A powerful yet largely unknown aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York abruptly resigned on Sunday after The New York Times published a story that questioned his influence and detailed his contributions to a toxic workplace.
In a widely-viewed email sent to colleagues, Adam Sullivan called the Times piece “painful,” and said that it had caused him to reflect on his behavior.
“I can see the toll that the campaign took on me,” he wrote. “After some serious thinking, I think it best if I take some time away from politics and the campaign environment and get healthy.”
Despite having a significant influence over Hochul’s administration, Sullivan lives 1,700 miles away from New York in Leadville, Colorado, and operated in the shadows.
According to the Times’ reporting, many lawmakers, union strategists and campaign leaders active in New York had trouble pinpointing exactly who Sullivan is. He is not an employee of New York State, and his exact compensation was not immediately clear. The Times found that Hochul’s campaign had paid $50,000 to a limited liability company Sullivan controls since 2021, but that he’d also secretly earned $500,000 or more from a portion of the campaign’s budget for TV ads.
Before he became involved with Hochul in 2015, Sullivan helped Senator Kirsten Gillibrand win re-election to the House in 2008, managed a Senate race in New Mexico in 2012 and was campaign manager for Senator Mary Landrieu’s re-election bid in Louisiana in 2014, which failed.
When former Gov. Cuomo stepped down in 2021 following sexual harassment claims, Hochul leaned on Sullivan to help her build an administration, the Times reported. Since then, Sullivan had steered her media strategies, convincing her re-election campaign team to focus more heavily on abortion than on crime.
In interviews with over 15 people who work on Hochul’s political team, the Times heard that Sullivan was known for “disparaging subordinates, especially younger women;…
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