ALBANY, New York — Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has selected former New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her running mate for a women-led ticket — a first in Empire State history for a major party.

Adams’ selection is simultaneously a bold and safe choice for the governor.

Hochul and Adams are both moderate, church-going mothers who take a low-key approach to their jobs and are around the same age. Yet the governor, who holds a massive polling advantage over her political rivals, is making a statement by picking a woman to be her No. 2 in a state government that, until recently, has been male dominated.

“Adrienne and I are no strangers to rolling up our sleeves and getting results for working New Yorkers,” Hochul said in a statement. “Together, we’re going to continue investing in public safety, bringing costs down, and making this state a place where all families can thrive.”

Adams would be the first Black woman to hold the position and, as a Queens native, brings geographic balance to a ticket led by the state’s Buffalo-born governor.

New York’s lieutenant governor is a largely powerless position and its officeholders usually do not garner much statewide recognition. Teasing her decision earlier this week, Hochul said she wanted someone who would be able to step into her job should the need arise.

Hochul’s previous picks to fill the post have caused her significant problems, though, leading to no shortage of political headaches.

Her first lieutenant governor, former state Sen. Brian Benjamin, resigned only months into the job after he was indicted on corruption charges that were later dismissed. Hochul then turned to Rep. Antonio Delgado, who represented a swing Hudson Valley House district. Delgado, though, has clashed with Hochul and is now waging a long-shot Democratic primary bid against her.

Adams, 65, was a late entrant into the Democratic mayoral primary last year. The Queens Democrat was urged to launch her bid when ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo held frontrunner status and his critics — including state Attorney General Letitia James — were trying to find ways to stop him. At the time, Adams, who is no relation to former Mayor Eric Adams, was seen as someone who could draw moderate Black voters away from Cuomo.

Adrienne Adams eventually finished fourth and was eliminated after the second round of ranked-choice voting. During the primary, though, she confronted the eventual winner, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. Her campaign criticized Mamdani on X for backing calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a post that was later deleted following backlash.

She eventually endorsed Mamdani after the June primary — even as she expressed doubts he would win the general election.

The selection of Adams to join the ticket was a closely held secret by the Hochul campaign for days as her aides batted down rumors of potential suitors.

Delgado officially announced Wednesday he had picked former Buffalo mayoral candidate India Walton, a move that’s meant to bolster his left-flank support. Walton, like Adams, would be the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor.

Hochul’s likely Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, is yet to announce his lieutenant governor choice.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has made his ability to navigate a sharply divided Legislature a core part of his national sales pitch. But as 2028 approaches, what he really wants is a Democratic trifecta in Harrisburg.

Shapiro helped Democrats flip the state House in 2022 when he won the governor’s mansion. But the Republican-controlled Senate has been his Achilles’ heel since, stymieing his attempts to pass core Democratic policies like raising one of the lowest state minimum wages in the country. And the split Legislature left Shapiro mired in a monthslong budget standoff last year that held up billions of dollars in state funding for counties, schools and nonprofits.

Now, Shapiro is leading the charge to help Democrats wrest back the chamber from Republican control by a slim 27-23 majority and expand their single-seat majority in the House — part of an aggressive down-ballot push the governor is undertaking alongside his own reelection bid.

Shapiro has repeatedly voiced his desire to win unified control of the commonwealth both in private conversations with donors and in public. He’s touted what he could do with it — outlining a policy agenda rooted in increasing affordability that includes raising the state’s minimum wage and boosting energy production, including through renewables.

When asked his second-term goals and whether he needs unified Democratic control to achieve them, the governor said his record proves “I can bring the Republicans and Democrats together to get stuff done.”

“There are some things, though, that the Republican Senate has blocked me on that I would like us to be able to get done,” he said at an event in Washington last week. “And certainly, having a trifecta would allow me to do that.”

During his state budget address Tuesday, Shapiro unloaded on Senate Republicans who’ve stood in the way of his priorities, saying they’ve “refused to act” on raising wages and needling them to “stop making excuses” on advancing his energy plans. His voice ringing with emotion, he accused them of “cowering to … special interests” and “tying justice for abused kids to your pet political projects” over stalling enhanced protections for sexual abuse victims.

