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Governor Andrew M. Cuomo took a decisive step toward a third term on Thursday, cracking down on a liberal rebellion by dismissing Cynthia Nixon's insurgent challenge for the Democratic nomination in New York.
Cuomo had garnered support from almost all the most powerful Democratic brokers in the state and country – elected officials, party leaders, unions and wealthy real estate interests – to defeat Ms. Nixon by 30 percentage points.
The race cemented both Mr. Cuomo's reputation as an unequaled force in New York and a ruthless tactician with little regard for diplomacy.
Ms. Nixon first applied for the leadership of the Democratic Party in New York and beyond, offering pure liberalism against Mr. Cuomo's more triangular pragmatism, a style less defined by ideology. and more by he judged possible.
In the end, the governor's record – on gun control, same-sex marriage, minimum wage, family leave and more – and his huge fundraising benefit were more eloquent than Miss Nixon's objections. on the laws of the capital of Albany.
The race was opened approximately 30 minutes after the closing of the polls. Mr. Cuomo watched the results at a dinner with executives from the Governor's Mansion in Albany. Cuomo never appeared in public on Thursday, letting the results speak for themselves.
Nixon called for a private concession to Cuomo before a fiery speech in front of her supporters in Brooklyn, where she and her two allied allies for the state office, Zephyr Teachout and Jumaane Williams, had gathered. All three have lost.
In the Attorney General's race, Letitia James, the New York public lawyer and the choice of Mr. Cuomo, won the Democratic nomination in a four-way race, with Ms. Teachout finishing second. If Mrs. James won it in November, she would become the first black woman to occupy a statewide office in New York. In the Lieutenant Governor's race, Kathy Hochul, Cuomo's companion, rebuffed a challenge from Williams, a New York City councilor, winning the narrowest margin of the three.
The only glimmer of hope for liberal insurgents fell as a result of a vote, when Democratic opponents in the Senate elections had overturned six of the eight members of a group of rogue democrats who had broken with the party in recent years to form a coalition with Republicans in Albany.
Mr. Cuomo's victory guarantees that no Democratic governor or senator in America has lost a party primary in 2018, sign of the rise of Ms. Nixon, actress and activist, even before the governor's campaign does not result in a sum of nearly 25 dollars. million to cover the contest in a blizzard of TV commercials and glossy mailings.
"When others underestimated us, he did not do it," Ms. Nixon said in her concession speech. "And he spent accordingly."
In November, 60-year-old Cuomo will seek to match the three mandates his father, Mario M. Cuomo, has won as governor. He strongly denied any presidential ambitions, saying the only way to not serve until 2022 would be death.
Cuomo himself had sought to ignore Ms. Nixon mainly in recent months, repeatedly focusing on President Trump. Meanwhile, her campaign has methodically pushed Ms. Nixon's credibility into often caustic terms, drawing on the concerns of the New York Democrats that an experienced governor is needed while a hostile Republican occupies the White House.
After six months of fighting against Ms. Nixon, Mr. Cuomo now faces a sprint of less than 60 days in a general election against Republican Marcus J. Molinaro, the excellent leader of Dutchess County. who was the youngest mayor of the nation. . Like Ms. Nixon, he should be drastically overtaken by Mr. Cuomo. And in a highly democratic state, as most strategists predict, which will be a democratic year, Molinaro's candidacy is not considered a high-level national race.
"He won ugly," said Bradley Tusk, who served as campaign manager for former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
Even before the polls closed, there were disturbing rumors from New York to Albany, of those who had come across him, preparing for a retaliatory tour.
When Ms. Nixon burst onto the political scene in March, it was as if she had unleashed the repressed identity of New York progressives long frustrated by the transactional means of Mr. Cuomo. But for many voters, Ms. Nixon has never successfully presented sufficient evidence indicating that she was ready to be governor, aside from offering what she was not: an insider from Albany or Mr. Cuomo.
"If you're running an underdog campaign, you have to run a campaign like Trump, saying," Things are so bad that you have nothing to lose, so who cares not to have a problem? " 39, experience, "said Mr. Tusk." In this case, the guy with experience did a lot. "
She had about a third of the votes, almost the same as Mrs. Teachout's four years ago. .
Nevertheless, losing, Ms. Nixon has undoubtedly had a political impact as important in New York as some elected officials: Mr. Cuomo adopted a series of liberal ideas shortly after his entry, including by legalizing marijuana and granting the voting rights for parolees. and negotiating an agreement to dissolve the Independent Democratic Conference, the group of Democratic Senators from the state that had aligned themselves with Republicans in Albany.
Of the six I.D.C. Members who lost their primaries on Thursday were their leader, state senator Jeffrey D. Klein in the Bronx, who was defeated by Alessandra Biaggi, the granddaughter of Mario Biaggi, a former congressman.
While Ms. Nixon scored a record number of small donors for a race in New York, she struggled to collect larger donations, totaling just under $ 2.5 million with about 10 days of racing.
That's about how much Mr. Cuomo has collected in one day, on his birthday last December.
The participation rate in 2018 was two and a half times higher than in 2014, even though Mr. Cuomo had almost reached the same margin. It was a sure sign of his hold on the state that he could win impressive victories over the years with both large and small participants.
Mr. Cuomo was not at all in the victory that his party had launched in Manhattan, where attendees nibbled oysters, pita and hummus baked and "pigs in the blankets" for four years! shouted "2020!")
Mr. Cuomo appeared to fall on the finish line in the final days of this race, persevered with questions about when to open a bridge and the sender who improperly attempted to tie Ms. Nixon to anti-Semitism.
But that does not matter.
Mr. Molinaro used both questions to hammer Mr. Cuomo into some of the first bursts of the fall campaign.
For the moment, Ms. Nixon is still technically on the November newsletter as a Working Families Party candidate. It must decide whether it should withdraw and, if so, the party, which has spent much of the year at war with Mr. Cuomo, must decide to grant his line to the outgoing governor. Ms. Nixon refused to discuss her plans during a radio interview on Tuesday.
Eliza Shapiro contributed to the report.
Follow Shane Goldmacher on Twitter: @ShaneGoldmacher
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