Joseph Hernandez

Hernandez was born in Camagüey, Cuba, according to his Ballotpedia survey; his campaign website says he fled communist rule at age seven and arrived in the United States, and describes his father as a political prisoner.[1][4][7] According to the website, he attended Florida public schools and earned a B.S. in neuroscience, an M.S. in molecular genetics and microbiology, and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship, all from the University of Florida.[1] He also earned an M.S. in chronic disease epidemiology and biostatistics from Yale University. His campaign website lists a master's in global healthcare leadership from the University of Oxford, which a November 2025 news report described as still in progress.[1][4]

According to his campaign website, Hernandez's career began at Merck & Co. and continued at Affymetrix and then Digene Corp., a maker of an FDA-approved HPV test that was acquired by Qiagen.[1] He says he has founded, invested in and led more than a dozen biotechnology, healthcare and technology companies, and he is Founder and Senior Managing Partner of the biotech investment firm Blue Water Venture Partners.[1][7][4] According to his campaign website, he is the father of three children.[1]

Hernandez ran as an independent candidate for Mayor of New York City in the November 2025 general election on the Quality of Life Party line, receiving about 0.1% of the vote (1,379 votes).[7] He announced his run for State Comptroller in November 2025 and was nominated unanimously by the Republican State Committee at its convention in Garden City in early 2026; he also appeared on the Conservative Party line.[4][8][3] During the campaign, he emphasized auditing state spending, creating a fraud task force, and increasing upstate economic investment.[5] He received 35.5% of the vote to Thomas P. DiNapoli's 64.4%, according to unofficial results reported by Wikipedia and Ballotpedia.[2][3]