Looks like Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is once again trying to undermine the state Working Families Party, this time by strong-arming unions to pull out of the coalition.
Some background:
New York has fusion balloting, which means votes for a candidate count toward that candidate’s totals regardless of which ballot line the candidate appears on. Thirty years ago or so, that meant there was a Conservative Party of New York and a Liberal Party of New York, each of which cross-endorsed the Republican and Democrat candidates (respectively). Those parties’ devoted voters were small enough in number that they could never elect their own candidates, but large enough that major-party candidates needed their votes to win. That meant they could pull major party candidates right or left with the threat of withholding their endorsements.
The Conservative Party is still active, taking Row C on ballots for some time now. The Liberal Party is effectively defunct, though, a result of Democratic dominance in New York (so Liberal votes weren’t necessary to carry Democratic candidates) and the rise of the Working Families Party (which now serves the same role that the Liberal Party once did, though with a stronger focus on labor and economic issues).
The Working Families Party has shown increasing dissatisfaction with Cuomo, dating to at least the 2014 gubernatorial election, when Zephyr Teachout nearly won the WFP nomination thanks to a liberal revolt within the party. In a possible attempt at retaliation, Cuomo formed a “vanity” ballot line (fusion balloting makes this possible) called the “Women’s Equality Party”… or WEP for short. Speculation was that this was intended to cause confusion for voters.
Here in the 2018 cycle, there are now rumors that WFP leaders are thinking about endorsing Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo’s primary challenger, over Cuomo. That spurred Cuomo (through his allies) to action. A couple of major labor unions have pulled out of the Working Families Party, apparently after being told that they could forget about doing any business with the state if they stayed with a WFP that refused to endorse Cuomo.
Is this just Cuomo up to more of his old tricks? Is this the beginning of the end for the WFP? Or is it the beginning of the end for Andrew Cuomo?