Following Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin’s arrest and resignation yesterday, Governor Hochul battles a renewed chorus of criticism about and doubt in her administration, especially as Mr. Benjamin will remain on the Democratic Party primary ballot in June.  

“Democrats like Kathy Hochul and disgraced Brian Benjamin have made betraying voters their full time job, leaving no cover for the Empire State’s most extreme politicians,” a state Republican Party spokeswoman, Rachel Lee, said.

Ms. Hochul’s likely Republican election opponent, Representative Lee Zeldin, also commented on yesterday’s developments.

“Kathy Hochul should’ve never made Brian Benjamin lieutenant governor in the first place,” Mr. Zeldin wrote. “The Hochul-Benjamin team has been face planting straight out of the gate.”

Perhaps the most poignant criticism, which will become a hurdle for Ms. Hochul in the governor’s race, came from the state senate minority leader, Rob Ortt, and from Representative Tom Suozzi, a Democrat.

“Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin’s arrest today on federal corruption charges is another stain on New York State Government, and calls into question Governor Hochul’s judgment,” Mr. Ortt said in a prepared statement.

Mr. Suozzi echoed these claims, calling the fiasco “an indictment on Kathy Hochul’s lack of experience and poor judgment.”

There is no doubt that Ms. Hochul will spend the time leading up to the June primary explaining the choice of Mr. Benjamin for lieutenant governor as well as some of the facts of the case.

Most see Ms. Hochul’s pick of Mr. Benjamin to be her second in command as an olive branch to downstate voters from a former representative of New York’s 26th, a district representing parts of Buffalo and its suburbs.

Whatever the reason for the appointment, when Mr. Benjamin was tapped for the lieutenant governor position in August of 2021, he lied about his criminal activities, according to the prosecution in his case.

“Benjamin falsely stated, among other things, that he had never ‘directly exercised [his] governmental authority (either as a Legislator or Executive official) concerning a matter of a donor [he] directly solicited,’” reads the indictment.

Although there is no reason to believe that the governor knew of Mr. Benjamin’s activities when he was selected as lieutenant governor, the scandal comes at a crucial moment in the election season.

Flanked by Mr. Suozzi on the right and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on the left, there’s no shortage of Democrats lining up to benefit off another governor’s fall from grace.

Messrs. Suozzi and Williams could both see a bump in the polls due to Mr. Benjamin remaining on the primary election ballot.

Mr. Williams wrote of the situation: “As Lieutenant Governor, Kathy Hochul denied knowledge or awareness of Andrew Cuomo’s wrongdoing — now she’s repeating the same posture and strategy with her own Lieutenant.”

“Either she’s consistently shamefully out of the loop, or shamefully enabling through her inaction, and either way it’s clear that unless we elect leadership outside the old ways of Albany, these patterns of scandal and corruption will keep repeating,” he added.

Mr . Suozzi expressed a similar sentiment: “Hochul has fostered a culture of continued corruption with months of fundraising from pay to play insiders and people doing business with the state, and secretive budget deals that resulted in the billion dollar Bills stadium and little else.”

Mr. Benjamin will remain on the primary ballot because, according to a Board of Elections spokesman, John Conklin, “There are only three ways to get off the ballot: death, declination or disqualification.”

A similar situation occurred in 1988, when Mario Biaggi remained on the ballot for a congressional seat while in prison, following a conviction on racketeering charges.

It is worth noting that the state senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, is now the acting lieutenant governor of New York. She is the first black woman to hold the position.

In the general election, Ms. Hochul will face a newly emboldened Republican Party, armed with criticisms of the administration’s history of corruption. 

Mr. Zeldin, the presumptive nominee for governor from the Republican Party, has said his internal polling shows him leading Hochul 45.5 percent to 44 percent.

“Just last week, Kathy Hochul was tripling down on her support for Brian Benjamin despite all of the known corruption,” Mr. Zeldin wrote. “This is terrible judgment all around that belongs nowhere near this level of power, influence and control.”

Beyond the external electoral challenges, Ms. Hochul is also faced with having to pick another running mate for the lieutenant governor position, a choice that will be under a microscope.

“I made the best decision I could with the information I had at the time, but clearly we need to have a different process, a more strengthened streamlined process, that can get us to more detail than we had at the time,” Ms. Hochul said in an interview on WNYC.

Still, the governor maintains that neither she nor members of her staff were aware of the investigation into Mr. Benjamin’s activities when he was chosen, a claim corroborated by investigators.

“We obviously were not aware that there had been investigations from the federal authorities or even the district attorney’s office at the time; there would have been a different outcome had we been aware of that,” Ms. Hochul said.