In a state in which voters are reluctant to embrace Republicans, Sharpe plans to present himself as a potential alternative to voters who don’t like Cuomo. | Getty A New York rarity: A serious Libertarian candidate

ALBANY — The $5.9 million in contributions Gov. Andrew Cuomo received in the past six months easily topped the growing field of potential challengers this year.

Who came in second place? Not Republican Brian Kolb ( who raised $16,026 for governor on top of $42,387 in his Assembly account), Democrat Terry Gipson ($6,092), or Republican Joel Giambra ($0). Republican John DeFrancisco raised $116,452 for a pair of state Senate committees, but has yet to declare whether he’ll seek statewide office.


By a wide margin, the declared candidate who received the second-highest contribution total was Larry Sharpe, who’s planning to run on the Libertarian line. He raised $102,596 during the filing period, most of which he said came from small donors who contributed online.

In a state in which voters are reluctant to embrace Republicans — Democrats have won the past 19 statewide races — Sharpe plans to present himself as a potential alternative to voters who don’t like Cuomo.

“The Republican vote is a wasted vote,” he said. “There is no way a Republican can win in this state. The advantage that I have is I’m not a Republican, I’m a Libertarian. … So when New York state looks at the Republican and says, ‘Not that guy,’ and they look at Cuomo and say, ‘Not that guy’ — I’m their guy.”

Sharpe, a former trucking company executive and Marine, sought the national party’s nomination to be Gary Johnson’s running mate in the 2016 national election. He came close, losing with 47 percent of the vote on the second ballot at the party's convention to former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (who once ran for governor in New York himself).

He’s already gained Johnson’s endorsement, and partially as a result of his efforts in 2016, Sharpe has a substantial online presence. A Facebook page for his gubernatorial campaign has 41,000 followers. Cuomo’s political page, by comparison, has 129,000, and neither of the two declared Republicans has many more than 3,000.

Much of that following and his fundraising likely comes from Libertarians from other states. But the magnitude of it, coupled with the fact that Sharpe already has started to campaign, makes it realistic to imagine a scenario in which he crosses the magic threshold of 50,000 votes.

When a candidate hits that number in a gubernatorial election, a little more than 1 percent of the votes cast, the party becomes official in New York. For the next four years, the party has automatic ballot access, appears on voter registration forms and has the state fund its primaries.

Eight parties crossed that threshold in 2014. But outside of a 48,359-vote performance by Warren Redlich in 2010, Libertarians have never come particularly close.

Sharpe said it was "a joke" to talk about his chances of garnering at least 50,000 votes. “I already have a base of [176,000] people who vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in 2016," he said. "I’ll get that easily.”

Third-party candidates have rarely been competitive in New York’s gubernatorial races. Paychex founder Tom Golisano drew between 4 and 14 percent of the vote in a trio of campaigns that began in 1994, but there have only been two elections since the Civil War in which a candidate not running on either the Democratic or Republican lines has come close to finishing in even second place.

Despite this track record, Sharpe says he’s running not just to legitimize the party, but to win.

“Only about 4 million New Yorkers are going to vote,” he said, suggesting that somebody might win election as governor without a majority in a three-way race. “So that means all I need is about 1.5 million and I’m governor. That’s a mountain, but that’s not impossible.”

He says there are four areas that will determine who is ultimately elected — traditional media coverage, public speaking, social media and debates. While he’s ready to concede coverage by traditional media, he thinks he can be competitive in the other three.

“When it comes to speaking and events, it’s not his skill set, he’s not good at that,” Sharpe said of Cuomo.

Cuomo has had lackluster grass-roots support online in the past, and Sharpe is confident he’ll outshine the incumbent in this arena. “He is a dire soul when it comes to social media," he said, "so I’ll beat him there for sure.”

And he says he’ll handily beat the governor in any debates, asserting that Cuomo is "not a very good debater."

When asked what he would do if he wins, Sharpe said he would make entities like the Board of Regents and Metropolitan Transportation Authority be more accountable, putting them under the authority of specific offices that would have to answer for any problems.

Before he even gets on the ballot, however, he’ll have to win the Libertarian Party’s state convention in April, but doesn’t see this as a roadblock.

“Assuming there’s no celebrity that jumps in and says, ‘I want to be on the ballot,’ the odds are very high I’ll be the nominee,” Sharpe said.