On Monday, actress and activist Cynthia Nixon announced she'd challenge New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in this September's Democratic primary, giving the incumbent his highest-profile opponent ever. Nixon, calling herself a "strong progressive alternative," immediately went hard at Cuomo, branding the governor "a centrist and Albany insider" whose administration "has been defined by a string of indictments for corruption" and has neglected the New York City subway. She also specifically called Cuomo out for "his support for a backroom deal which handed Republicans control of the state Senate, resulting in the failure of numerous pieces of progressive legislation."
Nixon shot to stardom playing the role of Miranda on the HBO comedy "Sex and the City" from 1998 to 2004, but more recently, she's grown increasingly involved in the political world, particularly in the areas of education and LGBT equality. Nixon came out as gay in 2004 and married her longtime partner, Christine Marinoni, in 2012, which could help neutralize a key accomplishment Cuomo is sure to tout to appeal to liberals: his successful push to legalize same-sex marriage in the state in 2011.
Cuomo will also undoubtedly highlight the SAFE Act, the gun safety measure he passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. But many of his other supposed liberal accomplishments have been half-measures, to which he "has had to be dragged kicking and screaming, coming around only when he realized it might be politically advantageous to do so," as Alan Greenblatt wrote in Governing magazine last year. That includes things like a bill that raises the minimum wage to $15, but that will only be fully implemented after seven years and in the meantime allows employers to pay a lower wage outside of New York City.
And Cuomo's outright sins are many. Chief among them, as Nixon charges, is Cuomo's tacit backing of the GOP's grip on the Senate—with the aid of several turncoat Democrats Cuomo's deliberately never sought to corral—which has resulted in a years-long blockade of a huge array of progressive priorities. That includes a state-level DREAM Act, a bill that would enshrine the rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade in state law, and anything resembling meaningful ethics reform (Cuomo's former top aide, by the way, was just found guilty on corruption charges)—but the full list is miles long.
Yet Cuomo will be as formidable as they come. Despite his open distaste for liberal politics, Cuomo sports a 67-25 favorability rating among Democrats in a new poll from Siena College, and he starts off with a dominant 66-19 lead on Nixon, who, despite her fame, is still unknown to most voters but does have a positive 26-16 score with members of her own party. (The poll was conducted before Nixon announced.)
Cuomo also has an astonishing $30 million war chest, thanks to New York's lax campaign finance regime and his closeness to moneyed interests. Nixon, by contrast, says she won't accept corporate donations. Cuomo also maintains broad support from labor, to whom he’s generally been accomodating out of pure expediency (except for the teachers unions, which, as an ally of charter schools, he’s spat on throughout tenure).
More than anything, though, Cuomo is known as a savage operator who has few scruples when it comes to thwarting his opponents, whether in the legislature or on the campaign trail. As Michael Caputo, a Republican strategist who advised Donald Trump about a possible gubernatorial bid against Cuomo in 2014, put it last year, "There isn't a counterpunch Andrew Cuomo won't throw."
Nixon, however, represents a very different sort of opponent than Cuomo is accustomed to. Last year, after Nixon hammered the governor on education policy in an appearance on the "Today" show, Cuomo's response was uncharacteristically restrained: A spokesperson would only say, "We know Ms. Nixon is a passionate advocate for education, and we would be happy to sit down with her anytime to talk about it."
It may be that Cuomo understood that the optics of attacking a celebrity who (at least at the time) was not actively seeking office were sub-optimal, so his stance may soon change now that Nixon has joined the race. But Nixon still has some advantages: She has no public record to criticize, she's anything but a career politician, and she undoubtedly knows lots of wealthy people who'll be glad to contribute generously to her campaign. And in the Trump era, she might be able to mobilize angry progressives in a way that simply wasn't possible in previous years.
However, Nixon will also have to convince voters that she's capable of serving as the chief executive of the nation's fourth-largest state with a $163 billion budget. There's also a third Democrat running, former state Sen. Terry Gipson, who could siphon off precious votes if he remains in the race. Cuomo, whatever his liabilities, is the heavy favorite to win the primary, and if he succeeds, to secure a third term against whomever the GOP puts forth in November.