Howie Hawkins wins enough votes to keep Green Party status in NY

Syracuse Post-Standard: November 6, 2018

By Michelle Breidenbach

Candidates for New York governor Stephanie Miner, Larry Sharpe and Howie Hawkins speak during the 2018 Global Citizen Festival in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo)

With 83 percent of the vote counted, Hawkins had won 79,640 votes. That was less than 2 percent of the vote against the winner Gov. Andrew Cuomo and challengers Republican Marc Molinaro, Libertarian Larry Sharpe and Stephanie Miner, who ran on a new party called the Serve America Movement.

Sharpe has also won enough votes to give the Libertarian Party a line for the next four years. Miner was behind in her effort to win a ballot line for the SAM party.

Although he has not won office in more than 20 tries, Hawkins has been a powerhouse for the Green Party's ballot placement.

Candidates who win at least 50,000 votes in the race for governor win an automatic ballot line for the party for the next four years. It means candidates who run on the Green Party line for all state and local races can collect fewer signatures than independent party candidates. It also means Hawkins appeared fourth on the ballot this year.

The Green Party appeared fourth on the ballot in NY thanks to Hawkins' strong showing four years ago in the race for governor.

Hawkins inched the Greens into recognized party placement in 2010 with 59,906 votes. With a higher ballot line, Hawkins won 184,419 votes in 2014, according to the NYS Board of Elections.

The Green Party boasts that it has successfully won a ballot line three terms in a row by running its own candidates rather than cross-endorsing major-party candidates.

Hawkins works the graveyard shift at UPS.