Shapiro’s effort to secure unified control of Harrisburg will serve as a critical test of his coattails in the nation’s largest swing state. And it’s a prerequisite for him to be able to score some big-ticket liberal policy wins he can brag about on a 2028 presidential primary stage that could be jam-packed with governors who already have their own achievements to tout.

“If he can add to the appeal he already has with things like a higher minimum wage, with other pieces of the puzzle that state government can do to make things more affordable, it just gives his candidacy and his message that extra spark that is missing right now,” said longtime Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco, who worked on Barack Obama’s and Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaigns but is not working for any likely 2028 contenders.

But Pennsylvania Democrats haven’t had a trifecta in three decades. And they face a narrow path to achieving it even in a year when national Democrats are bullish on a blue wave.

Just half the Pennsylvania Senate is on the ballot this year, and operatives on both sides say the battlefield is even smaller, pointing to a handful of districts in the Philadelphia suburbs through the Lehigh Valley and more rural swaths of the state. Prognosticators say the Pennsylvania Senate “leans Republican.”

“If you look at the Republican map on who needs to be defeated, it’s a lot of more rural, red areas,” said Pennsylvania-based GOP consultant Josh Novotney. “Nothing’s impossible in such a bad year for Republicans. But it’s going to be tough.”

But Keystone State Democrats are emboldened by last year’s elections. The party swept judicial retention races for the state’s highest court and flipped a state Senate seat during a special election in a district Democrats said President Donald Trump carried by 15 percentage points in 2024. They’re encouraged by Democratic wins and overperformances across the country over the past year.

And, top Democrats say, they have Shapiro.

The governor remains highly popular, with an approval rating that’s cracked 60 percent in some surveys. He’s a fundraising juggernaut who has amassed a $30 million war chest to unload against likely GOP rival Stacy Garrity, the state treasurer, who raised just a fraction of that amount.

Democrats rode to power in the Pennsylvania House in 2022 on what one top lawmaker described as “Shapiro’s landslide coattails,” and they credit the governor for helping them hold their razor-thin majority in 2024, even as Trump won Pennsylvania and Democrats lost every statewide election.

“He is a huge part of the reason we have the majority. He’s a huge part of the reason that we were able to hold the majority in 2024,” said state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, the House majority whip. “I have no doubt he will lean in very, very heavily to making sure that we not only expand our majority in the House, but hopefully take control of the Senate — something that’s realistically in play for the first time probably in my entire career.”

Shapiro poured $1.25 million into the Pennsylvania House Democrats’ campaign committee in 2024 and helped raise another $1 million toward defending their majority that year. He also donated $250,000 to state Senate Democrats’ campaign committee. And he cut ads and hit the campaign trail in key legislative districts.

Last year, Shapiro gave the state party $250,000 to fund infrastructure improvements heading into the midterms, with a promise of more to come. His political team is in “regular communication” with Pennsylvania Democrats’ campaign arms, said state Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the party’s Senate campaign committee.

The governor’s political operation declined to share an estimate of how much Shapiro plans to spend down-ticket this year, or where he plans to campaign. Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said the governor “has a long track record of working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot” and will “continue to focus on” that alongside his reelection bid.

Shapiro and his allies have repeatedly lamented Republican roadblocks to an agenda that includes raising wages, boosting housing and energy production and securing sustainable funding for public transportation. House Speaker Joanna McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat, accused the GOP of “political gamesmanship” in an interview, claiming the opposition is trying to “keep down the productivity” to hurt Shapiro and state Democrats in 2026 and beyond.

Senate Republican leaders signaled more friction to come as they fired back on several fronts after Shapiro’s speech Tuesday, skewering his plan to overhaul the state’s energy sector, accusing him of being “more interested in the political talking point” on hiking wages to $15 an hour (while indicating they’re open to compromise) and saying there are “different paths” to helping victims of abuse.

