Betsy McCaughey

Elizabeth Helen McCaughey (; born October 20, 1948), formerly known as Betsy McCaughey Ross, is an American politician who was the lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998 under Governor George Pataki. She unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for governor after Pataki dropped her from his 1998 ticket, and she ended up on the ballot under the Liberal Party line. In August 2016, Donald Trump's presidential campaign announced that she had joined the campaign as an economic adviser. She was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Connecticut in 2026. McCaughey has been a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and Hudson Institute thinktanks and has written numerous articles and op-eds. She was a member of the boards of directors of medical equipment companies Genta (from 2001 to 2007) and Cantel Medical Corporation, but she resigned in 2009 to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest with her public advocacy against the Affordable Care Act.