The conventional wisdom is that Gov Andrew Cuomo won the NY primary by a landslide. His margin of victory, roughly 65% to 35%, was in the landslide category, but the devil is in the details. The issues and intensity generated by Nixon’s ‘quixotic’ campaign generated a huge turnout“: three times as many voters showed up to the polls in 2018 (1,455,028)as against the last gubernatorial primaries in 2014 (574,260).” Nixon actually got 100,00 more votes this year than Cuomo got in the last primary he won in 2014. Cuomo was forced to defend his turf, to bend left on some issues, and to distance himself from the IDC, the DP group that had been caucusing with Republicans in the state legislature.
Speaking of the IDC, they lost. Bigly. 6 of the 8 members of that group went down to primary challengers, bringing Democrats closer a blue majority. Nixon’s campaign did much to highlight their game of footsie and contributed to their defeat. Matt Yglesias tweeted that in forcing the issue, Nixon,”really took one for the team here”. And, by driving turnout, Nixon generated energy for the midterms, where Democrats hope to unseat sitting GOP congresscritters.
Jeet Herr at TNR notes that by “turning the race from being a cake-walk for Cuomo to one where he had to actually engage the voters, which drove up turnout massively and changed direction of political debate”, Cynthia Nixon can rightly be seen as winner”.
Update: commenting on the election, Nixon stated “Your victories tonight have shown that the blue wave is real and it’s not only coming for Republicans, but for the Democrats who act like them.”
Update II: it surprised me that a diary celebrating a win for Democrats (increased turnout, defeating Repbulicans-manque) should stir this much controversy.
Update III: some of the critics miss the point. The diary acknowledged up front that Cuomo won handily—the point was he had to work for it. “Last laugh” merely means her effort served a purpose. And maybe he learned a valuable lesson in that his golden road to the WH is where he thought it lay. In the words of Mr Dylan, “please get out of the new road if you cant lend a hand”.
[dele update IV for not being productive to the process].