Antonio Delgado, who's exploring a run for the 19th Congressional District
A Rhinebeck Democrat has officially tossed his hat into the ring to run in the 19th Congressional District.
Antonio Delgado made the announcement Monday with a YouTube video, that can be found here. In it, he emphasizes his family’s working-class roots working for General Electric in Schenectady, and talks about combating money in politics, fighting for fair tax policy and creating local jobs.
“I was raised to believe that you’re supposed to love your neighbor. You know my pastor preached that every Sunday. I don’t know where we went wrong, but something has gone wrong,” Delgado said in the video.
A 40-year-old married father of two, Delgado first filed paperwork to run in late February to run in the district, but said at the time he had not made a final decision. He raised about $300,000 in the first quarter of 2017, according to Federal Election Commission records.
A LinkedIn page for Delgado shows he’s an attorney for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. A profile on the law firm’s website says he was a 1999 Oxford Rhodes Scholar who received his law degree from Harvard Law.
A 2011 wedding announcement in The New York Times says from 2005 to 2009, Delgado was a hip-hop performer and a chief executive of Los Angeles-based music company, Statik Entertainment. He went by the name AD the Voice, according to Hybrid Magazine.
Delgado is one of six Democrats who have emerged to take on freshman Republican Rep. John Faso of Kinderhook.
Faso won election to the open 19th district seat last year after defeating Zephyr Teachout, an anti-corruption activist. Former Rep. Chris Gibson decided not to run for a fourth term. Though polls showed the race between Faso and Teachout was neck and neck leading up to the election, Faso won by nearly 25,000 votes, about nine points.
The 19th district includes all of Ulster and Sullivan counties.