No one would accuse Governor Cuomo of being a loyal democrat—except Governor Cuomo himself. Sure, in his first term he passed same sex marriage and gun control bills. However, his budgets have often been draconian, he has run roughshod over the legislature, he has a lot of sketchy ties to massive real estate developers, and maybe, at least from a political angle, he has a tacit understanding with the state senate republicans of a non-aggression pact.
Why does this matter? The senate republicans used to have a fairly substantial majority in the chamber, so it wasn't unusual for a democratic governor to have to work with the republicans. I'm not here to criticize Cuomo for working with republicans from a governing perspective; what I'm looking at is the larger political reality that Cuomo is keeping the senate republicans in power despite the fact that he could very easily have a democratic senate.
Currently, the New York State Senate is very closely divided, and only through a weird, parliamentary-style agreement between the Senate Republicans, the Independence Democratic Conference, and Senator Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn), do the republicans maintain a governing majority. But with the recent conviction of Deputy Majority Leader Tom Libous (R-Binghamton), the Senate was at a virtual tie between actual enrolled democrats and republicans.
Cuomo’s recently departed Commissioner of Motor Vehicles and former Broome County Executive, Barbara Fiala, declared for the race and Cuomo gave her his endorsement, and agreed to raise money for her campaign. Great, right? A former county- and state-wide official should make this a competitive race. One would think, but that isn’t what’s really going on here. There are several reasons why Cuomo’s involvement is not only disingenuous, but helps the Republicans maintain control of this seat.
Let’s start with the first major thing: Fiala doesn’t want to be a senator. Late in 2014, Fiala, 70, resigned from the Department of Motor Vehicles citing “ . . . the traveling, that's a little difficult with my family. My husband had some health issues, and this just felt like it was in our best interest". This is a totally legitimate reason to no longer want to do the job of the DMV Commissioner, but it flies in the face of her recent campaign. Why a mere six months later would Fiala want to return to doing the rather desolate drive between Binghamton and Albany—and for less money at that? As Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, Fiala made $120,800 a year. A New York State Senator, without a legislative stipend for chairing a committee, makes $79,500 a year. This is quite the turnaround for someone who left a position due to the commute.
Secondly, Fiala is down in the polls—by a lot. I know most people don’t have a positive view of the DMV, but to her credit, Ms. Fiala did a lot to modernize the NYS DMV. That said, she is currently down 28 points to her republican opponent Broome County Undersheriff Fred Akshar.
This is a republican district. NYS BOE counts 64,157 active republicans to 53,420 active democrats, with 32,123 active “Blanks”(NYS also has the Independence Party, which is not the same as identifying as a political independent, which presumably Blanks are. Worth noting, the Independence Party maintains 9,071 active Independence Party members). There are also 3,874 other active minor party members, mostly within the Conservative Party. Why is this worth noting? The Independence Party usually gives its endorsement to candidates who are likely to win, and the Conservative Party, especially in areas like this, can play a major role in deciding elections.
A recent Siena poll pegged Governor Cuomo at 38%-59% favorable to unfavorable within this Senate district. Fiala posts similar numbers at 32%-58% favorable to unfavorable. Interestingly, former Senator Libous has higher favorables than Fiala at 35% approval. While this is certainly within the margin of error, it’s not great when you have a lower approval rating than the recently-convicted person you’re trying to replace. Akshar, boasts 53% to 17% favorable to unfavorable in this poll.
Given the lean of the district, and perception of the candidates, Akshar is the heavy favorite, and Cuomo’s endorsement is likely to hurt more than it is to help. I’ll explain this further below.
Furthermore, Fiala isn't really raising money--even after a source close to Cuomo said he was helping her (take this one with a grain of salt, as it's a blind quote). Fiala has only brought in $20,000 (Fiala transferred $144,000 from her county executive account at the start of the campaign).
To her credit, Fiala's stumbles aren't solely a Cuomo creation. Fiala recently got a lot of criticism for not having a position on the SAFE ACT. Certainly someone who knows that district as well as she does should have been prepared for this question; however, she declined to take a position.
Fiala was also recently kicked off the ballotfor a minor party she used to chair. In late September she was knocked off the Women's Equality Party because of a technicality. While this sort of thing happens frequently in New York, you'd think with the backing of the de facto head of the party, she'd have done her due diligence.
Fiala also received criticism for an embarrassing ad she released that criticized her opponent for having a beard. No, really. And for taking overtime. I'm not a real expert on polling, but I imagine taking shots at an undersherif taking overtime in a county with a heroin problem is not a great strategy. In addition to this awful strategy, Akshar responded by saying he grew the beard to look the part of someone in the drug trade in order to perform his duties as an undercover operative.
So what's going on here? It's fair to say Cuomo is a very risk averse politician. Cuomo has a habit of only wading into races when there’s no consequence to him doing so. He endorsed Congressman Charlie Rangel in 2014 during the primary (in this district, winning the primary is tantamount to election)—Rangel won in a closely fought primary. Regardless of how hardfought the primary was, it was never in danger of falling to a republican.
Cuomo also endorsed Adrienne Esposito in a race that went 58%-41% to Esposito’s opponent. Most political observers would probably agree that this race was never really competitive. Cuomo also endorsed Councilman Vincent Gentile in the race to replace now-imprisoned former congressman, Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island). This race as well, was never particularly competitive—and Cuomo originally planned to stay out of this race entirely.
This is unusual. Most elected governors generally want to see their party control the legislature because, theoretically, it makes it easier for the governor to get his agenda passed. Given Cuomo’s centrist appeal on economic issues, it’s largely been understood that Cuomo has, at worst, a deal with senate republicans, at best, it’s merely a non-aggression pact. Either way, Cuomo, especially after his closer-than-anyone-expected primary to underfunded good-government activist and Fordham University Law Professor Zepher Teachout, needs to get back in the good graces of his base. Cuomo defeated Teachout by a margin of 62% to 35%, despite that Teachout raised $600,000. Just for scale, Cuomo spent $14 million of nearly $30 million in 2014 BEFORE the primary. Yes, according to the same Washington Post article, Cuomo spent over $60 per vote in the primary, while Teachout spent less than $2 per vote.
Why is Cuomo now doing this in an off year election? Well, after his courtship and betrayal of the Mayor of New York and the Working Families Party during the 2014 primary, Cuomo needs to at least look like he's playing the part, and to do this, he's demonstrating a lot of the same behavior as he has in the past--namely, in endorsing in races where ultimately, the outcome doesn't matter. He's also endorsing in a race where voters largely disapprove of him, and his policies (he narrowly lost the district in 2014 by 416 votes). He gets some reward with none of the risk.
If you take into account the lack of Fiala's fundraising, and her own comments about wanting to travel back-and-forth from Albany, and then pile it on with Cuomo needing to at least look like he wants a democratic senate, you have the recipe for Cuomo getting to have his cake and eat it too. Cuomo endorsing Fiala in a race that was never really winnable allows him to say he tried, but doesn't put his governing strategy in any danger. This is further compacted by the fact that Cuomo's endorsement likely hurts Fiala in this district, and the fact that her fundraising has not been helped by the state democratic party, which Cuomo controls. It may help him mend fences slightly with democrats who voted for Teachout, especially considering Cuomo lost most of this SD in the primary (he narrowly won Broome).
As far as I'm concerned, this is another cynical political move by Cuomo, and he has not turned over any sort of new leaf; this race is largely theatre. 2016 is probably the best chance democrats will have at retaking the New York State Senate. It remains to be seen what Cuomo will do for democrats then, but if this year is any indication, I wouldn't get your hopes up.