As 2028 looms, Democratic legislative leaders and political strategists acknowledged the potential political benefit of a trifecta for Shapiro, who could get a boost from both turning a purple state blue and passing policies that could pad a potential presidential platform.

“If he can help us win the trifecta, and then use it to actually govern and get good results — or as he likes to say, ‘get shit done’ — that looks really good at the national level,” Schlossberg said.

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pick to succeed him in the state Assembly cruised to an easy victory Tuesday night. But Diana Moreno’s win in that Queens special election is likely the last cakewalk we’ll see from a Mamdani-backed candidate in the near future.

The new mayor has endorsed Brad Lander in his quest to unseat Rep. Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District and Assemblymember Claire Valdez for the NY-07 seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velázquez.

The pair of Democratic congressional primaries is expected to be far more competitive than Moreno’s race, raising a central question: How far can a Mamdani endorsement get you?

“We’re testing that out,” said Grace Mausser, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter, which has endorsed both Moreno and Valdez, but not Lander. “He has a lot of hard resources that come with an endorsement: his impressive volunteer and donor lists, his strong reach on social media … There’s also the soft power that we’re testing out now, right? Who is the leader of left and progressive politics in New York right now?”

Mamdani has so far been more involved in boosting Valdez than Lander.

The mayor appeared with Valdez — a Queens lawmaker, former United Auto Workers union organizer and the first elected official to stand with Mamdani in his campaign for mayor — at an event the day after she launched her bid. He also filmed a whimsical social media video set in a subway station to boost her fundraising.

Valdez is running against Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president who Velázquez has endorsed as her preferred successor. Queens City Council Member Julie Won also recently entered the race in the progressive Brooklyn and Queens district.

The mayor has been largely hands-off in Lander’s campaign after endorsing the former city comptroller on the day of his launch for Congress. Lander, who cross-endorsed Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race, is running in Brooklyn and Manhattan against an incumbent with more than three times as much campaign cash on hand and the backing of Democratic House leadership, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

A political adviser to Mamdani said his team is still assessing how much to get involved in the two congressional contests and cautioned against reading anything into the fact that the mayor has been more involved in Valdez’s race so far. The adviser said the Mamdani team is waiting to make major moves in NY-10 pending the outcome of a court case that could scramble the lines of the district in such a way that Goldman may run in the neighboring 11th District instead.

Regardless, the Mamdani adviser, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said the mayor simply lending his name to Lander and Valdez “already carries a lot of weight that these campaigns can make the most of.”

“His direct involvement is always going to be second to governing,” said the aide. “Ninety-nine percent of his energy is going to be focused on running the city.”

The politics-versus-governance balance is part of Mamdani’s clash with Velázquez, the highly respected progressive who effectively warned him in a New York Times interview to stay in his lane.

And the mayor does have a lot of work to do at the helm of the country’s largest city. June’s congressional primaries fall around the same time he and the City Council will be putting finishing touches on the city budget amid serious fiscal headwinds.

“I don’t know if that was the wisest thing for him to do because the job of being mayor is so big,” Democratic strategist Lupe Todd-Medina said, arguing Mamdani could end up in a situation where he’s not able to stump for Lander and Valdez as much as they want and need him to due to the sheer burden of governing New York City.

As June’s primaries still loom more than four months away, a Lander campaign official, granted anonymity to share sensitive considerations, said his team is also still waiting to see if a court decision could rip up the lines of NY-10.

But if the race ends up competitive, the Lander aide said his team is confident Mamdani will help fundraise and campaign for the former comptroller. The fact that Mamdani hasn’t done so yet, the aide said, is understandable since the mayor has been focused on governing in his first month in office.

The two House primaries have different dynamics but they’ll determine whether Mamdani can replicate the magic that catapulted him from relative obscurity to the nation’s second toughest job.

“He has a lot at stake by pushing in some chips on two fronts, but I think he has more at stake in the 7th District,” said Michael Lange, an analyst who specializes in progressive politics. Valdez “is a really close ally who comes from his political movement and his political home.”