HEMPSTEAD, New York—On the day before the debate between New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, Nixon had requested that the debate hall be kept at a comfortable 76 degrees. It was a challenge to Cuomo’s well-documented and somewhat notorious penchant for cold rooms and to the patriarchy of freezing offices more generally. While the cavernous David S. Mack Sports Complex at Hofstra University felt cold on Wednesday afternoon, it was 74 degrees, according to my trusted camping thermometer. No clear winner or loser on that one.
Still, the fact that the debate was happening at all could be considered a win for Nixon, the actor and activist challenging a well-resourced, two-term incumbent from the left. Cuomo, who in the past has described some debates as “a disservice to democracy,” refused to debate his challenger Zephyr Teachout in 2014, and, in his first run for governor in 2010, took part in only one roundtable debate. Nixon, for her part, has relished needling Cuomo on his longstanding refusal to go one-on-one with his opponents, releasing a video in May where she taunted the governor: “So, what’s it going to be, Andrew? Just you and me, on a stage.”
While her campaign has inspired enthusiastic support from progressives and New Yorkers who simply enjoy watching Cuomo get trolled, she has an uphill battle in the race, trailing by wide margins in every single poll. (In a Siena poll of likely Democratic primary voters from the end of July, Cuomo had a more than 30 point advantage over Nixon.) Cuomo, never mind the corruption scandals surrounding his administration and his tendency to embrace progressive positions only when under severe duress, is remarkably popular in the state, having styled himself in recent months as a leader of the anti-Trump #Resistance. This new look comes despite his refusal to build support for and pass much-needed progressive legislation.
But in some ways, Nixon’s entrance into the primary has itself been a kind of progressive victory: her candidacy has already forced Cuomo to move to the left on several issues, what her supporters have dubbed the “Cynthia Effect.” Just one example—after she came out in support of legalizing marijuana, Cuomo, who called weed a “gateway drug” in 2017, quickly reversed his position, saying, “The situation has changed drastically with marijuana.” But Nixon isn’t running to make Cuomo a better governor, she says; she’s running to become the governor, pointing to the long-shot campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, more recently, Andrew Gillum in the Florida Democratic race for governor as proof that her insurgent campaign can succeed.
Outside “The Mack,” a group of Nixon supporters—Bertha Lewis, the former head of ACORN; Zakiyah Ansari, the advocacy director for the Alliance for Quality Education (an organization Nixon has supported for years); and Akeem Browder, the brother of Kalief Browder, who after his brother’s death has become a criminal justice reform advocate—were passing time before the debate began. Lewis was smoking a cigarette and wearing a red, black, and green-colored sticker that said “Ride or Die Cynthia Nixon,” which she had printed and distributed to other Nixon supporters attending the debate.
“I’ve had a problem with this guy since years ago,” Lewis said of Cuomo. “All of us in the field, the grassroots, we’ve had to fight and push him every step of the way.”
Ansari echoed Lewis. “After eight years after not funding our schools, what’s your excuse?” she said of Cuomo. “Cuomo is not sitting on the floor listening to black women share their issues, he’s not visiting mosques, he’s not doing anything Cynthia’s been doing.”
They continued rattling off a litany of frustrations with the governor’s tenure. “I thought it was a bit rich when Andy ‘discovered’ NYCHA, when he was HUD Secretary,” she said.
“Andy?” I asked.
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