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Cynthia Nixon Hints at a Run, and Cuomo Flexes His Muscle

The last time New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faced a primary challenge, he played it so nonchalantly that he avoided even saying the name of his Democratic rival.

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SHANE GOLDMACHER
, New York Times

The last time New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faced a primary challenge, he played it so nonchalantly that he avoided even saying the name of his Democratic rival.

But within days of the news that actress Cynthia Nixon was consulting with seasoned Democratic strategists before a possible primary challenge to the two-term incumbent, Cuomo and his political operation have accelerated into overdrive.

The governor dismissed her as a second-tier celebrity. He suggested she was just a stalking horse for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. His campaign invited donors to a round of new, big-dollar fundraisers. He held an event with former Vice President Al Gore, who touted the governor’s environmental record.

He rolled out some of his first formal 2018 endorsements from key Latino leaders. He renewed fighting with de Blasio, calling public housing in the city "disgusting.” He even lay on the ground in Zuccotti Park for an anti-gun “die-in” alongside the national teacher union leader Randi Weingarten.

And the state Democratic Party, which Cuomo effectively controls, announced a new push around gun control and booked a $100,000 television ad to run this week that stars Cuomo.

“He’s almost been having an emotional meltdown in the last week and a half,” said Billy Easton, an ally of Nixon who serves as executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group where she has previously served as a spokeswoman.

Cuomo’s team said that most of his recent activity, such as the Gore event and the endorsements, were already in the works before Nixon’s ambition became part of the conversation.

“Saying the governor’s schedule — which is planned weeks in advance — has anything to do with potential political challengers is like saying the fact that it snowed yesterday is because of potential political challengers,” said Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor.

Yet people close to Cuomo said his response to Nixon’s possible candidacy is born from an abundance of caution rather than fear. One adviser to the governor described Cuomo’s political reaction as akin to a person who aggressively treats the early symptoms of a cold — from taking Theraflu to increasing fluids — to avoid the nuisance of actually getting sick.

“Political opponents send each other messages that you’re not going to beat me and Governor Cuomo would be foolish to not make it clear to this opponent that he’s going win,” said Christine C. Quinn, the former speaker of the New York City Council, a Cuomo ally whom he helped install as vice chairwoman of the state party. “If he didn’t, people would be rightly saying he’s weak and asleep at the wheel.”

Others close to the governor have told Cuomo and his team that the totality of his response has been out of proportion to the actual threat posed by a celebrity who has not yet even declared her candidacy, and that he should be more measured going forward.

“I’m not nervous about whoever runs,” Cuomo told reporters Wednesday. “There’ll be people who run. That’s called elections, and that’s fine.”

Nixon’s potential candidacy has resuscitated the persistent chatter, including among Cuomo’s associates, that he might reconsider swapping his running mate, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has traveled the state relentlessly on Cuomo’s behalf. As a former congresswoman representing Buffalo, Hochul was seen as a moderate Democrat with an A rating from the National Rifle Association. She now faces a primary challenge from Jumaane D. Williams, an African-American councilman from Brooklyn.

Among the names bandied about to replace Hochul has been Quinn, who, like Nixon, is openly gay. (Nixon aggressively backed de Blasio in the 2013 mayor’s race over Quinn.) Quinn demurred when asked about the lieutenant governorship. “My focus is on serving homeless women and children,” she said of her role as chief executive of the homeless group Women in Need.

Cuomo has already said publicly that Hochul will be his running mate and his office reiterated that stance this week.

There are increasing signals that Nixon, best known for playing the lawyer Miranda Hobbes in “Sex and the City,” plans to run, including her being spotted last week on the streets of New York City with what appeared to be a campaign camera crew, and her wife stepping down from a job in city government this week.

Two former top advisers to de Blasio, Bill Hyers and Rebecca Katz, have been in talks with Nixon, and both are known for running campaigns that mobilize the Democratic left, the portion of the party that has been most vocal in its criticism of Cuomo.

“In 2018, we don’t just need to elect more Democrats,” Nixon pointedly said in a speech last month. “We also need better Democrats.”

Cuomo, whose former top aide, Joseph Percoco, was convicted Tuesday of federal corruption charges, remains a heavy front-runner. A Quinnipiac University poll last month showed that 75 percent of Democrats in the state said they were inclined to re-elect him, and he has more than $30 million in campaign money. Cuomo’s campaign asked donors to bolster that war chest last week, inviting them to a half-dozen events in the coming months with price tags as high as $50,000.

In recent days, Cuomo has burnished his progressive credentials.

On Sunday, he headlined a rally for a Democrat in a competitive special election in Westchester. On Monday, he appeared at a public housing site in the Bronx and decried the conditions as "disgusting.” On Tuesday, he delivered a firebrand speech to Planned Parenthood in Albany where he said Democrats were fighting a “biased, bigoted, misogynistic backward mentality.” On Wednesday, he joined a student walkout protesting gun violence, including the “die-in” in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, the original home of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Pointedly, Cuomo lay on the ground alongside Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, and rallied with Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. Four years ago, New York’s biggest teachers union did not endorse Cuomo.

Three days earlier, Cuomo’s budget director, Robert Mujica, issued an 1,100-word statement about “fair and equitable” school funding — an issue Nixon has advocated around for more than a decade.

“What they’re trying to do is reposition him publicly to make it look like he is suddenly championing education equity,” said Easton, the schools advocate who has been critical of Cuomo.

On Thursday, the New York arm of the National Organization for Women — which backed Cuomo’s challenger four years ago in the primary — announced its early endorsement of the governor and Hochul.

“It’s as good a time as any,” said Sonia Ossorio, the group’s president, “People felt confident enough, even if others jumped in, we were making the right decision.” In the last 10 days, Cuomo has also engaged in fresh public battles with de Blasio, his longtime Democratic rival, calling elements of his record “repugnant,” threatening to declare a state of emergency in the city’s public housing and working closely with the City Council to secure money for the subways that the mayor has resisted spending.

Bradley Tusk, a political strategist who served as campaign manager for the former mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, said Cuomo “is giving Nixon a taste of what she might be in for” — with her ally, de Blasio, acting as a proxy.

“He has a tremendous amount of resources, both in terms of money and levers he can pull, and he’s very good at using them,” Tusk said of Cuomo. “No one would question that for a second.”

The state party, for instance, began spending $100,000 on a television ad this week praising Cuomo for “passing the strongest gun law in the nation,” with a separate, smaller digital campaign this week focused on congressional Republicans, noting that six of them were given an A rating from the National Rifle Association.

In a letter to the party’s executive director, a dozen party committee members objected to the spending on what “appears to be a re-election ad,” calling it “patently inappropriate” because the party has not yet technically endorsed Cuomo. The executive director responded that Cuomo’s campaign had “covered every dollar spent” on the gun ads.

Tusk said the balancing act for how to react to a potential challenger is difficult for any politician.

“On one hand, you don’t want to look like you’re too worried about it,” Tusk said. “On the other hand, you don’t want to inadvertently goad them into running. You play so many mind games with yourself to figure it out.”

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