Zephyr Teachout scored an impressive showing yesterday in the Democratic primary in New York for governor. While she did not win the primary, Teachout took an impressive 35% of the vote in the primary against sitting Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo's win with 61% of the vote was unimpressive, but still a win. Cuomo scored impressive margins in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island, as well as in western New York, in the Buffalo area. Clearly, Cuomo's support from unions, and AA and Latino organizations, as well as LGBT organizations allowed him to build huge margins in the city that were simply too large for Teachout to overcome.
Cuomo won approximately 28 counties and I include the boroughs of New York in that count as well. 6 of these counties won by Cuomo were in the Syracuse area, 5 of which Cuomo barely won.
Teachout exceeded expectations by carrying an impressive 35% of the vote against a guy who had all the powers of incumbency at his disposal, including a wad of campaign cash and most of the institutional support within the Democratic party.
Teachout won almost all of the counties in eastern (Hudson River Valley) and northern New York, as well as a number of counties sandwiched between Rochester and Syracuse. Teachout's best borough in the city was Manhattan, where she carried 43% of the vote; she also won 43% of the vote in Nassau County on Long Island.
Take a look at this map from the New York Times showing the winner of each county and you can see how impressive Teachout's showing was in a number of areas.
http://elections.nytimes.com/...
Teachout ran on a very progressive platform, supporting immigration reform, gay marriage, women's health issues and a host of issues related to the environment, including strong opposition to fracking.
One interesting thing that pops up about Teachout's showing that you can see in many other primaries is the inability for progressive candidates in primaries to connect with minority voters.
Clearly, based on results from the five boroughs in the city, Teachout was crushed by Cuomo amongst minority voters. A chunk of these votes were union voters, but not all, so that is a part of the story. But again, this is a problem we see time after time in primaries - white liberals running for office who adopt a progressive platform but who are unable to connect with minority voters.
I have several ideas about why this occurs but i would really like to hear from each of you and see what your thoughts on the subject are.
So, what say you?