Governor Andrew Cuomo was caught off guard by Nixon’s announcement in March and stumbled in his initial responses. | Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Nixon hits a wall as Cuomo finds his footing

ALBANY — They must not read “The Nation” in the Bronx.

On the same day that the liberal magazine put Cynthia Nixon on its cover and endorsed her Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the actor rallied with volunteers in the state’s fifth-most populous county. Eleven people signed up.


After a rapid rise in the weeks following her March 19 announcement, a Siena College Research Institute poll released Tuesday showed her 35 points behind the two-term incumbent among likely Democratic general election voters, 61-26.

In the meantime, the governor’s team has found its footing and shored up institutional support. And Nixon has begun the far tougher task of turning fame and media buzz into a functioning campaign that will move voters in the state’s primary in September and lift her higher than the 30 percent plateau.

“It looks like things are not working out for her,” said New York City Council Member Rubén Díaz Sr., a Democrat and self-styled maverick who has clashed with Cuomo in the past and said he was not surprised by Nixon’s showing. “The Bronx is Andrew Cuomo’s territory, and I never thought that I would hear myself say that.”

Díaz Sr. faulted Nixon for not attending the National Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday in Manhattan, where more than a million people turned out to dance, celebrate, and, this year, to mourn the victims of Hurricane Maria. Nixon met with about 300 disability advocates in Rochester after her son’s college graduation that weekend in Chicago. Cuomo led the procession up Fifth Avenue.

Siena’s poll, released Wednesday, showed that Nixon is known by two thirds of the Democrats surveyed — a stronger penetration than Cuomo’s 2014 primary challenger, Zephyr Teachout, achieved. But his favorability is 67-28 compared to her 40-26.

Among black voters, Cuomo’s approval rating was 79-15 while Nixon’s was 33-34. Among Hispanics, Cuomo led 61-30 while Nixon stood at 21-13.

“She’s not running against an empty slate,” said Siena poll spokesman Steve Greenberg. “Name recognition and celebrity buy you so much. They don’t buy you the whole ball of wax. Nixon’s challenge is, yes, she’s got to become more well-known, yes, she’s got to become more well-liked and viewed more favorably by the voters. But she’s got to give a reason to vote for her as opposed to vote [against] the other guy, who they are inclined to like.”

Nixon’s team said the survey showed that Cuomo’s support has also not increased, and that they would make inroads with new voters as the campaign progresses and she details her policies. On Wednesday, she announced a plan to create more scholarships at public colleges and increase funding for public K-12 schools. Cuomo has done both; Nixon has said it’s not enough.

“The governor’s team pulled out every trick in the book to try to improve his numbers,” said Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. “But, despite their efforts, the governor’s un-favorability remains the highest it's ever been, and Cynthia’s favorability dramatically increased among Democrats, liberals and young voters. That favorability will only continue to grow as the campaign tells voters more about Cynthia and her plan to create a New York that works for everyone.”

Nixon’s campaign also noted the Siena poll was not whittled down to likely primary voters. They also pointed to the federal bid-rigging trial of former SUNY Polytechnic Institute President Alain Kaloyeros, with whom Cuomo had partnered to revive the upstate economy, which starts next week.

Cuomo was caught off guard by Nixon’s announcement in March and stumbled in his initial responses, at one point making an awkward reference to Vladimir Putin. The governor’s campaign apparatus had not gelled but has since started to come together. He’s hired a dedicated rapid-response spokeswoman, Lis Smith, and brought on Lupe Todd-Medina, an operative with long ties to the African-American communities in central Brooklyn.

A person close to the governor told POLITICO after the Democratic convention last month that the campaign expects Nixon to get support from Democrats who view Cuomo negatively, but little more.

They suspect that the governor will have support from a broader swath of organized labor compared to 2014, when public employees and teachers, formally or informally, aided Teachout. The person close to the governor even boasted that Nixon could fall short of Teachout, who won 34 percent of the vote in that year's primary.

Jeanne Zaino, a professor of political science at Iona College, said Nixon is right to claim credit for moving Cuomo left on some issues like recreational marijuana. But now that Cuomo has moved, she’s getting boxed out.

“She has lost a little bit of momentum. She came out with something of a bang, given her name recognition and that it was another ‘Zephyr Teachout’ challenge from the left, and she did force them to move,” Zaino said. “The issues she’s left with are not that sexy, particularly in this age of Trump. I think she’s in a tougher position than Zephyr Teachout was four years ago.”

The governor this week began a simultaneous government and campaign push for a “red flag” bill that would let teachers, parents, and law enforcement officers petition to take guns from someone they fear is violent. Cuomo 2018 has released television and digital ads on the subject, which is stalled in the GOP-controlled state Senate.

“I think I’m doing very well,” Cuomo told reporters in Brooklyn. “The focus for me this campaign, I want to win reelection but I also want to win a Democratic Senate so we can get many of these measures passed and stop the gridlock and a Democratic House — I want to elect more Democratic Congress people, because the real problem in New York is what’s going on in Washington.”

Nixon’s team, meanwhile, is engaged in the process of gathering at least 15,000 valid signatures from enrolled Democrats to secure a slot on the September primary ballot. Cuomo faces no such logistical task — he won his place when the Democratic State Committee voted overwhelmingly to designate him as their nominee.

In the Bronx, Nixon said that “thousands of people” have signed up on the campaign's website, and a source helping the campaign said it went through an initial run of 15,000 petition sheets by last week. More volunteers attended events in other areas, including Union Square in Manhattan.

Doug Bullock, a retired civil servant, union activist and Albany County legislator, has been knocking on doors most nights, and this week turned around 100 signatures for Nixon. He circulated petitions for Teachout and, in 2016, for independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

Both candidates won the 20th Congressional District, which includes Albany, and he’s sensing another “upset.” POLITICO shadowed him through the capital city’s Pine Hills neighborhood, where he was greeted enthusiastically by two voters who were happy to sign, but not ready to commit to voting for Nixon.

“I think her political inevitability will go up when people find out her position on the issues,” Bullock said. “I have very few hostile people out there. Some, but few. The rank-and-file are ready for something more progressive than Cuomo, and they’re sick of the corruption.”