New York (AFP) – She hasn’t yet taken off in the polls, but as actress Cynthia Nixon seeks the Democratic nomination for governor of New York, she has managed to push incumbent Andrew Cuomo to the left while raising concerns among other establishment Democrats about the party’s rising and restive progressive wing.
The 60-year-old Cuomo — whose father, the late Mario Cuomo, was himself a respected governor — is the embodiment of an establishment Democrat and remains strongly favored in the state’s September 13 primary election.
The most recent poll, published July 31 by Siena College, gave him a lopsided 31-point lead over Nixon. Another survey, released July 18 by Quinnipiac University, showed him with an even wider 36-point lead.
With a campaign budget exceeding $30 million, Cuomo can flood the airwaves with ads extolling his record and positioning him as a last line of defense against a president, Donald Trump, who took only one-third of the state’s vote in 2016.
For her part, Nixon has refused to accept the big donations from wealthy individuals, unions and corporations that Cuomo has raked in, relying instead on small donors, an aggressive use of social media and an enthusiastic base of supporters.
Still, the sometimes biting tone and personal attacks Cuomo lobbed at the “Sex and the City” star during their lone televised debate Wednesday suggested that the two-term governor does not think he is out of danger.
“Can you stop interrupting me?” an exasperated Cuomo snapped at one point, prompting Nixon to shoot back, “Can you stop lying?”
The 52-year-old actress and activist has never held elected office, but is clearly at ease before the public.
Cuomo had not taken part in a debate since 2006. The fact he agreed to a televised faceoff against Nixon showed he “is sufficiently worried (and)… did not want to take his opponent for granted,” said Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University in New York.
– As progressive as she is –
“Her running has pushed him to the left politically,” Shapiro said. “He needed to be on the stage with her to show that, on certain issues, he compares in a sufficiently liberal way.”
Cuomo is now quick to describe himself as a “progressive leader,” citing his work for the homeless, the environment and for a higher minimum wage. Since Nixon announced her candidacy he has begun saying he is open to legalizing recreational marijuana.
Nixon, an openly bisexual mother of three, has long been active in the causes of public education and LGBTQ rights. She describes herself as a “socialist.”
She has denounced Democratic establishment figures as being overly cozy with Wall Street bosses.
And she advocates for working-class people and minorities in areas as diverse as housing, education, justice and transportation.
Her positions are largely in line with those of Bernie Sanders, the radical Vermont politician who lost to Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries.
She is even closer to the stances of the young Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who stunned the political world in late June when she won a New York primary election against greatly favored Democratic heavyweight Joe Crowley.
Ocasio-Cortez’s victory galvanized the Democrats’ progressive wing, which scored another victory on Tuesday in Florida. In a major upset, Democratic primary voters there chose Andrew Gillum — a black progressive backed by Sanders — to represent the party in the November election for governor.
Can Nixon similarly beat the odds to become the first woman to govern New York’s 20 million people?
– A Democratic microcosm –
Shapiro and most other observers consider a Nixon victory unlikely but not impossible.
“Her campaign should be taken seriously,” said Michael G. Miller, assistant professor of political science at New York’s Barnard College.
He said New York, a Democratic bastion, is something of a microcosm of the national debate within the party over how to respond to the Trump phenomenon.
What makes New York different, he added, “is there is a greater chance for a candidate like Nixon to win, compared to places like Midwestern states like Ohio or Minnesota, where Democratic candidates have to walk the line on guns or fiscal issues.”
Miller said the debate between centrists and progressives could benefit the party.
But some Democratic strategists fear the party could be caught up in an internecine tempest such as divided establishment Republicans from the ultraconservative Tea Party movement in 2010.
Given the depth of opposition to Trump — a new high of 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his job performance, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll released Friday — “Democrats have a golden opportunity” to regain a congressional majority in November, said Sam Abrams, a politics professor at Sarah Lawrence College.
“But it means they have to stop fighting and have to start acting in a governed, responsible way,” he added.
“When you have Democrats in complete disarray, as you had Wednesday night” in the Cuomo/Nixon debate, “it opens the door to a GOP win.”
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