Lt. Gov. Delgado, DNC Vice Chair Kenyatta Address Otsego Dems

By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZEL
ONEONTA

More than a hundred local Democratic Party members gathered in the Hunt Union ballroom at SUNY Oneonta on the evening of Saturday, September 29 for an annual fundraiser and to hear two rising stars argue for their vision of the future of the party.

Otsego County Democrats gave a standing ovation for speeches by New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who is running a progressive primary campaign against Governor Kathy Hochul for the 2026 gubernatorial election, and Democratic National Committee Vice Chair and Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta. Local party leaders, thrust into national importance by the battleground NY-19 congressional district, say they have momentum and candidates that offer their best chance of winning a majority on the Otsego County Board of Representatives in many years come this year’s November 4 elections.

“Fascism seems to be creeping insidiously from sea to shining sea,” Otsego County Democratic Committee Chair Caitlin Ogden told the crowd, “yet in this room tonight, I also see a tremendous amount of hope.”

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s popular vote and Electoral College victory in 2024, along with losses in the Senate, many Democrats across the country have been divided—and depressed—about how to move forward. Addressing Otsego Democrats, Delgado and Kenyatta called for a more muscular approach.

“As I sat and listened to Caitlin talking about fighting for democracy,” Delgado told the crowd, “it’s hard, being really honest, to not also ask the question: How the hell did we get here?”

“Communities all across this country, and certainly communities all across this state, have every reason to question the effectiveness of this thing that we call democracy, and the extent to which the will of the people is actually reflected in our government,” Delgado said.

The cycle of generational poverty continues, according to Delgado, “despite the fact that the state is governed by Democrats.”

“So yeah, I’m challenging the governor,” Delgado said. “And I’m challenging the establishment, and I’m challenging the machinery, because the status quo is broken. It’s been broken for too damn long,” he said to applause.

Delgado said the party’s fight must come “from the ground up” and is “beyond partisanship.” It “is fundamentally about morality.”

Though President Trump is “shredding the Constitution” and otherwise violating core principles of American democratic government, Delgado said, he also asked “What is it we are fighting for?”

Taxing the rich, building affordable housing, universal healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, universal childcare, and more, fell into that category for Delgado. He laced into New York State economic development funds allocations, which he said are going to private businesses by the billions of dollars per year in a “trickle down” approach that mimics Republican policies. He further condemned a proposed fracked gas pipeline in New York, supported by President Trump, which environmental advocates have said Gov. Hochul’s appointees are fast tracking.

Condemning Democratic politics of “survival” and “triangulation” versus an “uninhibited from reality” President Trump, Delgado argued for a “moral” uninhibition to fight back.

“The fire in our belly is and always will be rooted in love. Otsego County, to me, is a very, very special place.”

Pointing to Trump’s victory by several points in Otsego County in 2020, compared to his own congressional lead of 12 points in the county for the same election, Delgado encouraged the assembled Democrats not to “assume that because they support him, they don’t like X, Y, and Z.”

The more Democrats embrace speaking to “shared economic anxiety” in the face of “crony capitalism,” Delgado argued, the more successful they will be.

In a longer speech, Kenyatta hit many similar themes. The work of “rebuilding” the Democratic Party will not be done with “our heads in the sand and shoulders slumped,” Kenyatta said. “Nobody is interested in joining a pity party, I promise you that,” he added. “Our job is to make life better. That is the job.”

“And yes, we have a president that is out of control,” Kenyatta said. “And yes, there are a lot of elections we need to win. But the Democratic Party doesn’t exist just to be in constant war with the Republican Party.”

“Every single day, you have a guy from the biggest platform in the world who is trying to convince us that we need to hate each other,” Kenyatta said. “I do not hate my neighbor, and I refuse to let some damn politician say that I have to!”

Recalling the suffragettes fighting for women’s right to vote and the Civil Rights Movement for Black equality, Kenyatta said, “They didn’t have polling on their side.” Instead, “what they had was a commitment, an understanding that this country could never be what it must be if over half the damn population couldn’t participate.”

Ogden, the county party chair, told AllOtsego the speeches were “inspirational” and “spot on.”

In August, Delgado said, if elected, he would like to replace Jay Jacobs, the chair of the New York State Democratic Party who has declined to endorse its New York City mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani. Asked by AllOtsego what he’d look for in a replacement, Delgado pointed to his recently-released plan to overhaul the party infrastructure so “that it puts people at the center of the work.” He wants a party “that actually invests year in and year out” including “offices, staffing that is collaborative, that is committed to empowering candidates and committees all across the state, and not just being selective.”

Delgado said “that type of vision, that type of focus” was most important to him.

Delgado told AllOtsego his policy vision for Otsego County and rural New York if elected governor includes “investing directly in our communities,” starting with housing.

“Our communities are being priced out in our rural communities just as much as our urban communities,” he said.

Delgado also wants to make sure people “have a healthcare system that is affordable and doesn’t bankrupt them” and that rural main streets and small family farms “have opportunities to grow and aren’t being squeezed out by monopolies and concentrated corporate power.”

Ogden told AllOtsego the fundraiser brought $16,000.00 into the county party’s coffers, before expenses for the event. At an after party, Ogden said, the party raised $1,700.00 for the Otsego County Refugee Resettlement Coalition.