Many folks are unhappy with Cuomo and, now that Zephyr Teachout has lost, some of them are thinking about voting for the Green Party candidate or skipping the vote for Governor.
There's one big reason why this is a bad idea. There are many parties in NYS but only the top two vote getting parties are considered to be major parties. If more people cast votes for Cuomo on the WFP line than Astorino gets on the Republican line, the WFP becomes a major party and the Republican Party becomes a minor party. Among other things, all Republicans on the Board of Elections are replaced with WFP members.
What are the chances of the WFP coming in second? Hard to say for sure. Astorino has been polling in the 27-32% range for a while. One would expect that to come up a little as the election gets closer. On the other hand, Astorino is also running on the Conservative Party line and that will siphon off votes from the Republican line.
I would guess we'd need half or more of the Cuomo vote to come from the WFP line to knock the Republican Party off. Odds are against that, but, it's not completely out of the question if folks start spreading the word.
