Representative Antonio Delgado (D., N.Y.) has been tapped to serve as Lieutenant Governor of New York and will be running for the position in this year’s election.

Governor Kathy Hochul announced Delgado’s nomination Monday morning. Delgado, 45, is a two-term Member of Congress, having represented New York’s 19th Congressional District since 2019. Delgado is also expected to be Hochul’s running mate for the Democratic nomination in the state’s gubernatorial election this November.

The district, covering the Hudson Valley and Catskills Mountain regions in Upstate New York, was considered by many difficult for the Democrats to hold during this year’s Midterm race. In 2016, the district voted for Donald Trump by a margin of 6.8 percent, though it voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by a narrow margin of 1.5 percent. The Cook Partisan Voting Index, which measures the level of partisanship in every U.S. congressional district, rates Delgado’s district as “Republican +3”. Despite these trends, FiveThirtyEight reports that Delgado has voted in Congress with Joe Biden’s position 100 percent of the time.

Hochul’s nomination of Delgado is being seen by many as a way to appeal to moderate voters in upstate New York, while saving Delgado from a Congressional loss this November. Delgado’s congressional district was one of the several whose boundaries, newly drawn by the State Assembly, were thrown out by the New York State Court of Appeals on April 27 for gerrymandering to favor Democrats. Primary elections for the revised boundaries, which have not been announced, are likely to be pushed back, creating a competitive primary race for the seat Delgado will vacate. Previously, Delgado was the sole candidate for the seat’s Democratic nomination.

The nomination also comes at a difficult time for Hochul, whose former lieutenant governor — Brian Benjamin — resigned on April 12 after being arrested by the FBI on corruption charges. Benjamin is alleged to have funneled fraudulent contributions to his campaign for New York City Comptroller, for which he ran in 2021 before being appointed by Hochul to his position.

Hochul, a former lieutenant governor herself, ascended to the governorship earlier that year after former Governor Andrew Cuomo — her running mate in the 2018 election — was criminally charged with sexual assault following accusations from several women. Cuomo resigned in disgrace to avoid impeachment proceedings underway in the New York State Assembly, though he has since been cleared of all charges.

Delgado, who grew up in Schenectady and now lives in Poughkeepsie, boasts an impressive pedigree. Born of African-American and Hispanic ancestry, he stands at 6 feet and 4 inches, and played NCAA Division-I college basketball for the Colgate Raiders. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar — graduating from the Queen’s College, Oxford in 2001 — before attending Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005.

He then worked in the music industry in Los Angeles, releasing a rap album under the stage name “AD the voice” in 2007, before joining Akin Gump, the largest lobbying-focused law firm in the United States. He is also married to Lacey Schwartz, a filmmaker known for producing ‘Little White Lie’ about discovering her African American heritage. His first run for public office was in 2018.