Antonio Delgado

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Antonio Delgado (2019)

Antonio Ramon Delgado (born January 28, 1977 in Schenectady , New York ) is an American Democratic Party politician . The lawyer has been a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 19th congressional electoral district of the state of New York since 2019 .

Family, education and work

Antonio Delgado is the son of Tony Delgado and Thelma P. Hill. Both parents worked full-time, initially at General Electric ; Delgado grew up as a key child in Schenectady, a town just north of his congressional electoral district. He attended the local Catholic high school and was the star of the school's basketball team.

Delgado began his studies with the original career goal medicine at Colgate University , played on the basketball team with Adonal Foyle and took part in the 1996 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship . In 2018 he was inducted into the Upstate New York Basketball Hall of Fame . He made a political program for university television. Colgate University graduated from Delgado in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and political science. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and received his Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University in 2001 . He then studied at Harvard Law School , which he graduated with a Juris Doctor in 2005 . There he met Lacey Schwartz , whom he married in 2011. Her documentary Little White Lies (2015) tells of her search for identity after she - growing up a white Jew - learned in college that her birth father was African American .

After graduating, Delgado moved to Los Angeles and got into the music business. From 2005 to 2009 he co-directed the music production company Statik Entertainment , which produced hip-hop with the aim of promoting social and political engagement. He himself recorded the 2006 album Painfully Free under the stage name AD the Voice , which took up current issues such as Hurricane Katrina , the Iraq war and capitalism . From 2009 to 2011 Delgado worked for the major law firm Brian D. Witzer in Los Angeles and then moved with his wife to New York, where he worked for the law firm and consultancy Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld until July 2017 and looked after some controversial corporate clients, however also supervised honorary mandates. After the birth of their twin sons, the family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, and moved back to the Hudson Valley , where they both come from, to Rhinebeck in early 2017 , when the prospect of a congressional candidacy loomed. Delgado's sons grow up in the Jewish faith; he is not religious himself.

Political career

Delgado describes Donald Trump's election victory as the trigger for his decision to go into politics. He announced on June 5, 2017 that he would be running for the Democratic nomination in New York's 19th Congressional District in the 2018 election . The rural constituency in Upstate New York , with 87 percent white people, is more conservative and has been in Republican hands from its inception in its current form in 2011. It includes the Lower Hudson Valley , parts of the Catskill Mountains and suburbs of the state capital, Albany . In the internal party primary of the Democrats, Delgado narrowly prevailed with 22.1 percent of the vote against several promising competitors, including the Iraq war veteran Pat Ryan (17.9 percent) and the former press officer Andrew Cuomos , Gareth Rhodes (17.8 percent). The pre-election campaign was largely factual and proceeded without attacks; Delgado had positioned himself rather centristically by speaking out in favor of adjustments to Obamacare , but against a general public health insurance - demanded by party links like Bernie Sanders - and against an obligation to only use renewable energies by 2035.

The previous Republican mandate holder, John Faso , was elected for the first time in the 2016 election and was 10 percentage points ahead of his Democratic rival Zephyr Teachout , while Donald Trump's presidential election in this district was 7 percentage points ahead. In 2008 and 2012 , Barack Obama won this area. In the polls, Faso and Delgado were largely on par, sometimes with a slight lead for Delgado, who also received many times more campaign donations. Faso, who originally represented moderate positions, showed strong ties to President Trump during the election campaign , including for the abolition of Obamacare and the policy of separating children from their refugee parents . The campaign arm of the Republicans in Congress ran election ads in which misogyne and other provocative excerpts from Delgado's earlier hip-hop songs were used against him and he was portrayed as unpatriotic, rowdy and alien. This form of election campaign drew criticism and accusations of racism. Delgado tried to win back those Obama-Trump voters who are dissatisfied with the political system. At the same time he used his connections to Obama's support network, to law firms in New York City and to the local Congressman Hakeem Jeffries and received support from the Congressional Black Caucus .

In the main election in November 2018, Delgado prevailed with 51.4 to 46.1 percent of the vote. He has been a member of the House of Representatives since January 3, 2019 and is the first African American and first Latino to represent Upstate New York in Congress. There he is a member of the committees for agriculture , small businesses and infrastructure as well as four sub-committees. By mid 2019 Delgado held twenty Town Hall from -meeting with residents of his constituency and brought a 14 bills, of which self-reported 10 had bipartisan support. Delgado is particularly committed to rural broadband expansion, debt relief for farmers, tax incentives for craft beer breweries and health care reform. He and his wife accompanied a delegation of Democratic Congressmen to Israel .

Web links

Commons : Antonio Delgado  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d David Freedlander: Is Antonio Delgado Getting a Bad Rap? In: New York , November 3, 2018
  2. ↑ Weddings: Lacey Schwartz, Antonio Delgado. In: The New York Times , September 25, 2011.
  3. ^ A b c d e Andrew Solender: Antonio Delgado makes history. In: Chronogram , November 7, 2018
  4. ^ Antonio Delgado '99 Named Rhodes Scholar. In: Colgate University News , Nov. 30, 1998
  5. ↑ a b Rahel Musleah: Jewish and Black. In: Jewish Women International , spring 2015.
  6. ↑ Susan Frances: Antonio Delgado aka AD The Voice: Painfully Free. Review. In: Hybrid Music No. 9, 2007
  7. ↑ bigced: Harvard Law Graduate Turned Rapper - AD the Voice. In: The Hip Hop Cosign , August 23, 2007
  8. ↑ PR Lockhart: A black candidate made a rap album. His white opponent says it makes him unfit for Congress. In: Vox.com , September 12, 2018.
  9. ^ Chris Bragg: Faso opponent new to the 19th District. In: The Times Union , May 12, 2018
  10. ↑ a b Antonio Delado's Biography. In: Vote Smart.
  11. ↑ Josefin Dolsten: NY House candidate Antonio Delgado's wife opens up about couple's Jewish life. In: Times of Israel , November 6, 2018
  12. ↑ Election 2018: NY District 19 - D Primary. In: Our Campaigns.
  13. ↑ For the polls see New York 19th District - Faso vs. Delgado. In. RealClearPolitics ; 2018 Midterm Election Forecast: New York 19th. In: FiveThirtyEight .
  14. ↑ Election 2018: NY District 19. In: Our Campaigns.
  15. ^ Allison Dunne: In District, Rep. Delgado Focuses On Craft Beverages, Farms. In: WAMC Northeast Public Radio , August 5, 2019
  16. ^ Fritz Mayer: Delgado holds another town hall. In: The River Reporter , August 7, 2019.
  17. ^ Herb Keinon: US Democrats stand and clap for Netanyahu. In: Jerusalem Post , August 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Delgado, Antonio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Delgado, Antonio Ramon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician (Democratic Party)
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Schenectady , New York