Looks like far-right GOP nominee Carl Paladino will at least have a clear shot at Democrat Andrew Cuomo:
Former Representative Rick A. Lazio has agreed to have his name removed as the Conservative Party’s candidate for governor, in a decision that bolsters the candidacy of the Republican candidate, Carl P. Paladino.
Mr. Paladino is expected to agree to have his name replace Mr. Lazio’s on the Conservative Party line, according to a person close to Mr. Lazio who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upstage Mr. Lazio.
According to one report, taking Lazio off of the ballot could have proven to be a difficult task:
Under state election law the only way to remove Lazio from the Conservative Party ballot is for him to die, move out of state, or accept a judicial nomination. The deadline for judicial nominating committees to submit their slate is September 28.
"If that's going to happen, Rick Lazio is going to have to get his nomination within the next 48 hours," former state attorney general Dennis Vacco, a Republican, said Sunday on WBEN's Hardline program.
However, within an hour of his withdrawal announcement, such a nomination materialized, allowing Lazio to be removed from the Conservative Ballot line.
This would seem to make it a foregone conclusion that the Conservative Party will now look to the GOP nominee, Carl Paladino. After all, the CP needs to garner 50,000 votes in November in order to retain automatic ballot status. That would force them to embrace Paladino, now that Lazio is successfully pulled from the ballot.
However, that is a task that has been made tougher in the past few weeks by the barrage of criticism tossed at the GOP nominee by Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long, who accused Paladino of "hateful rhetoric". Long, clearly operating under the assumption that Lazio was sticking with the race (something Lazio seemed to confirm with his post-primary comments), took a flamethrower to Paladino. That is going to prove mighty tough to undo.
Cuomo is still considered the frontrunner for the governorship, despite some wildly fluctuating polls in the Empire State.