Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will become the first woman to serve as governor of New York State when she replaces fellow Democrat Andrew Cuomo on his August 24 resignation date.
Hochul, 62, has been the state's second-ranking official since 2015 and will become its 57th governor.
In 2011, she won a special election for a New York congressional district but lost the seat in 2013 to a Republican challenger after congressional district maps were redrawn in 2012.
One of her responsibilities as lieutenant governor was to lead Cuomo's "Enough is Enough" campaign launched in 2015 to combat sexual assault on college campuses.
Considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, Hochul also chairs 10 state economic development councils and co-chairs a task force to fight opioid abuse.
She was born in Buffalo, New York, to working-class parents who had five other children. She is married to William Hochul, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, with whom she has two children.
After graduating from Syracuse University in 1980 and earning a law degree four years later from Catholic University in the U.S. capital, Hochul worked at a Washington law firm. She later became a legal counsel and legislative aide to U.S. Representative John LaFalce of New York, and U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York.
Some information in this report is from The Associated Press.
