In the Heart of Gentrifying Brooklyn, Nixon Finds Her Audience

NEW YORK — There was some applause when Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered that he had tried marijuana in college, and even some laughter when he wryly noted that the public would have a better sense of Cynthia Nixon’s personal worth if she released more tax returns.

But at a debate watch party at Syndicated, a popular movie theater-bar-restaurant hybrid in the heart of gentrifying Brooklyn, that was about the sum of the accolades for Cuomo.

Long before the start of Wednesday night’s debate between Cuomo and Nixon — their first and only before next month’s primary — it became obvious the governor was not in for a warm reception. A man in a Cynthia Nixon T-shirt chatted with another man at the bar; across from them was one sporting a Bernie Sanders shirt. Another, in a shirt emblazoned with “Abolish ICE,” scanned the room for a seat.

At around 6 p.m., an hour before the debate aired, the sleek, high-ceilinged room was mostly empty; by 6:30 p.m., there was hardly room to navigate. By the time the debate began at 7 p.m., sweaty elbows were pressed against sweaty arms, and even the candidates wouldn’t have argued that the temperature in the room had soared well past comfortable. A moderator, WCBS-TV’s Maurice DuBois, first introduced Cuomo — silence — and then Nixon — rousing applause.

And they were off.

For the next hour, the crowd — mostly white, mostly in their 20s or 30s, and almost all, by the sound of it, backing Nixon — scoffed at Cuomo’s opening nod to Sen. John McCain, or his blaming of President Donald Trump. (“Talk about you, homie.”) The cheers for Nixon’s accusation that Cuomo had empowered Republican control of the state Senate were tremendous; those for her description of legalizing recreational marijuana as a racial justice issue, deafening.

The disapproval for Cuomo was so loud, and so ready, that the crowd barely seemed to hear some of his wittier rejoinders — for example, when he promised Nixon to stop lying “as soon as you do.”

The crowd had especially little patience for his recitation of his investments in transportation infrastructure. “What about the L train?” someone shouted, with an expletive thrown in — an especially poignant question at a bar in Bushwick, just two blocks from the train’s Morgan Avenue stop.

If the scene at Syndicated is at all indicative of the voters Nixon insists will turn out for her — young, progressive, traditionally disengaged with politics (although not very diverse, another adjective she often uses) — she will sweep Cuomo out of office in September’s primary.

The room was spilling over. Many people said they had not typically followed politics closely, or had been invited by friends, but had found themselves favorably disposed toward Nixon by the end of the debate. (To be sure, there were also those like David Vogel, a student at Bard College, who was well-versed in Albany’s corruption trials and said he had taken four different trains from his home in Bensonhurst to be present for the watch party.)

But the polls suggest the scene in Bushwick on Wednesday night was far from a barometer of the average New Yorker’s feelings. Cuomo has the backing of organized labor, the muscle of tens of millions of dollars in fundraising, and a lengthy record of accomplishments on issues like gun control and same-sex marriage. He leads Nixon by more than 30 points in the polls.

Still, given the mood in the room, it was unsurprising that the reviews of Nixon’s performance ranged from warm to fiery. Some said they loved her aggression toward the governor. Others felt she had interrupted him too many times. Some thought she was smooth and poised; others acknowledged she had been “less polished” than Cuomo.

But they were quick to add that a debate setting was “totally different” from her previous experiences in front of the camera, most notably her role in “Sex and the City.”

After the debate ended, much of the crowd dissipated quickly. Some lingered over wings and beers (no cosmos on the menu), hiding from the heat of a Bushwick summer night.

Joanna MacGregor, 26, said she had attended the debate out of interest, even though she is from the United Kingdom and cannot cast a ballot. Leaning against a wall in the back of the room, she surveyed what remained of the night’s circus.

“I think everything is a bit more refrained there, a bit more procedural,” she said of her home country. “This is the democratic process, and it’s good to see it in action.”

Lauren Friedman, 23, a film editor who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said she had been invited by a roommate. She herself had not followed the race closely.

At the start of the debate, her roommate had been running late, and she had considered going home.

But then, “everyone was very into it,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is fun.'”