BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tuesday's arrest and resignation of NY Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin now open the door for several other Democrats seeking to win the party's primary election for that post.
According to elections officials, it's too late in the process to remove Benjamin from the ballot for the June primary.
This means registered democrats could still vote for him.
However, given Benjamin's situation, the odds of the three candidates who failed to gain the nomination at the party convention but who filed petitions to get on the ballot, are no longer far-fetched in terms of emerging as the party standard-bearer for Lt. Governor.
They are Ana Maria Archila, a New York City community activist, former New York City Council member Diana Reyna, and David Englert, the mayor of Sodus, a small village in Wayne County.
That their respective odds of winning the primary have suddenly increased is lost on none of them, and each was ready to talk on Wednesday about what they might seek to do as Lt. Governor.
"We deserve a governor and Lt. Governor who does not take money from reals estate developers, who do not take money from corporate PACS and who do not allow their priorities to be directed by donors who can give in the thousands of dollars," Archilla, who is running with Jumaane Williams, who currently serves as the New York City Public Advocate, in his quest to win the Democratic primary for Governor.
"The rising crime that we're seeing and public safety is our main concern and we're ready to lead this state," said Reyna, who is the running mate of U.S. Rep. and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Thomas Suozzi.
"We have to realign the state's operations to align more with what people need rather than what the state thinks people need," said Englert, who is running on a ticket with Paul Nichols, an attorney based in Queens.
If Hochul wins the gubernatorial primary, the odds are now greater that one of these three will be her running mate, per se, even though none of them would have been her preferred choice and all of them have been highly critical of Hochul.
Yet each of the three insisted that should they emerge victorious in the primary they would be willing and able to work alongside Hochul, should democrats win the statewide races in November where they would be favored due to enrollment numbers.
In New York's most recent history there was only one case where such an unforeseen political marriage occurred …and that one ended in divorce.
In 1982 Al Dell Bello - who was not Mario Cuomo's running mate- won the election for Lt. Governor.
He ended up resigning mid-term because he said Cuomo gave him nothing to do and pretty much ignored him.