By Bruce N. Gyory
There has been an almost breathless tone attending the punditry on
Cynthia Nixon’s primary challenge to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Despite
public polls showing Cuomo popular with Democrats particularly liberal
and minority Democrats, leaving Nixon under 20 percent in a statewide
primary matchup against Cuomo, many of these pundits are projecting a
close race, believing that Nixon could win.
Let’s take a breath, before seriously handicapping the outcome of
this primary, breaking down who votes in New York’s Statewide Democratic
primaries, before exploring what voting patterns key blocs have
traditionally followed.
First, turnouts in statewide primaries vary widely depending upon
interest level. Low primary turnouts statewide are 600,000 votes or
less out of today’s 5.62 million registered Democrats statewide.
Moderate primary turnouts run at 750,000 to 900,000 voters. Large
primary turnouts, usually in presidential years, comfortably rise above 1
million voters. The margins of victory are significantly impacted by
turnout.
Women usually cast 56-58 percent of the primary vote, with the twin
pillars being minority women from the urban cores and highly educated
professional women from tonier urban and suburban communities, upstate
as well as downstate. Female primary voters have always been cross
tugged by regional, racial, ethnic, religious and increasingly
educational factors. Consequently, this female majority rarely has
voted as a unified bloc.
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Source: Empire Report New York
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