagues chose her as speaker.

Adams said she brought an outer-borough perspective to the job.

Prior speakers had been focused on Manhattan, and it showed in the city's priorities, she said.

 "Those of us in the outer boroughs, in my opinion, were underserved," she said.

Adams said her proudest achievement was a citywide zoning reform effort known as the City of Yes.

Adams, who has known Hochul since her time as lieutenant governor, said many of their priorities overlap, especially their focus on expanding access to childcare.

She sees her would-be role as lieutenant governor as championing Hochul’s agenda and expanding on initiatives she began as council speaker.

Todd Hood

Hood signed up to be a correctional officer shortly after graduating from Springfield College in Massachusetts. He then worked short stints with several small police agencies before joining the Syracuse Police Department.

After retiring from the department, he worked for the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office and ran for sheriff.

Hood said one of the initiatives he’s most proud of is offering religious sermon videos for inmates to watch on Sundays. Sometimes, up to half of the jail’s population shows up, he said.

"It's been a real game changer in my correctional facility, having them go there on Sunday morning and be able to do that," he said.

If Blakeman is successful in defeating Hochul, a priority would be undoing some of the changes to the state’s bail laws and prison system, Hood said. He said he also wants to see the state tap into the natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale, and cut taxes.